[gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[AllenJB]

Hi all,

The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with 
keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe 
this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These 
issues are apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo 
website to make it easier to navigate and help the project appear more 
active than is reflected by the current front page.

If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then 
perhaps more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what 
they entail (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics 
on who to talk to for those interested).

The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me 
wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value 
obtained from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for 
newsletters, etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to 
convert articles to GuideXML and get the newsletters published?

Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or 
web-only.

Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then 
copied and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously 
require minimal formatting work.

My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I 
think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo 
Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but 
on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or 
monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced.

The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be 
easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly 
done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can 
publish from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on 
the website without any intervention.

As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. 
Instead of just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have 
multiple editors with little collaboration required (just to mark 
submissions as being worked on when an editor picks them up, which 
should be easily doable using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or 
mailing list).

An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could 
be expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the 
current newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be 
publish date) and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably 
possible to even find a CMS which includes email notification of new 
articles as a feature.


AllenJB

PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda 
item, but I couldn't stop writing.

PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a 
developer, I just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. 
That'll hopefully change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Jesus Rivero]

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Hash: SHA1

AllenJB wrote:
| Hi all,
|
| My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I 
think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo 
Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but 
on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or 
monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced.
|
+1

~      I really like this idea. This could also add more dynamism to the 
Gentoo Project from the end-user's  point of view. Count me in if you 
need help setting things up!.
|
| AllenJB
|
| PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda 
item, but I couldn't stop writing.
|
| PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a 
developer, I just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. 
That'll hopefully change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.
|

Jesús Rivero
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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Douglas Anderson]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 6:30 AM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk> wrote:
> My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think
> would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would
> become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS.
> Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just
> be released as soon as they are produced.
>
> The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be
> easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly
> done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish
> from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website
> without any intervention.

Allan, firstly I really like and appreciate that you're interested in
Gentoo PR. You're not the only one concerned about it :) I also tried
to help out with the newsletter a few months ago... not the best
experience.

However. Besides bugstats and dev join/retires, gentoo.org/index2.xml
has already implemented everything you're talking about. It gets news
as soon as it's written, has GLSAs and package additions generated
automatically (could add removals), plus the blog roll is such a great
step toward showing the active side of gentoo.

What would be _really_ cool is if the WYSISYG guideXML editor
quantumsummers is (was?) working on allowed users and devs alike to
submit news stories to the PR team.

Anyway, It sounds like your idea is essentially getting rid of the
newsletter and adding more automatic stats to the front page. No need
to create a new page with a different CMS.

Thoughts?

-Doug

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with
> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this
> is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are
> apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it
> easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected
> by the current front page.
>
> If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps
> more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail
> (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk
> to for those interested).
>
> The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me
> wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained
> from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters,
> etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to
> GuideXML and get the newsletters published?

So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter.

What kind of issues?
Is there not enough content?
Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about it?)
Are there insufficient translators?
Are the editors not posting content quick enough?
Are the editors editing properly?
Are there enough posters in general?

>
> Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or
> web-only.
>
> Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied
> and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require
> minimal formatting work.

Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the
material is posted will not help.

>
> My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think
> would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would
> become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS.
> Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just
> be released as soon as they are produced.

Why does a new shiny CMS enable this?  Certainly we could provide
access to news/ to a broader audience?
You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though.

>
> The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be
> easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly
> done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish
> from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website
> without any intervention.

This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;)

>
> As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of
> just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple
> editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as
> being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable
> using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list).

Does the current news have only 1 editor?  I am on PR but I tend not
to commit news or approve things.

I would propose an alternative alias or subject tag that will single
your post request out from the other trash that gets sent to pr@; that
way it might actually receive some attention.

>
> An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could be
> expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the current
> newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date)
> and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even
> find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a feature.

This is a bad sell; we could certainly expand the current one as well
(with cool new features!) except we have no staff for that (in either
system).  Talk about what you will do; not what you plan to do in the
nefarious future when you have copious amounts of free time ;)

>
>
> AllenJB
>
> PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item,
> but I couldn't stop writing.
>
> PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I
> just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully
> change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.
>
>

[gentoo-dev] Re: PR Project Activity Issues

[Ryan Hill]

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On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:47:04 -0800
Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints
> about it?)

I seem to remember doc/newsletter people stating on multiple occasions
that they're happy to accept plain text submissions (feel free to beat
me if i hallucinated it).


-- 
gcc-porting,                                      by design, by neglect
treecleaner,                              for a fact or just for effect
wxwidgets @ gentoo     EFFD 380E 047A 4B51 D2BD C64F 8AA8 8346 F9A4 0662

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: PR Project Activity Issues

[Josh Saddler]

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Ryan Hill wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:47:04 -0800
> Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints
>> about it?)
> 
> I seem to remember doc/newsletter people stating on multiple occasions
> that they're happy to accept plain text submissions (feel free to beat
> me if i hallucinated it).


docs team != GMN*, but yes, we're happy to take submissions in plain
text form. However, it does take longer to GuideXMLify an article when
readying the newsletter than if we get one already in XML; then it's
just drop-in.


* (puts on GDP hat) Actually, we don't mind getting plain text docs,
either, since we too can GuideXMLify those submissions.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[AllenJB]

Alec Warner wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with
>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe this
>> is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are
>> apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it
>> easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is reflected
>> by the current front page.
>>
>> If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps
>> more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they entail
>> (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to talk
>> to for those interested).
>>
>> The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me
>> wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value obtained
>> from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for newsletters,
>> etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles to
>> GuideXML and get the newsletters published?
> 
> So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter.
> 
> What kind of issues?
> Is there not enough content?
At the moment the newsletter isn't getting published at all. If this is 
because there's not enough content being submitted, then I think more 
needs to be done to encourage submissions and/or actively seek out and 
write articles.

This comes back to the number of editors the newsletter currently has, 
which is influenced by the skills required to work on the newsletter 
(currently CVS, GuideXML and knowledge of the scripts used to generate 
standard content).

> Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about it?)
If there isn't enough content being submitted to actually produce one, 
then tell the community this. As said above, perhaps mroe needs to be 
done to actively seek out and create content.

> Are there insufficient translators?
I can't see that translators is an issue, because even the English 
version isn't getting published.

> Are the editors not posting content quick enough?
> Are the editors editing properly?
> Are there enough posters in general?
> 
>> Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or
>> web-only.
>>
>> Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then copied
>> and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require
>> minimal formatting work.
> 
> Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the
> material is posted will not help.
The idea behind this was to reproduce the amount of work involved in 
taking a plain text submission (which I would guess is the form most 
submissions come in) and getting it published in the newsletter. This 
method removes the need for conversion to GuideXML.

> 
>> My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think
>> would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter would
>> become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS.
>> Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would just
>> be released as soon as they are produced.
> 
> Why does a new shiny CMS enable this?  Certainly we could provide
> access to news/ to a broader audience?
> You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though.
> 
>> The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be
>> easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly
>> done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can publish
>> from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the website
>> without any intervention.
> 
> This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;)
You're assuming index2 ever goes live. From what I've seen it's been 
hanging around for at least 6 months in a "ready to go live" state, so 
I'm not holding any hopes of this happening any time soon.   =P
> 
>> As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead of
>> just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple
>> editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as
>> being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily doable
>> using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list).
> 
> Does the current news have only 1 editor?  I am on PR but I tend not
> to commit news or approve things.
Why do you not tend to commit news or approve things?

It may not be just the 1 editor, but I suspect the problem is a general 
lack of active editors. From what I've read, current GMN publishers 
require knowledge of how to run all the scripts to generate the standard 
content and write GuideXML to a pretty good standard. I suspect this is 
all quite time consuming (from the little I've done in GuideXML, I 
certainly find that time consuming).

This suggestion would:
1) Drop the skill requirements for news article publishers to being able 
to operate a CMS

2) Require minimum collaboration between multiple editors, allowing the 
number of editors to be easily increased. Inactivity shouldn't be an 
issue in this system, because no single editor is responsible for 
collecting everything together and publishing.

> 
> I would propose an alternative alias or subject tag that will single
> your post request out from the other trash that gets sent to pr@; that
> way it might actually receive some attention.
> 
>> An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could be
>> expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the current
>> newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date)
>> and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even
>> find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a feature.
> 
> This is a bad sell; we could certainly expand the current one as well
> (with cool new features!) except we have no staff for that (in either
> system).  Talk about what you will do; not what you plan to do in the
> nefarious future when you have copious amounts of free time ;)
The problem with the current GuideXML system is that anything like this 
would have to be coded from scratch most likely. With a standard, 
popular CMS, you'd basically get many of these features for free simply 
by installing a pre-written plugin or enabling the right option.
> 
>>
>> AllenJB
>>
>> PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item,
>> but I couldn't stop writing.
>>
>> PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a developer, I
>> just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully
>> change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.
>>
>>
> 

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Alec Warner]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:17 AM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk> wrote:
> Alec Warner wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with
>>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe
>>> this
>>> is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These issues are
>>> apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo website to make it
>>> easier to navigate and help the project appear more active than is
>>> reflected
>>> by the current front page.
>>>
>>> If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then perhaps
>>> more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what they
>>> entail
>>> (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics on who to
>>> talk
>>> to for those interested).
>>>
>>> The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me
>>> wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value
>>> obtained
>>> from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for
>>> newsletters,
>>> etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to convert articles
>>> to
>>> GuideXML and get the newsletters published?
>>
>> So you go on to describe issues with thew Newsletter.
>>
>> What kind of issues?
>> Is there not enough content?
>
> At the moment the newsletter isn't getting published at all. If this is
> because there's not enough content being submitted, then I think more needs
> to be done to encourage submissions and/or actively seek out and write
> articles.
>
> This comes back to the number of editors the newsletter currently has, which
> is influenced by the skills required to work on the newsletter (currently
> CVS, GuideXML and knowledge of the scripts used to generate standard
> content).
>

So in short, we have no idea why the newsletter has not been published.

Lets ask the GMN folks (added to the CC) as I am curious as well.

>> Is GuideXML in fact a barrier for submission (do we get complaints about
>> it?)
>
> If there isn't enough content being submitted to actually produce one, then
> tell the community this. As said above, perhaps mroe needs to be done to
> actively seek out and create content.
>

sounds good; I agree we need to be more vocal here.

>> Are there insufficient translators?
>
> I can't see that translators is an issue, because even the English version
> isn't getting published.
>
>> Are the editors not posting content quick enough?
>> Are the editors editing properly?
>> Are there enough posters in general?
>>
>>> Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or
>>> web-only.
>>>
>>> Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then
>>> copied
>>> and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously require
>>> minimal formatting work.
>>
>> Ok, but if the problems are with finding material; changing how the
>> material is posted will not help.
>
> The idea behind this was to reproduce the amount of work involved in taking
> a plain text submission (which I would guess is the form most submissions
> come in) and getting it published in the newsletter. This method removes the
> need for conversion to GuideXML.

Hrm, I assume s/reproduce/reduce/ here.  I personally think
transcribing the text to guideXML is a fairly simple process and y'all
are a bunch of whiners (and I am too; work has HTML documentation and
it sucks).  But its what we have and it works fairly well and I think
a lot of folks are annoyed when people pop in to redesign everything.
We resist change ;)

>
>>
>>> My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I think
>>> would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo Newsletter
>>> would
>>> become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but on a standard CMS.
>>> Instead of having set release dates (weekly or monthly), articles would
>>> just
>>> be released as soon as they are produced.
>>
>> Why does a new shiny CMS enable this?  Certainly we could provide
>> access to news/ to a broader audience?
>> You seem to think the target audience cannot author GuideXML though.
>>
>>> The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be
>>> easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly
>>> done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can
>>> publish
>>> from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on the
>>> website
>>> without any intervention.
>>
>> This is covered by index2; so I'll ignore it ;)
>
> You're assuming index2 ever goes live. From what I've seen it's been hanging
> around for at least 6 months in a "ready to go live" state, so I'm not
> holding any hopes of this happening any time soon.   =P

Getting Index2 live is I think a different operational issue (that
changes to the website are very slow)
and really has nothing to do with PR aside from them not nagging
someone to commit it ;)

>>
>>> As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. Instead
>>> of
>>> just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have multiple
>>> editors with little collaboration required (just to mark submissions as
>>> being worked on when an editor picks them up, which should be easily
>>> doable
>>> using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or mailing list).
>>
>> Does the current news have only 1 editor?  I am on PR but I tend not
>> to commit news or approve things.
>
> Why do you not tend to commit news or approve things?

PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.'  having real
things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful.
having some kind of rotation would be useful
having some kind of vague 'we will read and respond within 3 days
unless its a holiday' would be useful.

Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently
think the mail is read and answered quickly.  In reality only Donnie
reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm
surprised he manages to read it at all.

So I would like to set expectations ;)

>
> It may not be just the 1 editor, but I suspect the problem is a general lack
> of active editors. From what I've read, current GMN publishers require
> knowledge of how to run all the scripts to generate the standard content and
> write GuideXML to a pretty good standard. I suspect this is all quite time
> consuming (from the little I've done in GuideXML, I certainly find that time
> consuming).
>
> This suggestion would:
> 1) Drop the skill requirements for news article publishers to being able to
> operate a CMS
>

So if I promised news to be published within 3 days; would that cut it for you?

> 2) Require minimum collaboration between multiple editors, allowing the
> number of editors to be easily increased. Inactivity shouldn't be an issue
> in this system, because no single editor is responsible for collecting
> everything together and publishing.

Arguably no single editor should be responsible in the current system either.

There 10 people (excluding infra) who have access to commit to main/

Obviously we have the wrong 10 since 9 of them (including me) don't
seem to be doing much ;)

>
>>
>> I would propose an alternative alias or subject tag that will single
>> your post request out from the other trash that gets sent to pr@; that
>> way it might actually receive some attention.
>>
>>> An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could
>>> be
>>> expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the
>>> current
>>> newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be publish date)
>>> and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably possible to even
>>> find a CMS which includes email notification of new articles as a
>>> feature.
>>
>> This is a bad sell; we could certainly expand the current one as well
>> (with cool new features!) except we have no staff for that (in either
>> system).  Talk about what you will do; not what you plan to do in the
>> nefarious future when you have copious amounts of free time ;)
>
> The problem with the current GuideXML system is that anything like this
> would have to be coded from scratch most likely. With a standard, popular
> CMS, you'd basically get many of these features for free simply by
> installing a pre-written plugin or enabling the right option.

This new CMS also costs us in terms of infra time to setup, maintain,
patch, and generally debug + any hosting hardware we need because it
is a complex solution compared to our current one.  Arguably the
foundation can afford to pay for the latter.

The nice thing about the current system is that it is really dead
simple, replicates well, serves static content, survives
slashdottings, and generally never breaks, dies, and has no weird
bugs.

So where will we spend this staff?  Modifying and deploying an
existing solution (think planet.gentoo.org, or bugs.gentoo.org) or
modifying our home-grown solution?  In the past we have done both.
Modifying the XSL is certainly a bit different than your typically CMS
but I think an hour or so reading what we have yields some
understanding of how to implement new features.

Recall that Beandog faithfully maintains planet; Robbat faithfully
maintains p.g.o/o.g.o/b.g.o and pretty much most other services; I am
unsure if we have anyone willing to maintain a new CMS[1].

[1] Alternatively; nothing really stops you from hosting your own and
making mock ups; or adding your own content.  Write a GMN and
distribute it; convince everyone that this CMS is dead sexy and we
should totally run it now.  I happen to think most people don't care
as much as they say they do because if they did they would do what I
hope you do and *do something about it*.  But most people complain and
do nothing; and I'm perfectly happy to ignore those people ;)

>>
>>>
>>> AllenJB
>>>
>>> PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda item,
>>> but I couldn't stop writing.
>>>
>>> PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a
>>> developer, I
>>> just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. That'll hopefully
>>> change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Tobias Scherbaum]

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Alec Warner wrote:
> > Why do you not tend to commit news or approve things?
> 
> PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.'  having real
> things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful.
> having some kind of rotation would be useful
> having some kind of vague 'we will read and respond within 3 days
> unless its a holiday' would be useful.
> 
> Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently
> think the mail is read and answered quickly.  In reality only Donnie
> reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm
> surprised he manages to read it at all.

Oh, it's not only Donnie - there's also Kurt replying and sometimes it's
even me and some other people as well. I'm following the pr@ alias for
quite some years, mainly looking for things or questions having
something to do with European events, things and $whatever.

I don't have commit access to the website part of our CVS though - I did
ask for commit access exactly one month ago when Donnie asked for
someone posting the January Bugday news item. 

Simply put: there are other people following the pr@ alias.

> So I would like to set expectations ;)

One expectation would be to build some pr *team*. Another thing would be
to have an issue tracker like rt or otrs. This would make sure items are
answered (and if it's only a quick reply stating "we did receive your
mail, but we need to look at your questions and will reply in the next
$number of days") and would allow to use boilerplates to answer
"standard" questions. This would also allow some kind of escalation for
tickets which are due.

Another thing I'd like to see are regional pr contacts - guess it's the
third or even fourth time I'm suggesting this over the years :P 

What's also missing and that's the topic the most questions to pr@ are
about is a process on when and how someone is getting added to the
"Where to get Gentoo" page [1] (mostly CD distributors).

Anyways, that'll all be nice things - but it all comes down to a PR
*team* which is obviously missing.


  Tobias

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml


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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 01:55 Tue 27 Jan     , Alec Warner wrote:
> Getting Index2 live is I think a different operational issue (that 
> changes to the website are very slow) and really has nothing to do 
> with PR aside from them not nagging someone to commit it ;)

In this case, Xavier had it ready in early January, and I was blocking 
on it for the last 2 weeks to write up an announcement.

> PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.'  having real 
> things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful. 
> having some kind of rotation would be useful having some kind of vague 
> 'we will read and respond within 3 days unless its a holiday' would be 
> useful.
> 
> Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently 
> think the mail is read and answered quickly.  In reality only Donnie 
> reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm 
> surprised he manages to read it at all.
> 
> So I would like to set expectations ;)

Yes, it would be a good idea to put expectations wherever people find 
our contact info. Here's roughly what they are:

1. If it is a prewritten news item that needs editing, it will get a quick 
response.

2. If it is news that is not accompanied by a draft of some sort, no 
estimated response time. This point is where I think we have the biggest 
opportunity for improvement.

3. If it is an additional vendor listing for CDs, no estimated response 
time. These generally get batched and done at extended intervals.

4. If it is a user support request, no estimated response time. 
Occasionally someone will respond to say that we don't do support at pr@ 
and point at appropriate places like forums, lists, IRC.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Alec Warner]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 01:55 Tue 27 Jan     , Alec Warner wrote:
>> Getting Index2 live is I think a different operational issue (that
>> changes to the website are very slow) and really has nothing to do
>> with PR aside from them not nagging someone to commit it ;)
>
> In this case, Xavier had it ready in early January, and I was blocking
> on it for the last 2 weeks to write up an announcement.
>
>> PR@ is a nghtmare of spam and what I'll term 'crap.'  having real
>> things marked as such with informative subjects would be useful.
>> having some kind of rotation would be useful having some kind of vague
>> 'we will read and respond within 3 days unless its a holiday' would be
>> useful.
>>
>> Right now the expectations of pr@ are non-existent and apparently
>> think the mail is read and answered quickly.  In reality only Donnie
>> reads it and replies; he has a busy as hell personal life and I'm
>> surprised he manages to read it at all.
>>
>> So I would like to set expectations ;)
>
> Yes, it would be a good idea to put expectations wherever people find
> our contact info. Here's roughly what they are:
>
> 1. If it is a prewritten news item that needs editing, it will get a quick
> response.
>
> 2. If it is news that is not accompanied by a draft of some sort, no
> estimated response time. This point is where I think we have the biggest
> opportunity for improvement.
>
> 3. If it is an additional vendor listing for CDs, no estimated response
> time. These generally get batched and done at extended intervals.
>
> 4. If it is a user support request, no estimated response time.
> Occasionally someone will respond to say that we don't do support at pr@
> and point at appropriate places like forums, lists, IRC.

I'll try and transcribe these somewhere; email is not a good place for them.

-Alec

>
> --
> Thanks,
> Donnie
>
> Donnie Berkholz
> Developer, Gentoo Linux
> Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 23:35 Sat 31 Jan     , Alec Warner wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Yes, it would be a good idea to put expectations wherever people find
> > our contact info. Here's roughly what they are:

One other thing. Media requests will get quick responses.

> I'll try and transcribe these somewhere; email is not a good place for them.

Probably http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contact.xml#pr

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan     , AllenJB wrote:
> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with 
> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe 
> this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole.

It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve 
things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of 
time for the former and none for the latter.

Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know 
once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR 
bugs, and we'll talk then.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Ben de Groot]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan     , AllenJB wrote:
>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with 
>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe 
>> this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole.
> 
> It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve 
> things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of 
> time for the former and none for the latter.
> 
> Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know 
> once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR 
> bugs, and we'll talk then.
> 
Allen has real heart for Gentoo and is very active on the forums. He
doesn't deserve to be brushed of like this. He is willing to help, he is
thinking with us and coming up with ideas about how to improve the
distro we all love to use. It is this kind of dismissive behavior that
gives us the name of being arrogant and difficult to work with, at which
point we loose a lot of goodwill from users who are (were) willing to
help. I know you better than that, Donnie. So I'll write it off as a
temporary lapse of judgement.

There is valid critique on the slow functioning of PR, and we should try
to work this out in our mutual benefit. There is room for improvement,
and I'm happy steps are already being taken into that direction (index2
especially). Let's see how we can speed things up and spread the load.
Having more people join the PR team would be a logical step, in my opinion.

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (lxde, media, qt, desktop-misc)
Gentoo Linux Release Engineering PR liaison
______________________________________________________

yngwin@gentoo.org
http://ben.liveforge.org/
irc://chat.freenode.net/#gentoo-media
irc://irc.oftc.net/#lxde
______________________________________________________

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 11:17 PM, Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>> On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan     , AllenJB wrote:
>>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with
>>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe
>>> this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole.
>>
>> It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve
>> things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of
>> time for the former and none for the latter.
>>
>> Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know
>> once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR
>> bugs, and we'll talk then.
>>
> Allen has real heart for Gentoo and is very active on the forums. He
> doesn't deserve to be brushed of like this. He is willing to help, he is
> thinking with us and coming up with ideas about how to improve the
> distro we all love to use. It is this kind of dismissive behavior that
> gives us the name of being arrogant and difficult to work with, at which
> point we loose a lot of goodwill from users who are (were) willing to
> help. I know you better than that, Donnie. So I'll write it off as a
> temporary lapse of judgement.
>
> There is valid critique on the slow functioning of PR, and we should try
> to work this out in our mutual benefit. There is room for improvement,
> and I'm happy steps are already being taken into that direction (index2
> especially). Let's see how we can speed things up and spread the load.
> Having more people join the PR team would be a logical step, in my opinion.

Knowing something is broken is one thing (I think we all agree PR
could be better).

Knowing why it is broken is another.  Trying to come up with a
solution when you don't even know the scope of the problem is
generally a bad idea.  I would be more willing to accept advice and
criticism from someone who was on PR for 30 days and then could
provide some specific feedback on what works and what doesn't.  I
think that is partially what Donnie is trying to communicate with his
comment.

So I say again:

Lack of content?
GuideXML makes it hard to post?
Too few people with posting privs?
Other perceived problems?

A long time ago I suggested some sort of pr-onduty role where
basically for a set period you are the prime pr contact and if someone
has news it is your job to review and post it or reject it.  This was
never implemented; but may be a good idea if we are limited by commit
access.  One of the main problems with posting to an alias is that you
can always not reply and it will become someone else's problem(TM)
until no one replies and the message is ignored.

I for one almost never read pr@ because it is mostly spam and it is
difficult to locate useful requests from crap.  It may be useful to
tag important items with NEWS ITEM or UPDATE or something.

If GuideXML makes it hard to post we can perhaps develop a technical solution.

If there is not enough content I'm sure we can brainstorm ideas on
what we could do (index2 covers this area pretty well IMHO).

But mostly I want to address concrete problems.

-Alec

>
> Cheers,
> --
> Ben de Groot
> Gentoo Linux developer (lxde, media, qt, desktop-misc)
> Gentoo Linux Release Engineering PR liaison
> ______________________________________________________
>
> yngwin@gentoo.org
> http://ben.liveforge.org/
> irc://chat.freenode.net/#gentoo-media
> irc://irc.oftc.net/#lxde
> ______________________________________________________
>
>
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Man Shankar]

On 23:51 Mon 26 Jan     , Alec Warner wrote:
---- [snipped] ----
 
> A long time ago I suggested some sort of pr-onduty role where
> basically for a set period you are the prime pr contact and if someone
> has news it is your job to review and post it or reject it.  This was
> never implemented; but may be a good idea if we are limited by commit
> access.  One of the main problems with posting to an alias is that you
> can always not reply and it will become someone else's problem(TM)
> until no one replies and the message is ignored.
+1
Recently, i had started a thread here on -dev regarding the newsletter.
I was asked to post to gmn-feedback. Sorry, haven't heard from them as
yet. I wonder a pr-onduty may have worked!

> 
> I for one almost never read pr@ because it is mostly spam and it is
> difficult to locate useful requests from crap.  It may be useful to
> tag important items with NEWS ITEM or UPDATE or something.
> 
> If GuideXML makes it hard to post we can perhaps develop a technical solution.
> 
> If there is not enough content I'm sure we can brainstorm ideas on
> what we could do (index2 covers this area pretty well IMHO).

I doubt lack of content to be the real issue. As the OP mentions, if such a
problem exists why not ask for help from the community in a more direct way.
Maybe, something like the monthly reminders we get for the council-meeting.
To back up the fact that lack of content should be a non-issue is the
following excerpt from the thread i mentioned:

        Nathan Zachary <kalos@gentoo.org> wrote:
                I would be happy to help out with the newsletter, especially 
                with the "one article."

So, see, people are willing to help with the content. Their prowess needs
to be utilized and channeled, i guess.
> But mostly I want to address concrete problems.
> 
> -Alec
> 

-- 

Thanks & Regards,
Man Shankar <man.ee.gen(at)gmail.com>

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Nathan Zachary]

Man Shankar wrote:
> On 23:51 Mon 26 Jan     , Alec Warner wrote:
> ---- [snipped] ----
>  
>   
>> A long time ago I suggested some sort of pr-onduty role where
>> basically for a set period you are the prime pr contact and if someone
>> has news it is your job to review and post it or reject it.  This was
>> never implemented; but may be a good idea if we are limited by commit
>> access.  One of the main problems with posting to an alias is that you
>> can always not reply and it will become someone else's problem(TM)
>> until no one replies and the message is ignored.
>>     
> +1
> Recently, i had started a thread here on -dev regarding the newsletter.
> I was asked to post to gmn-feedback. Sorry, haven't heard from them as
> yet. I wonder a pr-onduty may have worked!
>
>   
>> I for one almost never read pr@ because it is mostly spam and it is
>> difficult to locate useful requests from crap.  It may be useful to
>> tag important items with NEWS ITEM or UPDATE or something.
>>
>> If GuideXML makes it hard to post we can perhaps develop a technical solution.
>>
>> If there is not enough content I'm sure we can brainstorm ideas on
>> what we could do (index2 covers this area pretty well IMHO).
>>     
>
> I doubt lack of content to be the real issue. As the OP mentions, if such a
> problem exists why not ask for help from the community in a more direct way.
> Maybe, something like the monthly reminders we get for the council-meeting.
> To back up the fact that lack of content should be a non-issue is the
> following excerpt from the thread i mentioned:
>
>         Nathan Zachary <kalos@gentoo.org> wrote:
>                 I would be happy to help out with the newsletter, especially 
>                 with the "one article."
>
> So, see, people are willing to help with the content. Their prowess needs
> to be utilized and channeled, i guess.
>   
>> But mostly I want to address concrete problems.
>>
>> -Alec
>>
>>     
>
>   
The more I look at the discussion lists, the less I want to contribute.
I understand that correcting someone for posting to the wrong list is
expected, but the way that it is done is equally as important. For
instance, saying "Firstly, it's wonderful that you'd like to help with
project X. You might get a better response if you offer a submission to
such and such list instead." is radically more beneficial than "Wrong
list; check the website before cluttering the discussion lists."

I joined the forum staff because I had not witnessed that type of
superiority there. Rather, I had seen a willingness for users and
developers to help each other out with questions, comments, or concerns.
I'm hoping that this trend doesn't continue.

Regarding the original topic, I think a reminder on the forum and on the
mailing lists would be great for the newsletter. At my place of
employment, there is an email sent out to everyone saying something
along the lines of "don't forget to submit your ideas for the January
newsletter," and so on. If such a reminder is sent out a few days
beforehand, there might be a better response to submission requests.

--Zach

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[AllenJB]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 21:30 Mon 26 Jan     , AllenJB wrote:
>> The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with 
>> keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe 
>> this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole.
> 
> It's easy to complain and harder to take action to actually improve 
> things. From my point of view, it seems like you've got an awful lot of 
> time for the former and none for the latter.
> 
> Regarding the parts of PR besides the newsletter and events, let me know 
> once you've done something useful like do the work to close a few PR 
> bugs, and we'll talk then.
> 
I submitted a newsletter item a couple of months ago in GuideXML 
format.[0] I have some ideas forming for more, but I'm kind of dissuaded 
by the lack of actual publishing of the newsletter or any news about why 
it is not being published.

[0] http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/20081130-newsletter.xml

As I said in my opening post, I currently don't believe I have the time 
to commit to being a full time developer, but intend to as soon as I do.

If you have some insight as to why these are apparent issues, please 
teach me. I would not have posted this thread if it were not for the 
fact that several developers also seem to think there is a problem and 
there seems to be no discussion going on that I can see as to what the 
causes of the problems are and how to solve them, so I decided to start one.

PR has the dubious honor of being probably the most publicly visible of 
all the Gentoo projects, so maybe the issues are being blown out of 
proportion, but without any discussion there's no way to discover 
whether or not this is the case.

Perhaps things would be better if we did not discuss this at just let 
the status quo stand?

AllenJB

Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 08:42 Tue 27 Jan     , AllenJB wrote:
> If you have some insight as to why these are apparent issues, please  
> teach me. I would not have posted this thread if it were not for the  
> fact that several developers also seem to think there is a problem and  
> there seems to be no discussion going on that I can see as to what the  
> causes of the problems are and how to solve them, so I decided to start 
> one.
>
> PR has the dubious honor of being probably the most publicly visible of  
> all the Gentoo projects, so maybe the issues are being blown out of  
> proportion, but without any discussion there's no way to discover  
> whether or not this is the case.

I guess this is the part that really gets on my nerves. If you have a 
complaint like this, directly contact the person or group responsible 
and try to work things out with them. Don't go to the entire developer 
community as if the sky has fallen.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues

[djay]

Oo
---- Envoyé avec BlackBerry® d'Orange ----

-----Original Message-----
From: AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk>

Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:30:34 
To: <gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org>
Subject: [gentoo-dev] PR Project Activity Issues


Hi all,

The Gentoo PR Project currently appears to be having difficulties with 
keeping up, both with the newsletters and announcements, and I believe 
this is currently reflecting badly on the project as a whole. These 
issues are apparently holding back some key changes to the Gentoo 
website to make it easier to navigate and help the project appear more 
active than is reflected by the current front page.

If the project needs more hands, and these aren't appearing, then 
perhaps more should be done to advertise the positions and exactly what 
they entail (I would suggest announcements on the forums, with specifics 
on who to talk to for those interested).

The newsletter has been having issues for some time, and this makes me 
wonder if the amount of effort required is excessive for the value 
obtained from those efforts. While the GuideXML system Gentoo uses for 
newsletters, etc is nice, does it require too much time and effort to 
convert articles to GuideXML and get the newsletters published?

Alternative setups for the newsletter could be to either go text-only or 
web-only.

Text-only would involved producing a text-only email, which is then 
copied and pasted onto the website for archiving. This would obviously 
require minimal formatting work.

My idea for a web-only setup would require more initial work, but I 
think would make maintenance much easier once set up. The Gentoo 
Newsletter would become a separate website, not based on GuideXML, but 
on a standard CMS. Instead of having set release dates (weekly or 
monthly), articles would just be released as soon as they are produced.

The regular features like bug stats, GLSAs, developer changes could be 
easily generated automatically (I suspect almost all of those are mostly 
done automatically anyway - adapting such scripts for a CMS that can 
publish from RSS feeds should be relatively trivial) and would appear on 
the website without any intervention.

As above, articles would be published as and when they are ready. 
Instead of just 1 editor, this website-based setup would be able to have 
multiple editors with little collaboration required (just to mark 
submissions as being worked on when an editor picks them up, which 
should be easily doable using a ticket-based system (bugzilla) or 
mailing list).

An advantage, as I see it, of the website-based system is that it could 
be expanded to include features not currently easily possible with the 
current newsletter - categorized archiving of articles (not just be 
publish date) and user comments. While I haven't looked, it's probably 
possible to even find a CMS which includes email notification of new 
articles as a feature.


AllenJB

PS. This did start out as a submission for a council meeting agenda 
item, but I couldn't stop writing.

PPS. To preempt the obvious suggestion: I do intend to become a 
developer, I just don't feel I have the time to commit right now. 
That'll hopefully change in ~6 months once I've finished uni and have a job.