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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3294 bytes --]

I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
future of the GWN at their next meeting.

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.

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).

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). 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).

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.

4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.

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.

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.
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.

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. 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".

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. 

I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, 
Christel -- conventionally stuck in the 1920s.

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

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

[Wernfried Haas]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5496 bytes --]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 04:28:36AM +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.

Council? Why escalate things? Have you talked to Ulrich about the
problems mentioned below? Isn't the GWN somehow a userrel issue? ;-)

> 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.

I agree there are problems due to Ulrich being awol every now and
then, but what can the council do about it? Fire him so the GWN is
unmaintained? ;-)

> 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).

Why? What makes blog posts different to mailing list/forum threads,
new versions being released etc? Do you want to ask people for
permission then, too?

> 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). 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).

Considering Ulrich is appearently still/again awol, could that be the
reason? I have requested small fixes (like wrong email addresses in
stuff i submitted) every now and than and got what i asked for.

> 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.

Huh? Can you back that statement up?

> 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.

I have submitted a bunch of articles to the GWN, and it has always
worked fine for me. Yes, Ulrich is awol at times and sometimes there
are smaller corrections to make in the final article, but i never felt
discouraged to submit my stuff. Worst case it takes a few extra days
to get published.

> 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.
> 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.

I disagree. GWN could use some more manpower to improve this and that,
but i don't see the harm - at least i could easily come up with lots
of stuff happening that does more harm (Not pointing my finger at
anyone and leaving it up to everyone's imagination to think of
something that does damage Gentoo in a terrible way).

> 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. 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.

I'm sure a solution can be found to that problem - actually Ulrich is
quite a nice guy to talk to, so if those people came out of hiding
those problems may be solved by talking.

> 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".

http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060522-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3
Look at the picture and tell me it's not at least a tiny bit
humorous. Agreed, the joke is a bit obvious.

> 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. 

I'm still not sure why the council should discuss the issue in the
first place, i think everyone agrees that the GWN is a bit
understaffed (for whatever reason) and some stuff doesn't work too
well. So i assume helping out with the GWN and helping those who fear
it for some reason may be the best way to solve these problems.

cheers,
	Wernfried

-- 
Wernfried Haas (amne) - amne at gentoo dot org
Gentoo Forums: http://forums.gentoo.org
IRC: #gentoo-forums on freenode - email: forum-mods at gentoo dot org

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 191 bytes --]

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

[Tobias Scherbaum]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2545 bytes --]

First of all, someone from infra/recruiters might please revoke my write
access to gentoo/xml/htdocs/news/gwn. I'm no longer interested in
contributing to the GWN.

> 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).

That's why Ulrich posts a draft to the core mailinglist, both for
technical and grammar/spelling review. Also it is (at least it was)
"expected behavior", to give "devs of the week" (and devs mentioned or
affected in/by other articles) a chance to review the article about
them. If this wasn't the case with your article this is a problem we
need to address.

> 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).

That's what I did in the past, of course: Only if I knew that there's
something which needs to be corrected. (i.e. if there's a mail to the
gwn-feedback@g.o alias).

> 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.
> 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.

Once again: We have a draft posted to core to catch grammer/spelling
mistakes.  That doesn't improve the language used in GWN at all, but as
you mentioned, none of us is a native speaker. I'm sorry for not being a
native speaker.

Finally, reading your mail makes me really angry. I'm seeing myself as a
somewhat regular contributor to the GWN and would have expected, that
someone who draws a negative picture of the GWN like you, tried to
talked to me before posting such a mail. Also I see nothing the Council
can decide to improve the GWN, besides stopping further GWN releases.

I fully agree that we have lots problems and much room for improvement
with the GWN, but I can't agree with the way your trying to achieve
this.

EOD for me.

wkr,
  Tobias

[-- Attachment #2: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 191 bytes --]

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

[Lars Weiler]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3279 bytes --]

Congratulations.  I just unsubscribed from the
gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail.

* Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@gentoo.org> [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]:
> 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.

Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the
GWN when Ulrich asked us.  So, there is a backup, but he
didn't asked for this week.

> 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).
> 
> 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). 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).

And I expect the same from you.  You should ask the affected
people first before starting a discussion about them on our
public mailing lists.  This is a device I can give you for
further userrelations-activities.

> 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.

It is.  Either as "Author" or "Contributor".

> 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.
> 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.

It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also
Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly.  Is
there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically
newsletter for a long time (> 3 years)?

> 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. 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.

Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the
submissions to the GWN.  Make sure that every user will
receive and answer.  And forward questions to the
arch-teams.  Isn't that userrel's job?  I didn't saw your
contributions there yet.

Regards, Lars

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 191 bytes --]

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

[George Shapovalov]

субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали:
> I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
> future of the GWN at their next meeting.
Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate "GWN be better" 
and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is 
malicious intent here at all?

[skipping the listing]
All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I 
understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out 
himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6 
month or so..

Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course!
How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going 
to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor. 
Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to 
just throw out this "claim" even if you officially start it. They can of 
course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no 
people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it?

So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some 
more people will "join the ranks" and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd 
say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that 
three are "available" for more than a first month :) (this is based on my 
experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a 
steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for 
people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at 
least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will 
be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections..

George 

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Patrick Lauer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5418 bytes --]

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 ;-)

> 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.

> 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).

> 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. 

>  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.

> 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.

> 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.

>  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. 

> 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.

Thanks for bringing this up,

Patrick
-- 
Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

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

[Daniel Drake]

Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
> I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
> future of the GWN at their next meeting.

This is an open project. The solution to the problems you raise is 
incredibly simple: Contribute on a regular basis, or find other people 
who will do so.

Writing hugely demotivating emails, scaring away existing contributors, 
and wasting the council's time will not help at all.

Daniel

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Luis Francisco Araujo]

George Shapovalov wrote:
> субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали:
>   
>> I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
>> future of the GWN at their next meeting.
>>     
> Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate "GWN be better" 
> and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is 
> malicious intent here at all?
>
> [skipping the listing]
> All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I 
> understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out 
> himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6 
> month or so..
>
> Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course!
> How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going 
> to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor. 
> Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to 
> just throw out this "claim" even if you officially start it. They can of 
> course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no 
> people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it?
>
> So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some 
> more people will "join the ranks" and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd 
> say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that 
> three are "available" for more than a first month :) (this is based on my 
> experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a 
> steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for 
> people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at 
> least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will 
> be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections..
>
> George 
>
>   
That's true. Ulrich has been asking desperately for help since a few 
months now.

I propose we ask for contributors in the staffing-needs section instead 
or before
taking this council way.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 7932 bytes --]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 09:27 +0200, Wernfried Haas wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 04:28:36AM +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.
> 
> Council? Why escalate things? Have you talked to Ulrich about the
> problems mentioned below? Isn't the GWN somehow a userrel issue? ;-)

I have attempted, but as it happens I have never ever spoken to Ulrich
as he does not respond to my e-mails and does not frequent IRC and I
don't have his telephone number or address. And the GWN doesn't come
under Userrel, although they do have a representative within Userrel,
one whom I understand to be wanting to make some improvements to the
GWN.  

As for why the Council, because thats what people suggested when I asked
which route to take when he was unresponsive. 

> > 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.
> 
> I agree there are problems due to Ulrich being awol every now and
> then, but what can the council do about it? Fire him so the GWN is
> unmaintained? ;-)

No. I don't want anyone fired. However, I believe that the other GWN guy
could be provided with sufficient access to make sure it goes out, and I
believe that Ulrich could give some warning when possible so that
Patrick or whomever can get it out regardless of whether Ulrich is
around or not. 

> > 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).
> 
> Why? What makes blog posts different to mailing list/forum threads,
> new versions being released etc? Do you want to ask people for
> permission then, too?

If you re-read what I said I don't have an issue with the GWN or anyone
else using someones blog post as inspiration, I do however believe that
when quoting someone and writing the article in such a way that the
'quotee' appears to have spoken to the publication you need to get some
consensus before printing. 

> > 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). 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).
> 
> Considering Ulrich is appearently still/again awol, could that be the
> reason? I have requested small fixes (like wrong email addresses in
> stuff i submitted) every now and than and got what i asked for.

He wasn't awol at the time of my writing my first few e-mails. 

> > 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.
> 
> Huh? Can you back that statement up?

To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview,
however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of
attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend.

> > 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.
> 
> I have submitted a bunch of articles to the GWN, and it has always
> worked fine for me. Yes, Ulrich is awol at times and sometimes there
> are smaller corrections to make in the final article, but i never felt
> discouraged to submit my stuff. Worst case it takes a few extra days
> to get published.

Ok. I am very glad to hear that not everyone shares the same experiences
when it comes to contributing to the GWN. 

> > 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.
> > 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.
> 
> I disagree. GWN could use some more manpower to improve this and that,
> but i don't see the harm - at least i could easily come up with lots
> of stuff happening that does more harm (Not pointing my finger at
> anyone and leaving it up to everyone's imagination to think of
> something that does damage Gentoo in a terrible way).

Yes, I agree they could use more manpower. They do however claim that
they find it difficult to find someone to help and that is my motivation
for bringing up the issues I notice. If the GWN themselves can't find a
solution to the problem then I believe that the rest of us can attempt
to help them find one. 

> > 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. 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.
> 
> I'm sure a solution can be found to that problem - actually Ulrich is
> quite a nice guy to talk to, so if those people came out of hiding
> those problems may be solved by talking.

I wouldn't know, as I said he doesn't reply to my e-mails. OTOH, I have
no reason to believe that he is not a nice guy to talk to. 

> > 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".
> 
> http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060522-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3
> Look at the picture and tell me it's not at least a tiny bit
> humorous. Agreed, the joke is a bit obvious.

I can't quite see how your picture has anything to do with writing style
and character of writing.

> > 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. 
> 
> I'm still not sure why the council should discuss the issue in the
> first place, i think everyone agrees that the GWN is a bit
> understaffed (for whatever reason) and some stuff doesn't work too
> well. So i assume helping out with the GWN and helping those who fear
> it for some reason may be the best way to solve these problems.

I am not entirely sure why the council wouldn't be a good place to start
a discussion about this. I believe that the council members will wish to
help the GWN help themselves sufficiently to solve their problems,
whether that be attempting to help them think of new ways to attract
contributors or make any other changes. 

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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3823 bytes --]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 09:35 +0200, Tobias Scherbaum wrote:
> First of all, someone from infra/recruiters might please revoke my write
> access to gentoo/xml/htdocs/news/gwn. I'm no longer interested in
> contributing to the GWN.
> 
> > 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).
> 
> That's why Ulrich posts a draft to the core mailinglist, both for
> technical and grammar/spelling review. Also it is (at least it was)
> "expected behavior", to give "devs of the week" (and devs mentioned or
> affected in/by other articles) a chance to review the article about
> them. If this wasn't the case with your article this is a problem we
> need to address.
> 
> > 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).
> 
> That's what I did in the past, of course: Only if I knew that there's
> something which needs to be corrected. (i.e. if there's a mail to the
> gwn-feedback@g.o alias).
> 
> > 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.
> > 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.
> 
> Once again: We have a draft posted to core to catch grammer/spelling
> mistakes.  That doesn't improve the language used in GWN at all, but as
> you mentioned, none of us is a native speaker. I'm sorry for not being a
> native speaker.

I don't actually have a problem with the GWN being written by non-native
speakers, English isn't my first language either. I do however think
that we could benefit from improving the flow of the articles somewhat. 

> Finally, reading your mail makes me really angry. I'm seeing myself as a
> somewhat regular contributor to the GWN and would have expected, that
> someone who draws a negative picture of the GWN like you, tried to
> talked to me before posting such a mail. Also I see nothing the Council
> can decide to improve the GWN, besides stopping further GWN releases.

I had no intentions to make anyonee angry. And as you aren't listed on
the GWN page I had no idea that you were a GWN team member, to my
knowledge the only two people who "do the GWN" are Ulrich and Patrick,
both of which I have attempted to speak with/spoken with. 

And the last thing I want is for the Council to stop the GWN, I am
however hoping that they may choose to help the GWN get back on track.
If nothing else I believe the council to be made up of people who care
about Gentoo a lot, some of which have been around for some time and
still remember the old unifying vision, some of which remembers how the
GWN was run when it was 'totally awesome' (to use a blonde-ism) and
people who hopefully would take the time to try help the GWN explore
new/different ways of improving/growing. 

> I fully agree that we have lots problems and much room for improvement
> with the GWN, but I can't agree with the way your trying to achieve
> this.

What is wrong with it? Would you rather I attempted to have the current
GWN staff replaced? Or the publication shut down? 

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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4810 bytes --]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:07 +0200, Lars Weiler wrote:
> Congratulations.  I just unsubscribed from the
> gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail.
> 
> * Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@gentoo.org> [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]:
> > 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.
> 
> Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the
> GWN when Ulrich asked us.  So, there is a backup, but he
> didn't asked for this week.

I am glad to hear that backup has been used in the past, and I hope that
it will be again.

> > 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).
> > 
> > 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). 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).
> 
> And I expect the same from you.  You should ask the affected
> people first before starting a discussion about them on our
> public mailing lists.  This is a device I can give you for
> further userrelations-activities.

I have actually contacted Ulrich on several occasions, he chose not to
get back to me. And I have spoken a fair bit with Patrick, and from
speaking with Patrick it is quite obvious that the GWN could do with
some help, and I am hoping that my addressing the problems we can pool
together and find ways of helping them.

> > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.
> 
> It is.  Either as "Author" or "Contributor".

Or it is totally lacking, like in the above mentioned blog scenario. 

> > 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.
> > 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.
> 
> It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also
> Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly.  Is
> there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically
> newsletter for a long time (> 3 years)?

No, there isn't a problem with it. However, as I understand it the GWN
is translated into N languages, and I would presume the german version
to be the one which reads better. Could it be an idea to have someone
whos first language is English look over and improve upon the English
version? I know we already dot the i's and cross the t's, maybe it would
be of benefit if someone worked a bit on how it flows.

> > 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. 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.
> 
> Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the
> submissions to the GWN.  Make sure that every user will
> receive and answer.  And forward questions to the
> arch-teams.  Isn't that userrel's job?  I didn't saw your
> contributions there yet.

I wasn't aware the gwn-feedback alias was public, if it is then I would
be more than happy to subscribe to it and read and comment to every
user. Would I be stepping on anyones toes by doing so? And if the GWN
would like to off-load some stuff onto Userrel, then userrel would be
more than happy to help. We already have a GWN representative and he
knows that several of the userrel team would jump at the chance to help
out with various GWN related bits.

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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3241 bytes --]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:27 +0200, George Shapovalov wrote:
> субота, 10. червень 2006 04:28, Christel Dahlskjaer Ви написали:
> > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
> > future of the GWN at their next meeting.
> Hah? What has concil to do with this? Is it going to mandate "GWN be better" 
> and it magically turns into some other thing? Why do you think there is 
> malicious intent here at all?

I was hoping the council, whom I understand to be built up of people who
genuinely care for Gentoo, would look at whether there was any ways of
helping the GWN become better. Say, look at alternative ways of
recruiting/ attracting contributors. It may have been the wrong place to
bring it up, but its the place that was suggested to me when I asked
people who have been around a lot longer than I have.

> [skipping the listing]
> All these problems can be explained very simply - a lack of manpower. As I 
> understand, GWN now is a one-man endeavour and Ulrich was pointing this out 
> himself and literally yelling for help! Many many times! Over approx last 6 
> month or so..

As Ulrich doesn't reply to my e-mails, I haven't had a chance to discuss
with him, I have, however, spoken to Patrick at great length and I
understand that the GWN finds it difficult to recruit, or even attract
contributors. And I agree, the main problem appears to be manpower,
which is why I am hoping that by creating some discussion people may
come up with new / different ways of attracting people to the GWN. 

> Do we want a more reliable and representative GWN? Of course!
> How we can get there? Well, stand up and help! Involving council is not going 
> to do anything besides starting yet another pointless burocratic endeavor. 
> Well, I suspect it won't do even that - I am pretty sure council is going to 
> just throw out this "claim" even if you officially start it. They can of 
> course mandate some more action, but what would be the point? If there are no 
> people willing to stand up, then who will listen to it?

If the council chooses to throw it aside and not look at ways of helping
the GWN then well, that sucks. But atleast I tried. 

> So, to conclude this thing. The only way GWN is going to improve, is if some 
> more people will "join the ranks" and start writing/editing GWN entries. I'd 
> say a team of 3 people is usually sufficient, but we need more like 7 so that 
> three are "available" for more than a first month :) (this is based on my 
> experience with organazing Russian transation team in its early days), plus a 
> steady stream of at least one new dev joining/two month, to compensate for 
> people droppig out. This should also have an effect of draft GWN published at 
> least a day in advance, instead of a few hours, so that the rest of us will 
> be able (and will ;)) take a look at it and make corrections..

I agree with the above, and as stated before, I am hoping that the
Council, or hell, just discussion on -dev may result in someone jumping
up and saying "I have an idea, why don't you..." or "Have you tried.."
as what would be great is if people could come up with ideas and ways of
attracting people. 



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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 7006 bytes --]

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 --]

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

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:56:48 +0200 Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| > 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. 

Good start. Now, are you going to post corrections?

| >  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.

Publish a 'corrections' section in the next edition?

| > 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.

Given that it is doing more harm than good, should it be discontinued
until a solution is found?

| > 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. 

Christel did not talk about "silly jokes". She spoke about "decent
writing (the kind that would make it into publication in newspapers or
magazines, for example)". There's a rather large difference (well, if
you assume she means *respectable* newspapers and magazines -- good
examples for anyone wanting examples are the Times, the Guardian or the
Scotsman). I'd imagine the distinction could be not too obvious for
some non-native speakers, but it is a large and very important
distinction.

You don't have to be silly or boring to be considered respectable. Take
Jeremy Clarkson, for example. He's frequently rather outrageous, very
very funny, prone to using extremely colourful metaphors and writes for
the highly respectable Sunday Times, which has such a good reputation
not despite having such writers but because of it.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk


-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Alec Warner]

>>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.
> 
> 

Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's 
release.  I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication 
is always "on time" (whatever that may be).  If it's a bi-weekly 
publication it doesn't always have to go out on the same day, as long as 
you get it out in the general time period.  I sometimes respond with 
corrections/additions but they never make it because it is released 
before my mail is sent.  Often when I see the core mail I don't even 
bother reading it since by looking at the timestamp I can guess it's 
already been mailed.

-Alec
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:40:07 +0100 Daniel Drake <dsd@gentoo.org> wrote:
| Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
| > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
| > future of the GWN at their next meeting.
| 
| This is an open project. The solution to the problems you raise is 
| incredibly simple: Contribute on a regular basis, or find other
| people who will do so.

Pay attention to the original email. One of the problems Christel
mentioned was that contributions were being deliberately distorted by
the GWN editors. Finding more contributors won't help with that
problem; only replacing or fixing the editors will.

| Writing hugely demotivating emails, scaring away existing
| contributors, and wasting the council's time will not help at all.

How motivating would you say it is to have your words twisted by the
GWN staff when you do try to contribute? How motivating would you say
it is to watch people try to brush genuine problems under the carpet
and attack anyone who points them out?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk


-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Patrick Lauer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1591 bytes --]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
> Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's 
> release.  I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication 
> is always "on time" (whatever that may be). 
So what would a sane time period be? 12h? 24h?
The problem with that is that you need an editor who is available during
this period to add corrections, but with the new influx of helpers I
think we can manage.

>  If it's a bi-weekly 
> publication it doesn't always have to go out on the same day, as long as 
> you get it out in the general time period.
Well ... it is easier when you work with a schedule. Missing a
"deadline" may happen, but that should not be the usual behaviour.
bi-weekly is "silly" because you forget which week it is and suddenly
you skip another week by accident ... I prefer to keep it weekly. And
looking at the flood of material we have for the next edition I think it
is sustainable.

>   I sometimes respond with 
> corrections/additions but they never make it because it is released 
> before my mail is sent.  Often when I see the core mail I don't even 
> bother reading it since by looking at the timestamp I can guess it's 
> already been mailed.
Hmmm. That looks like a timing problem - the GWN gets created on
european time!
I think we should try to have a bigger delay between draft and
publication, but I'm not sure how to do it best. Maybe shift the draft
to saturday  and push the final version on sunday?


Patrick
-- 
Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 628 bytes --]

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:40 +0100, Daniel Drake wrote:
> Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
> > I would like to ask that the Council discuss the current state and
> > future of the GWN at their next meeting.
> 
> This is an open project. The solution to the problems you raise is 
> incredibly simple: Contribute on a regular basis, or find other people 
> who will do so.
> 
> Writing hugely demotivating emails, scaring away existing contributors, 
> and wasting the council's time will not help at all.

Wow, thats not quite the response I had expected from you. Rather
surprising based on your comments elsewhere.



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

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

[Marius Mauch]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 933 bytes --]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 01:00:43 +0200
Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
> > Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's 
> > release.  I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the
> > publication is always "on time" (whatever that may be). 
> So what would a sane time period be? 12h? 24h?
> The problem with that is that you need an editor who is available
> during this period to add corrections, but with the new influx of
> helpers I think we can manage.

It should be sent *at least* 24 hours in advance IMO so everyone gets
a chance to check it. Better to send news that's a few days old than to
send incorrect news.

Marius

-- 
Public Key at http://www.genone.de/info/gpg-key.pub

In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be
Light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see a bit better.

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

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

[Henrik Brix Andersen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1209 bytes --]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 11:37:42AM -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
> Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's 
> release.  I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the publication 
> is always "on time" (whatever that may be).  If it's a bi-weekly 
> publication it doesn't always have to go out on the same day, as long as 
> you get it out in the general time period.  I sometimes respond with 
> corrections/additions but they never make it because it is released 
> before my mail is sent.  Often when I see the core mail I don't even 
> bother reading it since by looking at the timestamp I can guess it's 
> already been mailed.

That's one of he things that keeps me away from contributing anything
to the GWN. Whenever I've sent something to the feedback address or
replied to a draft GWN with corrections, I've never heard back nor
have my corrections been made or rejected with a reason.

If the GWN wants to be that "independent" I wont stand in their
way. But I do agree with Christel that the GWN today is only a shadow
of what it used to be.

Regards,
Brix
-- 
Henrik Brix Andersen <brix@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 213 bytes --]

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

[Josh Saddler]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Marius Mauch wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 01:00:43 +0200
> Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 11:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
>>> Have the GWN posted to -core in a sane time period prior to it's 
>>> release.  I seriously doubt anyone cares about whether the
>>> publication is always "on time" (whatever that may be). 
>> So what would a sane time period be? 12h? 24h?
>> The problem with that is that you need an editor who is available
>> during this period to add corrections, but with the new influx of
>> helpers I think we can manage.
> 
> It should be sent *at least* 24 hours in advance IMO so everyone gets
> a chance to check it. Better to send news that's a few days old than to
> send incorrect news.

Agreed. A full day in advance helps ensure that any needed corrections or
additions can make it in.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFEi/aQrsJQqN81j74RAu9PAKCFkXjY1/u1s4Xk2y2z8m0RdTwHwACcCm4W
RRtsFocJpavIee8jaZpnnWM=
=vBld
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 8613 bytes --]

After waiting for my replies for 24+ hours I presume they disappeared
into a blackhole while we were lacking lists, so I'm resending.


-------- 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 13:13:37 +0100
> 
> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 09:27 +0200, Wernfried Haas wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 04:28:36AM +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.
> > 
> > Council? Why escalate things? Have you talked to Ulrich about the
> > problems mentioned below? Isn't the GWN somehow a userrel issue? ;-)
> 
> I have attempted, but as it happens I have never ever spoken to Ulrich
> as he does not respond to my e-mails and does not frequent IRC and I
> don't have his telephone number or address. And the GWN doesn't come
> under Userrel, although they do have a representative within Userrel,
> one whom I understand to be wanting to make some improvements to the
> GWN.  
> 
> As for why the Council, because thats what people suggested when I asked
> which route to take when he was unresponsive. 
> 
> > > 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.
> > 
> > I agree there are problems due to Ulrich being awol every now and
> > then, but what can the council do about it? Fire him so the GWN is
> > unmaintained? ;-)
> 
> No. I don't want anyone fired. However, I believe that the other GWN guy
> could be provided with sufficient access to make sure it goes out, and I
> believe that Ulrich could give some warning when possible so that
> Patrick or whomever can get it out regardless of whether Ulrich is
> around or not. 
> 
> > > 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).
> > 
> > Why? What makes blog posts different to mailing list/forum threads,
> > new versions being released etc? Do you want to ask people for
> > permission then, too?
> 
> If you re-read what I said I don't have an issue with the GWN or anyone
> else using someones blog post as inspiration, I do however believe that
> when quoting someone and writing the article in such a way that the
> 'quotee' appears to have spoken to the publication you need to get some
> consensus before printing. 
> 
> > > 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). 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).
> > 
> > Considering Ulrich is appearently still/again awol, could that be the
> > reason? I have requested small fixes (like wrong email addresses in
> > stuff i submitted) every now and than and got what i asked for.
> 
> He wasn't awol at the time of my writing my first few e-mails. 
> 
> > > 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.
> > 
> > Huh? Can you back that statement up?
> 
> To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview,
> however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of
> attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend.
> 
> > > 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.
> > 
> > I have submitted a bunch of articles to the GWN, and it has always
> > worked fine for me. Yes, Ulrich is awol at times and sometimes there
> > are smaller corrections to make in the final article, but i never felt
> > discouraged to submit my stuff. Worst case it takes a few extra days
> > to get published.
> 
> Ok. I am very glad to hear that not everyone shares the same experiences
> when it comes to contributing to the GWN. 
> 
> > > 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.
> > > 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.
> > 
> > I disagree. GWN could use some more manpower to improve this and that,
> > but i don't see the harm - at least i could easily come up with lots
> > of stuff happening that does more harm (Not pointing my finger at
> > anyone and leaving it up to everyone's imagination to think of
> > something that does damage Gentoo in a terrible way).
> 
> Yes, I agree they could use more manpower. They do however claim that
> they find it difficult to find someone to help and that is my motivation
> for bringing up the issues I notice. If the GWN themselves can't find a
> solution to the problem then I believe that the rest of us can attempt
> to help them find one. 
> 
> > > 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. 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.
> > 
> > I'm sure a solution can be found to that problem - actually Ulrich is
> > quite a nice guy to talk to, so if those people came out of hiding
> > those problems may be solved by talking.
> 
> I wouldn't know, as I said he doesn't reply to my e-mails. OTOH, I have
> no reason to believe that he is not a nice guy to talk to. 
> 
> > > 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".
> > 
> > http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060522-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3
> > Look at the picture and tell me it's not at least a tiny bit
> > humorous. Agreed, the joke is a bit obvious.
> 
> I can't quite see how your picture has anything to do with writing style
> and character of writing.
> 
> > > 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. 
> > 
> > I'm still not sure why the council should discuss the issue in the
> > first place, i think everyone agrees that the GWN is a bit
> > understaffed (for whatever reason) and some stuff doesn't work too
> > well. So i assume helping out with the GWN and helping those who fear
> > it for some reason may be the best way to solve these problems.
> 
> I am not entirely sure why the council wouldn't be a good place to start
> a discussion about this. I believe that the council members will wish to
> help the GWN help themselves sufficiently to solve their problems,
> whether that be attempting to help them think of new ways to attract
> contributors or make any other changes. 

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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5289 bytes --]

The reply appears to have disappeared into a black hole.

-------- 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 13:26:31 +0100
> 
> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 10:07 +0200, Lars Weiler wrote:
> > Congratulations.  I just unsubscribed from the
> > gwn-feedback-alias after reading your mail.
> > 
> > * Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@gentoo.org> [06/06/10 04:28 +0100]:
> > > 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.
> > 
> > Several times Kurt or I took over the job of publicing the
> > GWN when Ulrich asked us.  So, there is a backup, but he
> > didn't asked for this week.
> 
> I am glad to hear that backup has been used in the past, and I hope that
> it will be again.
> 
> > > 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).
> > > 
> > > 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). 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).
> > 
> > And I expect the same from you.  You should ask the affected
> > people first before starting a discussion about them on our
> > public mailing lists.  This is a device I can give you for
> > further userrelations-activities.
> 
> I have actually contacted Ulrich on several occasions, he chose not to
> get back to me. And I have spoken a fair bit with Patrick, and from
> speaking with Patrick it is quite obvious that the GWN could do with
> some help, and I am hoping that my addressing the problems we can pool
> together and find ways of helping them.
> 
> > > 4. Credit. Care should be taken to ensure that crrect credit is given.
> > 
> > It is.  Either as "Author" or "Contributor".
> 
> Or it is totally lacking, like in the above mentioned blog scenario. 
> 
> > > 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.
> > > 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.
> > 
> > It's quite interesting to see, that the GWN and also
> > Debian's Weekly Newsletter is run by Germans mostly.  Is
> > there a problem with native speakers to run a periodically
> > newsletter for a long time (> 3 years)?
> 
> No, there isn't a problem with it. However, as I understand it the GWN
> is translated into N languages, and I would presume the german version
> to be the one which reads better. Could it be an idea to have someone
> whos first language is English look over and improve upon the English
> version? I know we already dot the i's and cross the t's, maybe it would
> be of benefit if someone worked a bit on how it flows.
> 
> > > 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. 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.
> > 
> > Subscribe to the gwn-feedback-alias and read or comment the
> > submissions to the GWN.  Make sure that every user will
> > receive and answer.  And forward questions to the
> > arch-teams.  Isn't that userrel's job?  I didn't saw your
> > contributions there yet.
> 
> I wasn't aware the gwn-feedback alias was public, if it is then I would
> be more than happy to subscribe to it and read and comment to every
> user. Would I be stepping on anyones toes by doing so? And if the GWN
> would like to off-load some stuff onto Userrel, then userrel would be
> more than happy to help. We already have a GWN representative and he
> knows that several of the userrel team would jump at the chance to help
> out with various GWN related bits.

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

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

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

[-- 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 --]

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

[Wernfried Haas]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2333 bytes --]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 05:50:05PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
> > As for why the Council, because thats what people suggested when I asked
> > which route to take when he was unresponsive. 

I see, and that puts your suggestion of conctacting the council in a
different angle.

[some stuff skipped as it seems to be cleared up]

> > > > 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.
> > > 
> > > Huh? Can you back that statement up?
> > 
> > To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview,
> > however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of
> > attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend.

Agreed, that shouldn't happen.

> > > > 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".
> > > 
> > > http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060522-newsletter.xml#doc_chap3
> > > Look at the picture and tell me it's not at least a tiny bit
> > > humorous. Agreed, the joke is a bit obvious.
> > 
> > I can't quite see how your picture has anything to do with writing style
> > and character of writing.

It's something a not humorous publication probably wouldn't print -
but whatever. ;-)

> > I am not entirely sure why the council wouldn't be a good place to start
> > a discussion about this. I believe that the council members will wish to
> > help the GWN help themselves sufficiently to solve their problems,
> > whether that be attempting to help them think of new ways to attract
> > contributors or make any other changes. 

I'm not sure how the council can do something here either, i think
discussing it here on the list may probably help solve some issues.

cheers,
	Wernfried

-- 
Wernfried Haas (amne) - amne at gentoo dot org
Gentoo Forums: http://forums.gentoo.org
IRC: #gentoo-forums on freenode - email: forum-mods at gentoo dot org

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 191 bytes --]

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

[Henrik Brix Andersen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 649 bytes --]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 01:13:36PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
> To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview,
> however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of
> attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend.

One of my blog entries was also over-interpreted and included in the
GWN without consulting me first, causing a mail storm in my inbox from
angry users of xsupplicant:

http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/brix/2005/11/25/wpa_supplicant_vs_xsupplicant

Regards,
Brix
-- 
Henrik Brix Andersen <brix@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 213 bytes --]

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

[Donnie Berkholz]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 978 bytes --]

Henrik Brix Andersen wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 01:13:36PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
>> To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview,
>> however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of
>> attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend.
> 
> One of my blog entries was also over-interpreted and included in the
> GWN without consulting me first, causing a mail storm in my inbox from
> angry users of xsupplicant:

If errors in the GWN result in large numbers of emails directly to you
rather than to the GWN, maybe the developer's email link shouldn't be
included in articles and feedback should instead be linked to gwn-feedback.

The GWN is a fairly independent publication, so I think it should be
free to make its own mistakes as long as it retains journalistic
integrity. But perhaps it could benefit from some sort of advisory board
of Gentoo developers/staff?

Thanks,
Donnie


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 252 bytes --]

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

[Alec Warner]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> Henrik Brix Andersen wrote:
> 
>>On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 01:13:36PM +0100, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
>>
>>>To take an example, there were made up quotes in my GWN interview,
>>>however, nothing of great harm. I believe that time it was a case of
>>>attempting to make it more fun, it is however a worrying trend.
>>
>>One of my blog entries was also over-interpreted and included in the
>>GWN without consulting me first, causing a mail storm in my inbox from
>>angry users of xsupplicant:
> 
> 
> If errors in the GWN result in large numbers of emails directly to you
> rather than to the GWN, maybe the developer's email link shouldn't be
> included in articles and feedback should instead be linked to gwn-feedback.
> 
> The GWN is a fairly independent publication, so I think it should be
> free to make its own mistakes as long as it retains journalistic
> integrity. But perhaps it could benefit from some sort of advisory board
> of Gentoo developers/staff?

Er the GWN is currently a Gentoo Project.

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/pr/gwn.xml

Although apparently the project page needs updating ;)

> 
> Thanks,
> Donnie
> 

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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

[Mike Frysinger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 745 bytes --]

On Saturday 10 June 2006 10:42, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:56:48 +0200 Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org>
> | >  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.
>
> Publish a 'corrections' section in the next edition?

and fix the original
-mike

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 827 bytes --]