Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item

[Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@gentoo.org>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 7562 bytes --]

Another vanishing reply from yesterday.


-------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@gentoo.org>
> To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] July Council Meeting: Requested Agenda Item
> Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:44:02 +0100
> 
> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:56 +0200, Patrick Lauer wrote:
> > On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 03:28 +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
> > > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
> > > future of the GWN at their next meeting.
> > I don't think you have to escalate that far. We should be able to discuss things without the thermonuclear option ;-)
> 
> I have no idea, I asked people, they suggested the Council. It may be
> the wrong place :)
> 
> > > 1. Reliability. The GWN claims to be a weekly publication, yet it
> > > frequently fails to publish without prior warning. There was no edition
> > > this week, and Patrick Lauer says that it is "unknown" whether there
> > > will be an edition next week as Ulrich Plate is AWOL.
> > We have tried to get a backup structure working, Halcy0n for example 
> > offered to help. Ulrich never responded to these offers. He usually has 
> > a good reason for not doing the GWN (like no Internet access, broken notebook etc), but I also find this quite unsatisfactory.
> 
> I am sure his reasons are good, and I agree there should be a backup
> structure in place. 
> 
> > > 2. Permissions. Although it could be considered flattering that the GWN
> > > should choose a developer's blog as inspiration for an article, they
> > > should ensure that they have the developer / author's permission before
> > > quoting them (see previous complaints by brix, ciaranm and others).
> > As far as I'm aware this has been taken care of. But with the GWN quite understaffed it is not easy to get everything done well.
> > I'd appreciate some more support from others, but sadly my recruiting
> > experiments usually ended after one contribution (for example summary of
> > the -user ML).
> 
> Which is why I am hoping that by bringing it up elsewhere, someone may
> have some ideas of how to recruit people, or just attract people enough
> for them to make the occasional contribution. 
> 
> > > I also believe that when posting an article or interview, a copy should
> > > be sent to the relevant people to ensure that they are ok with what is
> > > being posted (my dev of the week interview, for example, was rather
> > > screwed up and misrepresentative).
> > My fault. 
> 
> Ok, thank you.
> 
> > >  When someone contacts GWN to have
> > > something corrected, it would be appreciated were the GWN staff to at
> > > least deign to acknowledge receipt, even if for some reason they choose
> > > not to honour the corrections or post a retraction (although refusing to
> > > publish corrections is extremely insulting to those wronged).
> > The reason for that is that the GWN is mostly sent out by mail. This 
> > makes corrections a bit more difficult, but I think having a sane policy 
> > for that would be helpful.
> > 
> > > 3. Misinformation, misquotations and outright fabrications. Sure,
> > > there's freedom of the press, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse
> > > for deliberately making up quotes and printing intentional
> > > misinformation.
> > I don't know what exactly you are talking about here. But it shouldn't happen.
> > 
> > > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.
> > Yes. 
> > 
> > > From a PR perspective, Gentoo could benefit greatly by better
> > > utilisation of the GWN. I believe that as it stands, however, the GWN is
> > > discouraging people from contributing and damaging Gentoo's credibility.
> > The problem with the GWN is the lack of reliable useful contributions.
> > There was a time when the GWN was ~80% written by me, but that took more
> > time than I could afford in the last weeks.
> 
> See, if you spent less time arguing with that elitist bastard Chri...
> er, no :P Yes, I think what the GWN needs the most is more hands at the
> deck. 
> 
> > > Another thing that concerns me is the way the articles are written. It
> > > is blatanly obvious that the GWN writers are not native English speakers
> > > as both the grammar and the flow of the articles is far from attractive.
> > Help is appreciated :-)
> > The GWN has become a german thing, we have jokingly discussed writing it
> > in german and letting someone translate it to english.
> 
> I don't think thats a bad bad idea, that is, maybe someone could atleast
> vamp it up a bit before it goes live. 
> 
> > > Having read through the archives, I notice that there was once a time
> > > when the GWN was a great publication, and I would like to think that it
> > > could become great yet again; in its current state, though, it is doing
> > > more harm than good.
> > Agreed.
> > 
> > > Lack of content and poorly written or incorrect articles are often
> > > justified by the GWN team on grounds of overwork and insufficient
> > > manpower. When I asked why they were not recruiting, I was informed that
> > > no-one has any interest in contributing.
> > There's a big difference between one-off articles and continuous
> > contribution. Also those that I found most willing to contribute had the
> > biggest language problems - what we need is support from the native
> > speakers.
> 
> Nod. I presume for some contributing weekly is rather difficult (finding
> something to write about, finding the time to draft, re-draft, clean,
> tidy, send off for feedback, double check, stand on their head etc etc)
> however I guess it would be possible to rotate if there was enough
> 'freelance editors' on the uh, payroll.
> 
> > >  Upon speaking with others,
> > > however, I find that this is not the case -- people are interested, but
> > > fear (and rightly so) that their work will be edited in such a way that
> > > it is no longer something with which they want to be associated.
> > > 
> > > Another complaint is that the GWN rejects any writing style which has
> > > any degree of character or levity. Any attempt at dececnt writing (the
> > > kind that would make it into publication in English newspapers or
> > > magazines, for example), is met with the claim that "the GWN is not a
> > > humorous publication".
> > Blame the flamefests of the past. Whenever attempts were made to give
> > the GWN more dynamic it was flamed down (because ze german humor is not
> > funny! Nein! ;-) )
> > So the consensus was to keep the silly jokes out of the GWN since always
> > someone misunderstands or complains. I'd like to have it a bit more
> > open, funny, enjoyable ... but there's only so much I can do. 
> 
> So, what brought on the "This is not a humorous publication" attitude
> was infact outsiders rather than the GWN team, as in, it was reactional
> rather than a case of you guys just deciding fun was bad? 
> 
> > > I would like to see discussion about the way the GWN is
> > > (mis)representing Gentoo, how we can better actualise its full potential
> > > and what can be done to address the concerns listed above. 
> > Sounds good. I hope at some point Ulrich responds.
> 
> I hope so too, I also hope that anyone who may have some ideas will
> speak up rather than everyone just telling me how horrible I am for
> bringing these issues up! :)
> 
> > Thanks for bringing this up,
> 
> Thank you for pointing some of them out.
> 

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 191 bytes --]