[gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris White]

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It has made somewhat painfully obvious as of late as to the lack of a 
centralized source of updates for users.  This has recently become true 
moreso with the apache2 config file changes and the step to php5.  A couple 
of things I'd like to bring out:

1) Currently, our gentoo.org front page is very, well, slim.  Afaik, I only 
see major site updates, mailing lists notices, gdp updates, and of course the 
GWN.  In a way I think we're underestimating our frontpage.  When someone is 
first introduced to gentoo, they are most likely directed immediately to the 
frontpage, www.gentoo.org.  If they notice things such as major updates and 
what not, chances are they'll most likely keep viewing it throughout their 
Gentoo usage (at least I'd hope).  However, it becomes somewhat combersome to 
check the page every now and then for some, which comes to the second point.

2) The front page also has a nice RSS feed.  This can be utilized for people 
that would rather have convient RSS feeds avaliable on demand.  Considering 
that rss readers are avaliable pretty much in every form nowdays, it would be 
considered a good idea to update the front page more for this reason as well.  
This would give users the chance to have news feed to them in a convient and 
functional manner (after all, that is the point of RSS).  Of course, maybe 
people are more tune with email, which comes to point three.

3) I think it would be a good idea for gentoo-announce to also include front 
page announcements.  This would work well for people that are more email 
oriented (they use email a lot for business) and would keep things 
centralized for them.  This would also be best promoted on the front page, 
maybe stickied in some form or another.

So in conclusion, front page should get more updates, which would propigate to 
rss, and maybe link gentoo-announce to the front page as well.

Chris White

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Wernfried Haas]

4) Forums. We have the News and Announcements box on the forums and we
   will set sticky threads upon request. In fact we even stick threads
   and posts announcements if we encounter something worth mentioning
   in our opinion. Since we may not notice everything feel free to
   contact us in case you have some information worth sharing.

Wrt to Chris' email i think the GWN is a good source of
information and currently seems to feature most important things. If
some people think that's not enough and someone steps up to do a RSS
feed, news on the Gentoo website or whatever, it would of course be a
good move, too. Setting up a centralized contact that forwards that
information to website, mailing lists, forums, GWN, etc could be useful.

The most important thing in my opinion would however be to release
important information more actively. If a problematic update is ahead,
information about it should go through all channels before users
experience problems. Since the maintainer knows best, he should be the
one contacting the others to release the information. Again, a
centralized contact would be helpful here since the maintainer does
not need to contact everyone and their mother then.

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
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Thierry Carrez]

Chris White wrote:
> It has made somewhat painfully obvious as of late as to the lack of a 
> centralized source of updates for users.  This has recently become true 
> moreso with the apache2 config file changes and the step to php5.

Random thoughts about this important subject...

Yes, there is a need to push non-obvious upgrade information to our
users, and no, we can't rely on the GWN alone to convey that "official"
message.

The reason why the front page and the gentoo-announce ML (the two
official media for Gentoo -> users information) are under-used is that
approximately 5% of the developers know how to post to them. We should
probably make them more open (with a moderation system to check
message), then they will be used more.

But it's a good idea to have some kind of automatic replication of
frontpage announcements to gentoo-announce and the forums, this will
help getting important messages through. However, I'm not sure *all*
frontpage contents should get replicated to gentoo-announce and the
forums. GWN announcements for example do not need to appear elsewhere...

-- 
Thierry Carrez (Koon)
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Michiel de Bruijne]

On Sunday 30 October 2005 10:06, Wernfried Haas wrote:
> 4) Forums. We have the News and Announcements box on the forums and we
>    will set sticky threads upon request. In fact we even stick threads
>    and posts announcements if we encounter something worth mentioning
>    in our opinion. Since we may not notice everything feel free to
>    contact us in case you have some information worth sharing.

5) Make important news available in the tree just like GLSA's. With emerge 
--news you can see the relevant newsitems based on your installed packages 
just like emerge --security (future portage version?).
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Qian Qiao]

On 10/30/05, Michiel de Bruijne <m.debruijne@hccnet.nl> wrote:
> On Sunday 30 October 2005 10:06, Wernfried Haas wrote:
> > 4) Forums. We have the News and Announcements box on the forums and we
> >    will set sticky threads upon request. In fact we even stick threads
> >    and posts announcements if we encounter something worth mentioning
> >    in our opinion. Since we may not notice everything feel free to
> >    contact us in case you have some information worth sharing.
>
> 5) Make important news available in the tree just like GLSA's. With emerge
> --news you can see the relevant newsitems based on your installed packages
> just like emerge --security (future portage version?).

/signed, :)

The emerge --news is quite worth considering, and on p.g.o, stuart
mentioned having emerge to produce outputs like this after a sync:

<quote>
# emerge sync
<Portage syncs the tree>

* Important: 3 config files in /etc need updating.
* Type emerge --help config to learn how to update config files.

* Important: there are 5 unread news items.
* Type emerge --news to read news about changes to Gentoo.
</quote>

which I think is also a brilliant idea.

Just my .02 USD as a user.

-- Joe

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world:
Those who can count, and those who can't.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Donnie Berkholz]

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Thierry Carrez wrote:
| But it's a good idea to have some kind of automatic replication of
| frontpage announcements to gentoo-announce and the forums, this will
| help getting important messages through. However, I'm not sure *all*
| frontpage contents should get replicated to gentoo-announce and the
| forums. GWN announcements for example do not need to appear elsewhere...

If they're important enough to be in the primary point of contact with
anyone looking for information about Gentoo, they ought to be important
enough for anywhere else.

Thanks,
Donnie
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[gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Duncan]

Donnie Berkholz posted <4365191B.5040608@gentoo.org>, excerpted below,  on
Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:03:55 -0800:

> Thierry Carrez wrote:
> | But it's a good idea to have some kind of automatic replication of
> | frontpage announcements to gentoo-announce and the forums, this will
> | help getting important messages through. However, I'm not sure *all*
> | frontpage contents should get replicated to gentoo-announce and the
> | forums. GWN announcements for example do not need to appear elsewhere...
> 
> If they're important enough to be in the primary point of contact with
> anyone looking for information about Gentoo, they ought to be important
> enough for anywhere else.

But there's already a GWN list, which I assume those that want have signed
up for.  Putting them on the announce list as well would therefore be
little more than noise.  That doesn't hold for the other announcements on
the front page, and I've wondered myself why some of them aren't making it
to the announce list.

As for the forums, "I'm familiar with the concept." <g>  I don't spend
enough time in them, however, to comment on that angle.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Donnie Berkholz]

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Duncan wrote:
| But there's already a GWN list, which I assume those that want have signed
| up for.  Putting them on the announce list as well would therefore be
| little more than noise.  That doesn't hold for the other announcements on
| the front page, and I've wondered myself why some of them aren't making it
| to the announce list.

It wouldn't be putting the GWN on the announce list, it would be
announcing the GWN. Just mirroring the front-page notice.

Thanks,
Donnie
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Dale]

Qian Qiao wrote:

>/signed, :)
>
>The emerge --news is quite worth considering, and on p.g.o, stuart
>mentioned having emerge to produce outputs like this after a sync:
>
><quote>
># emerge sync
><Portage syncs the tree>
>
>* Important: 3 config files in /etc need updating.
>* Type emerge --help config to learn how to update config files.
>
>* Important: there are 5 unread news items.
>* Type emerge --news to read news about changes to Gentoo.
></quote>
>
>which I think is also a brilliant idea.
>
>Just my .02 USD as a user.
>
>-- Joe
>  
>

I like the --news idea and brilliant is a good way to describe it.  That
would also be so cool.  If you are not syncing you don't need to change
anything but if you are, you get to see what changes are made.  That
would be good since some changes, like devfs to udev, are really good
but do require some input on the user end.  That is one reason I
subscribed here.  Things are changing and I miss it until something
stops working.  Catch-up is a bit tough.

My $.02 worth and that ain't much.

Dale

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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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Hi,

On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 16:52 +0100, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Random thoughts about this important subject...
> 
> Yes, there is a need to push non-obvious upgrade information to our
> users, and no, we can't rely on the GWN alone to convey that "official"
> message.

We can't rely on it *at all*.  Why?  Because it requires users to go and
read it.

The experience from the Apache & PHP changes is that a large percentage
of users (and quite a few developers!) do not read any of the following:

* GWN
* gentoo-dev mailing list
* Gentoo Forums
* Planet Gentoo

We've posted news about our changes to all of these places many times.
It simply didn't reach enough people.

There is *only one time* we can guarantee that we'll have a user's
attention.  That's right after the message that tells a user how many
CONFIG_PROTECT files they need to fix by running etc-update.

(And if we don't have their attention at that point, they have bigger
problems to worry about anyway ;-)

> The reason why the front page and the gentoo-announce ML (the two
> official media for Gentoo -> users information) are under-used is that
> approximately 5% of the developers know how to post to them. We should
> probably make them more open (with a moderation system to check
> message), then they will be used more.

Some of those who hold the keys to those places have actively resisted
this in the past.  Personally, I don't think the front page or
gentoo-announce will reach many more users than the Forums et al already
do.

I don't think it'll solve our problem.

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

GnuGP key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris White]

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On Monday 31 October 2005 10:42, Stuart Herbert wrote:

[snip]

> Some of those who hold the keys to those places have actively resisted
> this in the past.  Personally, I don't think the front page or
> gentoo-announce will reach many more users than the Forums et al already
> do.

Yes it will, because when a new users visits the front page for the first time 
to install Gentoo, they will see the important notices there and put a note 
in the back of their heads about it.  

> I don't think it'll solve our problem.

To be technical, neither will emerge --news.  None of the solutions presented 
here will be a 100% effective means of resolving the problem.  There will 
always be the one user that doesn't want to listen, and will complain at is.  
What we're trying to do here is _lessen_ the ammount of times this occurs.  
What I suggest is we use _all_ of the above solutions.  Combined together 
they form a more effective means towards achieving the intial goal stated.

I'll have a glep for this created soon and posted here.

Chris White

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 13:24 +0900, Chris White wrote:
> To be technical, neither will emerge --news.  None of the solutions presented 
> here will be a 100% effective means of resolving the problem.  There will 
> always be the one user that doesn't want to listen, and will complain at is.  
> What we're trying to do here is _lessen_ the ammount of times this occurs.  
> What I suggest is we use _all_ of the above solutions.  Combined together 
> they form a more effective means towards achieving the intial goal stated.

This goes against the feedback from users over the Apache and PHP
changes.  

The feedback I've had is that users don't want yet more places to go to
find Gentoo news - they want *one* place where all the news appears.

> I'll have a glep for this created soon and posted here.

I'll keep an eye out for it.  Please include the emerge --news proposal
in the GLEP.

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

GnuGP key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Sven Vermeulen]

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On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 04:52:39PM +0100, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> The reason why the front page and the gentoo-announce ML (the two
> official media for Gentoo -> users information) are under-used is that
> approximately 5% of the developers know how to post to them. We should
> probably make them more open (with a moderation system to check
> message), then they will be used more.

But there is no such system available yet. It is a single commit that gets
transferred to the web site, no moderation possible. 

Doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done though.

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

PS. If you want something posted in the current system, ping infra or mail
www@gentoo.org or pr@gentoo.org with the news item and it should get posted.
I know, not the best track, but that's the current system.


-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee          |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Documentation Project Lead  |  http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Xavier Neys]

Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 04:52:39PM +0100, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> 
>>The reason why the front page and the gentoo-announce ML (the two
>>official media for Gentoo -> users information) are under-used is that
>>approximately 5% of the developers know how to post to them. We should
>>probably make them more open (with a moderation system to check
>>message), then they will be used more.
> 
> But there is no such system available yet. It is a single commit that gets
> transferred to the web site, no moderation possible. 
> 
> Doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done though.
> 
> Wkr,
>       Sven Vermeulen
> 
> PS. If you want something posted in the current system, ping infra or mail
> www@gentoo.org or pr@gentoo.org with the news item and it should get posted.
> I know, not the best track, but that's the current system.

Considering the number of hits on www.g.o, our front page is probably the best 
place for a single point of information. Top-5 hits for October 2005:
/rdf/en/gentoo-news.rdf	1,319,035
/	1,168,361
/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml	549,658
/rdf/en/glsa-index.rdf	528,659
/doc/en/index.xml	428,579

Should critical updates be announced in a news item? IMHO, yes, it can and it 
should be done.
How?
Maybe it would be easier to have a bugzilla alias, have news items be posted 
to b.g.o and let an extended pr team review and publish (or discard).
As long as the news item is properly written and posted early enough, I see no 
problem with that.


Wkr,
-- 
/  Xavier Neys
\_ Gentoo Documentation Project
/  French & Internationalisation Lead
\  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en
/\
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 16:42 +0900, Chris White wrote:
> 3) I think it would be a good idea for gentoo-announce to also include front 
> page announcements.  This would work well for people that are more email 
> oriented (they use email a lot for business) and would keep things 
> centralized for them.  This would also be best promoted on the front page, 
> maybe stickied in some form or another.

Funny enough, we are working on a mailing list reform GLEP and one of
the main things we had added was the increase in usage of
gentoo-announce to send off *all* important information to our users,
rather than just using it for release announcements and GLSA, which is
all that currently traverses the list.

> So in conclusion, front page should get more updates, which would propigate to 
> rss, and maybe link gentoo-announce to the front page as well.

I think having front-page news automatically sent to gentoo-announce
would be pretty cool.

I'm going to say as much on our ML reform "list" and add you to the CC.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 10:06 +0100, Wernfried Haas wrote:
> 4) Forums. We have the News and Announcements box on the forums and we
>    will set sticky threads upon request. In fact we even stick threads
>    and posts announcements if we encounter something worth mentioning
>    in our opinion. Since we may not notice everything feel free to
>    contact us in case you have some information worth sharing.
> 
> Wrt to Chris' email i think the GWN is a good source of
> information and currently seems to feature most important things. If
> some people think that's not enough and someone steps up to do a RSS
> feed, news on the Gentoo website or whatever, it would of course be a
> good move, too. Setting up a centralized contact that forwards that
> information to website, mailing lists, forums, GWN, etc could be useful.

Well, I don't know if this is really within scope, but we do have a PR
team.  I know that at one point they were pretty understaffed, so I
don't know whether this would be something they would want to undertake
or not, but if they did, then we already have everything in place.

> The most important thing in my opinion would however be to release
> important information more actively. If a problematic update is ahead,
> information about it should go through all channels before users
> experience problems. Since the maintainer knows best, he should be the
> one contacting the others to release the information. Again, a
> centralized contact would be helpful here since the maintainer does
> not need to contact everyone and their mother then.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 01:42 +0000, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> There is *only one time* we can guarantee that we'll have a user's
> attention.  That's right after the message that tells a user how many
> CONFIG_PROTECT files they need to fix by running etc-update.

I definitely like the --news idea.

> Some of those who hold the keys to those places have actively resisted
> this in the past.  Personally, I don't think the front page or
> gentoo-announce will reach many more users than the Forums et al already
> do.

Well, I think that if users knew that information would be on these
places, they might actually check them.  Currently, little to no
information ever makes it to either of these locations, so users never
bother to check them.  If we were to change that, I'm sure users would
eventually pick up on the fact.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Lance Albertson]

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Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 16:42 +0900, Chris White wrote:
> 
>>3) I think it would be a good idea for gentoo-announce to also include front 
>>page announcements.  This would work well for people that are more email 
>>oriented (they use email a lot for business) and would keep things 
>>centralized for them.  This would also be best promoted on the front page, 
>>maybe stickied in some form or another.
> 
> 
> Funny enough, we are working on a mailing list reform GLEP and one of
> the main things we had added was the increase in usage of
> gentoo-announce to send off *all* important information to our users,
> rather than just using it for release announcements and GLSA, which is
> all that currently traverses the list.

Outside of a few things, I think this should be the case most of the
time. I'm not sure why this hasn't been done in the past, but it seems
like a good idea to me.

>>So in conclusion, front page should get more updates, which would propigate to 
>>rss, and maybe link gentoo-announce to the front page as well.
> 
> 
> I think having front-page news automatically sent to gentoo-announce
> would be pretty cool.

Eh, I don't like this idea :-) The idea of having an automated task
sending mail to a list with >15K subscribers worries me a bit. Perhaps a
better system of sending these announcements to one place and then the
pr team (or who ever) does the posting at both places.

> I'm going to say as much on our ML reform "list" and add you to the CC.

Is lcars on this "list" ? If not, I really think he should be since he's
the current maintainer of the mailing lists and knows the
limitations/capabilities of the software.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

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ramereth/irc.freenode.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Lance Albertson]

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Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 01:42 +0000, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> 
>>There is *only one time* we can guarantee that we'll have a user's
>>attention.  That's right after the message that tells a user how many
>>CONFIG_PROTECT files they need to fix by running etc-update.
> 
> 
> I definitely like the --news idea.

I think this is a great idea too.

>>Some of those who hold the keys to those places have actively resisted
>>this in the past.  Personally, I don't think the front page or
>>gentoo-announce will reach many more users than the Forums et al already
>>do.
> 
> 
> Well, I think that if users knew that information would be on these
> places, they might actually check them.  Currently, little to no
> information ever makes it to either of these locations, so users never
> bother to check them.  If we were to change that, I'm sure users would
> eventually pick up on the fact.

I would agree with Chris here too. As long as we start using this
channel more and we get the word out, folks will start to be more
attentive to it. We can't satisfy every user out there and I think this
channel has a good chance of working.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 08:40 -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
> > Well, I think that if users knew that information would be on these
> > places, they might actually check them.  Currently, little to no
> > information ever makes it to either of these locations, so users never
> > bother to check them.  If we were to change that, I'm sure users would
> > eventually pick up on the fact.
> 
> I would agree with Chris here too. As long as we start using this
> channel more and we get the word out, folks will start to be more
> attentive to it. We can't satisfy every user out there and I think this
> channel has a good chance of working.

It would be great if emerge --news displayed the same news as www.g.o.

I don't see www.g.o on its own solving the problem of getting news out
to all our users.  How are you going to tell them that www.g.o and
gentoo-announce now carries much more news?  Post the news on there, or
in GWN, the forums, this mailing list, etc etc?  Aren't those the very
places where we've already learned that not enough of our users look?

I started this discussion because I've experienced that the percentage
of users who read our existing news outlets isn't high enough to reach
many of them in the first place ;-)

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Simon Stelling]

Hi,

Stuart Herbert wrote:
> It would be great if emerge --news displayed the same news as www.g.o.

Doesn't make much sense to me. The biggest benefit from --news over other, 
traditional channels would be that it's linked to the tree, meaning, if you 
emerge a new kernel version which doesn't contain devfs anymore, the ebuild 
would call something like enews ${FILESDIR}/blah which would then somehow make 
emerge mention it. [Implementational detail: Sending it to root@localhost too 
would be very nice.]

I don't see the point in reading a news item telling me that I have to do $foo 
because package $bar breaks otherwise when I don't have package $bar at all.

On the other side, we already have einfo and friends, which currently are 
probably the most important channels. The often get ignored because there were 
no such tools like elog, but that will be fixed soon anyway, and people will 
probably read the notices again, because they don't just get lost in 50k lines 
of make output.

Information that doesn't belong to a specific package or a specific version 
should be sent to gentoo-announce IMO, we really don't need portage to be more 
than a package manager.

> I started this discussion because I've experienced that the percentage
> of users who read our existing news outlets isn't high enough to reach
> many of them in the first place ;-)

Reading gentoo-announce should be mandatory. If a user breaks his system because 
he didn't know about an important fact due to his lazyness, that's not our 
problem. Of course they will still bitch, so let's introduce RESOLVED RTF_ML_.

Regards,

-- 
Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 Operational Co-Lead
blubb@gentoo.org
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Lance Albertson]

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Stuart Herbert wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 08:40 -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
> 
>>>Well, I think that if users knew that information would be on these
>>>places, they might actually check them.  Currently, little to no
>>>information ever makes it to either of these locations, so users never
>>>bother to check them.  If we were to change that, I'm sure users would
>>>eventually pick up on the fact.
>>
>>I would agree with Chris here too. As long as we start using this
>>channel more and we get the word out, folks will start to be more
>>attentive to it. We can't satisfy every user out there and I think this
>>channel has a good chance of working.
> 
> 
> It would be great if emerge --news displayed the same news as www.g.o.
> 
> I don't see www.g.o on its own solving the problem of getting news out
> to all our users.  How are you going to tell them that www.g.o and
> gentoo-announce now carries much more news?  Post the news on there, or
> in GWN, the forums, this mailing list, etc etc?  Aren't those the very
> places where we've already learned that not enough of our users look?
> 
> I started this discussion because I've experienced that the percentage
> of users who read our existing news outlets isn't high enough to reach
> many of them in the first place ;-)

Implementing --news will take time. Implementing more news on our site
now takes little work and can be easily done. Outside of these two
options, what is better? I'd say a constant reminder in the GWN would be
helpful. Maybe we could add a big news warning in the next minor portage
update that when you tells you about the new news features (perhaps a
big einfo after you upgrade.

I know thats not the best solution either, but I dont' foresee --news
becoming a reality for a while.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

---
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Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Xavier Neys]

Simon Stelling wrote:
> Reading gentoo-announce should be mandatory. If a user breaks his system 
> because he didn't know about an important fact due to his lazyness, 
> that's not our problem. Of course they will still bitch, so let's 
> introduce RESOLVED RTF_ML_.

Number of users subscribed to gentoo-announce: 7,988
Total number of GETs on our home page and news feed in a *single day*: 75,302 
from 19,240 different IPs (on Sunday 2005-10-30).

Wkr,
-- 
/  Xavier Neys
\_ Gentoo Documentation Project
/  French & Internationalisation Lead
\  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en
/\
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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Hi,

On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 18:11 +0100, Simon Stelling wrote:
> Doesn't make much sense to me. The biggest benefit from --news over other, 
> traditional channels would be that it's linked to the tree, meaning, if you 
> emerge a new kernel version which doesn't contain devfs anymore, the ebuild 
> would call something like enews ${FILESDIR}/blah which would then somehow make 
> emerge mention it. 

[snip]

This isn't the problem I'm trying to get solved.  

You're talking about a reactive news system, telling users about the
consequences of their actions.  I'm after a pro-active news system,
telling users about what will change, so that they have the information
they need to plan upgrades.

We need both.  

But anyone using Gentoo outside of their bedroom or classroom needs to
know what we are planning, and when those plans will happen.

> Information that doesn't belong to a specific package or a specific version 
> should be sent to gentoo-announce IMO, we really don't need portage to be more 
> than a package manager.

I'm firmly of the opinion that gentoo-announce doesn't solve the problem
as effectively as delivering news via emerge sync.  People have to go
sign up to gentoo-announce.  It seems unlikely that you'll get a high
percentage of the user base doing this.  My personal experience with
opensource projects is that you'll get 10-20% of users signing up, tops.

I don't think delivering news to just 20% of our userbase is a
fit-for-purpose solution.

Delivering the news via Portage has the distinct advantage that it will
reach every user who types 'emerge sync'.

> Reading gentoo-announce should be mandatory.

I think that statement ignores a basic human truth - that not every user
likes using mailing lists.  Just like not every user likes using forums.

> If a user breaks his system because 
> he didn't know about an important fact due to his lazyness, that's not our 
> problem. Of course they will still bitch, so let's introduce RESOLVED RTF_ML_.

Mmm ... but I think you haven't understood the original problem from
their perspective.  We're not dealing with users (or devs for that
matter! it's not just users who've been caught out by our changes) who
are lazy.

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:55:40 +0100 Xavier Neys <neysx@gentoo.org> wrote:
| Simon Stelling wrote:
| > Reading gentoo-announce should be mandatory. If a user breaks his
| > system because he didn't know about an important fact due to his
| > lazyness, that's not our problem. Of course they will still bitch,
| > so let's introduce RESOLVED RTF_ML_.
| 
| Number of users subscribed to gentoo-announce: 7,988
| Total number of GETs on our home page and news feed in a *single
| day*: 75,302 from 19,240 different IPs (on Sunday 2005-10-30).

Probably because gentoo-announce is almost exclusively GLSA spam...

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 11:17 -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
> Implementing --news will take time. 

It'll take time to get a Portage release out which supports this
functionality, sure.  Implementing the functionality wouldn't take very
long at all.

> Implementing more news on our site
> now takes little work and can be easily done. Outside of these two
> options, what is better? I'd say a constant reminder in the GWN would be
> helpful. 

The original problem is that GWN, forums, planet.g.o, gentoo-dev - even
together, we've seen that they just don't reach enough of our user base.
Aren't we just going to reach the same people by putting more news in
the same old place?  How is that going to reach the people we're not
reaching today?

> Maybe we could add a big news warning in the next minor portage
> update that when you tells you about the new news features (perhaps a
> big einfo after you upgrade.

The problems of einfo messages not reaching our users have been well
documented already :(

> I know thats not the best solution either, but I dont' foresee --news
> becoming a reality for a while.

Me neither :(  But you know what?  It could, if enough people understood
the need, and supported its introduction.

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

GnuGP key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Mike Doty]

Stuart Herbert wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 18:11 +0100, Simon Stelling wrote:
> 
>>Doesn't make much sense to me. The biggest benefit from --news over other, 
>>traditional channels would be that it's linked to the tree, meaning, if you 
>>emerge a new kernel version which doesn't contain devfs anymore, the ebuild 
>>would call something like enews ${FILESDIR}/blah which would then somehow make 
>>emerge mention it. 
> 
> 
> [snip]
> 
> This isn't the problem I'm trying to get solved.  
> 
> You're talking about a reactive news system, telling users about the
> consequences of their actions.  I'm after a pro-active news system,
> telling users about what will change, so that they have the information
> they need to plan upgrades.
> 
> We need both.  
We definitly need this.  I'm reminded of the recent apache changes, 
which could of been much less painful if we had something like this.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:56:19 +0000 Stuart Herbert <stuart@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| You're talking about a reactive news system, telling users about the
| consequences of their actions.  I'm after a pro-active news system,
| telling users about what will change, so that they have the
| information they need to plan upgrades.

So that every user will be spammed with news items about PHP changes,
even if they don't use PHP?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 19:55 +0100, Xavier Neys wrote:
> Number of users subscribed to gentoo-announce: 7,988
> Total number of GETs on our home page and news feed in a *single day*: 75,302 
> from 19,240 different IPs (on Sunday 2005-10-30).

Do you have any *useful* stats for www.g.o, like the number of unique
visitors?

Page hits are only useful for capacity planning.  They're of limited use
for working out the actual size of your readership.

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

GnuGP key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 19:03 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:55:40 +0100 Xavier Neys <neysx@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | Simon Stelling wrote:
> | > Reading gentoo-announce should be mandatory. If a user breaks his
> | > system because he didn't know about an important fact due to his
> | > lazyness, that's not our problem. Of course they will still bitch,
> | > so let's introduce RESOLVED RTF_ML_.
> | 
> | Number of users subscribed to gentoo-announce: 7,988
> | Total number of GETs on our home page and news feed in a *single
> | day*: 75,302 from 19,240 different IPs (on Sunday 2005-10-30).
> 
> Probably because gentoo-announce is almost exclusively GLSA spam...

This tends to be my thinking on it.  If we were to put in the docs that
all important announcements were announced proactively on #1.
www.gentoo.org and #2. gentoo-announce, then more users would use them.
This has no bearing on --news, which I also think is a good idea and
something we should implement.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 19:07 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> So that every user will be spammed with news items about PHP changes,
> even if they don't use PHP?

Only if I can spam you twice :P

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[David Morgan]

On 19:05 Mon 31 Oct     , Stuart Herbert wrote:
> > Maybe we could add a big news warning in the next minor portage
> > update that when you tells you about the new news features (perhaps a
> > big einfo after you upgrade.
> 
> The problems of einfo messages not reaching our users have been well
> documented already :(
> 

Why not log all the e{info,warn}s into a file, and then tell the user
about them at the end of the emerge (in the same way they are told about
changes in /etc)? Said file should then be safe to delete if desired.

Mailing this info instead (/as well?) could also be available as an
option (even if the user just wants to use something simple like nbsmtp
to send it to some email address, rather than having to run their
own mailserver).

I guess you could also go for something like freebsd's
/usr/ports/UPGRADING file, which users are supposed to read before
upgrading things, but I'm not sure if people would bother reading it.

Dave

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Dave Shanker]

What about Portage auto generating a upgrade file
(/usr/portage/notices (like it does with it's cache) and then
providing a notice at the end of an emerge than lets the user know
it's there and how to read it. We could even provide a switch in
portage to read the file and display the notices (emerge
--readnotice).

Regards,

On 10/31/05, David Morgan <david.morgan@wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 19:05 Mon 31 Oct     , Stuart Herbert wrote:
> > > Maybe we could add a big news warning in the next minor portage
> > > update that when you tells you about the new news features (perhaps a
> > > big einfo after you upgrade.
> >
> > The problems of einfo messages not reaching our users have been well
> > documented already :(
> >
>
> Why not log all the e{info,warn}s into a file, and then tell the user
> about them at the end of the emerge (in the same way they are told about
> changes in /etc)? Said file should then be safe to delete if desired.
>
> Mailing this info instead (/as well?) could also be available as an
> option (even if the user just wants to use something simple like nbsmtp
> to send it to some email address, rather than having to run their
> own mailserver).
>
> I guess you could also go for something like freebsd's
> /usr/ports/UPGRADING file, which users are supposed to read before
> upgrading things, but I'm not sure if people would bother reading it.
>
> Dave
>
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Bruno]

On Monday 31 October 2005 21:07, David Morgan wrote:
> Why not log all the e{info,warn}s into a file, and then tell the user
> about them at the end of the emerge (in the same way they are told about
> changes in /etc)? Said file should then be safe to delete if desired.
>
> Mailing this info instead (/as well?) could also be available as an
> option (even if the user just wants to use something simple like nbsmtp
> to send it to some email address, rather than having to run their
> own mailserver).
>
> I guess you could also go for something like freebsd's
> /usr/ports/UPGRADING file, which users are supposed to read before
> upgrading things, but I'm not sure if people would bother reading it.
>
> Dave
There should also be einfo/ewarn BEFORE emerging (e.g. when calculating 
dependencies => before confirmation for --ask, or at end for --pretend)
this way only relevant information for the current merge would be displayed.

That means that ebuilds should output warnings in a function like pkg_setup 
but this one must be called at right moment (after deps are calculate, but 
before unpacking the first package).

Optionally this method could return a few different return values depending on 
the importance of the info.
  0 = just a note
  1 = important
  2 = blocker (fail emerge if not pretend/ask)


Bruno

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Frido Ferdinand]

Hi,

On 10/31/05, Dave Shanker <dshanker@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about Portage auto generating a upgrade file
> (/usr/portage/notices (like it does with it's cache) and then
> providing a notice at the end of an emerge than lets the user know
> it's there and how to read it. We could even provide a switch in
> portage to read the file and display the notices (emerge
> --readnotice).
>

Noted this thread on stu's weblog, and found it very interesting. Just
jumping in midway, so I might have missed some stuff. I agree that there
currently are too many channels where a user could look for information,
changing one of these channel to be an authorative one, and start using
it more often could be a good solution.

However stu's --news proposals looks interesting too, implementation
wise maybe it's a good idea to look at the GLSA and GLEP type messages.
They provide an excellent fixed, parsable format for changes already. And
afaik are the defacto source for security and enhancement proposals.
Maybe this should be extended to something like a GLCM (Gentoo Linux
Change Message, be creative).  if the format is XML defined, i'm sure
the portage people can integrate it into emerge --pretend with a special
flag, esp. if GLSA is already working. It's also easy to distribute these to
websites, mailinglists, RSS etc. As a sideeffect it's also easier to talk about
changes (compare, "GLCM 32", to "That apache change earlier this year").
One of the downsides of this could be that it places more work pressure on
developers, but i'm sure a good generation tool will help with this.

As a sidenote, The FreeBSD /usr/ports/UPGRADING is boring, but it works for
me.

Regards,

Frido

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Brian Harring]

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On Mon, Oct 31, 2005 at 03:56:08PM -0500, Dave Shanker wrote:
> What about Portage auto generating a upgrade file
> (/usr/portage/notices (like it does with it's cache) and then
> providing a notice at the end of an emerge than lets the user know
> it's there and how to read it. We could even provide a switch in
> portage to read the file and display the notices (emerge
> --readnotice).

I suggest y'all work out how you're going to push news, news items, 
how it's going to be filterable for those who don't want to see php, 
etc, rather then talking about emerge doing differing things...

emerge --news sounds nice and fluffy without getting into the 
questions above, where it's going to be shoved into the tree (how it's 
going to work for remote trees), etc.
~harring

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Corey Shields]

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On Monday 31 October 2005 09:17 am, Lance Albertson wrote:
> Implementing --news will take time. Implementing more news on our site
> now takes little work and can be easily done. Outside of these two
> options, what is better? I'd say a constant reminder in the GWN would be
> helpful. Maybe we could add a big news warning in the next minor portage
> update that when you tells you about the new news features (perhaps a
> big einfo after you upgrade.
>
> I know thats not the best solution either, but I dont' foresee --news
> becoming a reality for a while.

I disagree that beefing up website news will get the word out.  The people who 
complain to me personally about major changes that they did not know about 
are the type of people who are not checking this sort of thing anyway. The 
last time I remember paying attention to the website news myself was to 
double check a post that I had made..  long ago.

Something like --news is bound to reach every admin and sounds like the best 
way to go.  Adding more news to the site is just going to push news that 
really matters off the front page quicker and cause possible problems with 
more and more people committing broken xml news items.  

What are going to be the criteria for posting such a news item?  We could have 
20+ posts a day just saying "Version bump, w00t!".

As for the earlier comment on this thread:  "Yes it will, because when a new 
users visits the front page for the first time to install Gentoo, they will 
see the important notices there and put a note in the back of their heads 
about it." (Chris White) What are you going to do to inform the people 
upgrading their system that they installed 3 years ago?  Sure, they may have 
read the front page when they installed it.  Are they going to want to have 
to read a web site on -every- upgrade?  no.

-C

-- 
Corey Shields
Gentoo Linux Infrastructure Team
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
http://www.gentoo.org/~cshields

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Duncan]

Xavier Neys posted <4365F833.8010703@gentoo.org>, excerpted below,  on
Mon, 31 Oct 2005 11:55:47 +0100:

> Maybe it would be easier to have a bugzilla alias, have news items be
> posted to b.g.o and let an extended pr team review and publish (or
> discard). As long as the news item is properly written and posted early
> enough, I see no problem with that.

That's an idea that fits the way Gentoo tracks everything else.  Bug it!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Duncan]

Xavier Neys posted <436668AC.4070300@gentoo.org>, excerpted below,  on
Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:55:40 +0100:

> Number of users subscribed to gentoo-announce: 7,988
> Total number of GETs on our home page and news feed in a *single day*: 75,302 
> from 19,240 different IPs (on Sunday 2005-10-30).

I read announce very regularly (checking it several times a day, most
days), but wouldn't show up in your announce stats.  Why?  Because I
subscribe to gmane.org's gmane.linux.gentoo.announce newsgroup.

When I subscribe to writable lists such as this one thru gmane, I also
subscribe to the main Gentoo list (and then put it on vacation or digest
mode so it's not spamming me all the time with stuff I already get thru
gmane).  With lists that will be read-only, such as announce, in my case,
there's no need to subscribe to the Gentoo version, as I won't be posting
anything to gmane that has to be authorized with Gentoo to be able to
relay thru to the list.

Also note lwn.net.  It carries GWN and all the GLSAs.  I'm guessing they
track the GLSAs thru the announce list, tho I don't know that for sure. 
If so, and the announce list starts carrying other stuff, it'll get posted
to LWN pretty quickly, as well.  LWN's both valuable enough to me that I
pay real money to subscribe, and the way I learned enough about Gentoo to
check it out.  It's also a decently recognized authority in the Linux
community.  However, none of its hits will be tracked by Gentoo.  Still,
if stuff is posted to the announce list, it'll quite likely be covered on
LWN as well.

Bottom line, then, announce has far more readers than the ones Gentoo
tracks thru its subscription list.  A wild guess, as it'd take some work
to make it anything more than that, would put it on par with the
gentoo.org front page.  It may actually get more circulation than the
front page.  (That said, as others have posted, if more news gets posted
to the front page, those unique IP counts will probably go up accordingly.
LWN and others could easily grab from there, as well.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Duncan]

Stuart Herbert posted <1130784979.10542.32.camel@mogheiden.gnqs.org>,
excerpted below,  on Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:56:19 +0000:

>> Reading gentoo-announce should be mandatory.
> 
> I think that statement ignores a basic human truth - that not every user
> likes using mailing lists.  Just like not every user likes using forums.

While you have a point, note that lists aren't the /only/ way posts to
announce get spread.  As I mentioned in a post to a different subthread,
the real circulation of announce is far higher.  I and presumably a decent
number of others read it thru gmane's list2news gateway.  (As you say, not
everyone likes mail, I prefer news.)  As announce will be read-only for
most folks, those reading it there won't subscribe thru Gentoo in digest
or vacation mode as they do with this list, for instance.

LWN.net is another well recognized source for news in the Linux community,
and they cover Gentoo well enough that it's where I first got interested
in Gentoo.  (I also rate LWN highly enough that I'm willing to
pay them real money for a subscription, a rare thing for internet news
sites, beyond the WSJ at least.) Currently, LWN covers releases, GLSAs,
and of course GWN.  LWN probably gets the GLSAs and release
announcements thru the announce list (and likely gets GWN thru its list),
so would cover other news, if posted to announce, as well.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Nathan L. Adams]

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Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 01:42 +0000, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> 
>>There is *only one time* we can guarantee that we'll have a user's
>>attention.  That's right after the message that tells a user how many
>>CONFIG_PROTECT files they need to fix by running etc-update.
> 
> 
> I definitely like the --news idea.
> 
> 
>>Some of those who hold the keys to those places have actively resisted
>>this in the past.  Personally, I don't think the front page or
>>gentoo-announce will reach many more users than the Forums et al already
>>do.
> 
> 
> Well, I think that if users knew that information would be on these
> places, they might actually check them.  Currently, little to no
> information ever makes it to either of these locations, so users never
> bother to check them.  If we were to change that, I'm sure users would
> eventually pick up on the fact.
> 

How about http://errata.gentoo.org/ for all technical announcements.
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[gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Duncan]

Stuart Herbert posted <1130785533.10547.41.camel@mogheiden.gnqs.org>,
excerpted below,  on Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:05:33 +0000:

> The original problem is that GWN, forums, planet.g.o, gentoo-dev - even
> together, we've seen that they just don't reach enough of our user base.
> Aren't we just going to reach the same people by putting more news in
> the same old place?  How is that going to reach the people we're not
> reaching today?

There is /one/ way to reach /everyone/ doing an upgrade (well, those that
do emerge -a or -p, anyway, and those that don't, well... they apparently
/like/ being left in the dark, and doing perhaps risky upgrades without
knowing what's going on, so let's not disturb their "enjoyment" <g>).

That ONE way: Push a "null" portage -rX upgrade to both stable and ~
versions, the sole purpose of which is to print the *VITALLY* *IMPORTANT*
*ANNOUNCEMENT* as an einfo both after the "upgrade", and as part of the
"portage will stop merging at this point and recalculate" message one gets
with a -p or -a.  (For double-sure effect, make the first emerge action
after the upgrade /only/ print the message, doing nothing else.  Further
emerges would then go back to normal behavior.)

Because emerging portage always stops an ongoing emerge to recalculate
what's left after the new portage is merged, that should mean virtually
everyone should see it.  For a one-shot, vitally important message,
that'll be seen by more than anything else.  If it's not important enough
to do this, than it's probably not all that important, for those who
aren't making an effort to follow news anyway, after all.

That should address the "reaching people who aren't reading anyway"
problem.  Once it is settled what the single point of news delivery will
be, if it's considered to be important enough to reach /everyone/, even
those who don't follow current news outlets to see it, this would be the
single most effective way to do it.  

This is rather the "nuclear option", yes, but it should demonstrate the
point.  There's a point beyond which it's simply not worth worrying about
whether a message gets out or not.  A point at which one can say, "Open
your eyes and read, and you have nothing to bitch about if you simply
refuse to do so!"  If the message is put out to all the usual outlets
(it's already out here, put it in GWN and on the front page of gentoo.org
and on the forums and on the announce list and posted to the user list),
that's gotta be considered "good enough", unless it is decided to "go
nuclear" using an approach similar to the above.  Anybody not getting the
message after delivery to all /those/ places...  should be considered not
WANTING to get the message, as they've demonstrated just that by their
actions, if not their words.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[pclouds]

Just curious how other distros deliver important news to their users?

On 10/30/05, Chris White <chriswhite@gentoo.org> wrote:
> It has made somewhat painfully obvious as of late as to the lack of a
> centralized source of updates for users.  This has recently become true
> moreso with the apache2 config file changes and the step to php5.  A couple
> of things I'd like to bring out:
>
> 1) Currently, our gentoo.org front page is very, well, slim.  Afaik, I only
> see major site updates, mailing lists notices, gdp updates, and of course the
> GWN.  In a way I think we're underestimating our frontpage.  When someone is
> first introduced to gentoo, they are most likely directed immediately to the
> frontpage, www.gentoo.org.  If they notice things such as major updates and
> what not, chances are they'll most likely keep viewing it throughout their
> Gentoo usage (at least I'd hope).  However, it becomes somewhat combersome to
> check the page every now and then for some, which comes to the second point.
>
> 2) The front page also has a nice RSS feed.  This can be utilized for people
> that would rather have convient RSS feeds avaliable on demand.  Considering
> that rss readers are avaliable pretty much in every form nowdays, it would be
> considered a good idea to update the front page more for this reason as well.
> This would give users the chance to have news feed to them in a convient and
> functional manner (after all, that is the point of RSS).  Of course, maybe
> people are more tune with email, which comes to point three.
>
> 3) I think it would be a good idea for gentoo-announce to also include front
> page announcements.  This would work well for people that are more email
> oriented (they use email a lot for business) and would keep things
> centralized for them.  This would also be best promoted on the front page,
> maybe stickied in some form or another.
>
> So in conclusion, front page should get more updates, which would propigate to
> rss, and maybe link gentoo-announce to the front page as well.
>
> Chris White
>
>
>


--
Bi Cờ Lao

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 12:11:37 +0900 pclouds <pclouds@gmail.com> wrote:
| Just curious how other distros deliver important news to their users?

By sticking out a new "everything is incompatible" release once or
twice a year.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Tue, 2005-11-01 at 12:11 +0900, pclouds wrote:
> Just curious how other distros deliver important news to their users?

Red Hat has you subscribe to RHN, which sends you errata based on your
installed configuration.  When you add packages via up2date, Red Hat
knows.

Others just use mailing lists, as far as I know, though I have limited
experience with other distributions.  (Slackware, LFS, and RH are it)

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Tue, 2005-11-01 at 03:21 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 12:11:37 +0900 pclouds <pclouds@gmail.com> wrote:
> | Just curious how other distros deliver important news to their users?
> 
> By sticking out a new "everything is incompatible" release once or
> twice a year.

Yeah, there's that, too.

Want a new version of openldap that doesn't upgrade cleanly?  Add it to
the next release.  Wanting to switch from Apache 1.x to Apache 2.x?  Add
it to the next release.

Being source-based and dynamic makes this somewhat harder on us than on
others.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 01 November 2005 15:29, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-11-01 at 03:21 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 12:11:37 +0900 pclouds <pclouds@gmail.com> wrote:
> > | Just curious how other distros deliver important news to their
> > | users?
> >
> > By sticking out a new "everything is incompatible" release once or
> > twice a year.
>
> Yeah, there's that, too.
>
> Want a new version of openldap that doesn't upgrade cleanly?  Add it to
> the next release.  Wanting to switch from Apache 1.x to Apache 2.x? 
> Add it to the next release.
>
> Being source-based and dynamic makes this somewhat harder on us than on
> others.

Besides the fact that we like to offer our users the choices that would 
mean different releases for such distro's. Our users are able to do it 
just with our repos and sometimes even do both.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[lnxg33k]

Hello. First time posting; hope the message isn't ugly.

Anyway, from a generic point of view, I think the different suggestions
mentioned are all nice. One argument that seems to have cropped up in the latter
messages regards those users who do not keep up with news, break their system
and then cry. To this I say, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make
him drink". The purpose, imo, for the new methods of pushing out news info is
not to reach every single user. It's about pushing more info out and in more
meaningful ways; a two-fold problem.

Pushing out important info is, I'd sincerely hope, something everyone hear can
agree is a good thing. Pushing out more is debatable due to quality versus
quantity proportions, but given quality as being high and consistent, pushing
more news is a good idea.

This leaves how to propagate messages meaningfully. Yes, gentoo has many niche
groups that keep up with a small portion (in the overall sense) of news.
Creating (or beefing up an existing medium) a common, general place for
information is a good thing. But, this shouldn't mean it's a replacement. Just a
central location.

Basically, the aforementioned methods presented in the thread are interesting
and would be nice to have. You can't reach everyone, but the point should be in
reaching more in a more effective way.
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Nathan L. Adams]

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Hash: SHA1

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-11-01 at 12:11 +0900, pclouds wrote:
> 
>>Just curious how other distros deliver important news to their users?
> 
> 
> Red Hat has you subscribe to RHN, which sends you errata based on your
> installed configuration.  When you add packages via up2date, Red Hat
> knows.
> 
> Others just use mailing lists, as far as I know, though I have limited
> experience with other distributions.  (Slackware, LFS, and RH are it)
> 

Almost all of them publish 'errata'. That is why I suggest a single
place for all technical info such as the recent apache upgrade:

http://errata.gentoo.org/

i.e. Upgrade/migration stuff would go there as opposed to 'fresh
install' stuff (which belongs in the normal docs area).

I forget who it was, but one of the folks involved in that said that the
users overwhelmingly want a *single* place to look for this type of
info. You can repost the summaries elsewhere (via a RSS feed to GWN or
the mailing list(s) for example), but there should be one place to get
all of the info.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Nathan L. Adams]

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Duncan wrote:
> Stuart Herbert posted <1130785533.10547.41.camel@mogheiden.gnqs.org>,
> excerpted below,  on Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:05:33 +0000:
> 
>>The original problem is that GWN, forums, planet.g.o, gentoo-dev - even
>>together, we've seen that they just don't reach enough of our user base.
>>Aren't we just going to reach the same people by putting more news in
>>the same old place?  How is that going to reach the people we're not
>>reaching today?
> 
> 
> There is /one/ way to reach /everyone/ doing an upgrade (well, those that
> do emerge -a or -p, anyway, and those that don't, well... they apparently
> /like/ being left in the dark, and doing perhaps risky upgrades without
> knowing what's going on, so let's not disturb their "enjoyment" <g>).
> 
> That ONE way: Push a "null" portage -rX upgrade to both stable and ~
> versions, the sole purpose of which is to print the *VITALLY* *IMPORTANT*
> *ANNOUNCEMENT* as an einfo both after the "upgrade", and as part of the
> "portage will stop merging at this point and recalculate" message one gets
> with a -p or -a.  (For double-sure effect, make the first emerge action
> after the upgrade /only/ print the message, doing nothing else.  Further
> emerges would then go back to normal behavior.)
> 

Cramming this info in portage is stupid, because portage is supposed to
be NON-interactive. Does anyone really expect users to sit and stare at
the output of a compile (openoffice takes HOURS to compile) waiting for
an einfo to pass by?

Perhaps printing out an URI after portage is done would be useful:

http://errata.g.o/apache-migration.xml

Publishing the info on a webpage also allows you to view the info from
another computer if you seriously b0rk something during an upgrade.
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Daniel Drake]

Thierry Carrez wrote:
> But it's a good idea to have some kind of automatic replication of
> frontpage announcements to gentoo-announce and the forums, this will
> help getting important messages through. However, I'm not sure *all*
> frontpage contents should get replicated to gentoo-announce and the
> forums. GWN announcements for example do not need to appear elsewhere...
> 

While we're talking about replicating the front page, I just added the Gentoo 
News rdf feed to Planet Gentoo and Gentoo Universe.

I hope this helps the overall situation a very little bit :)

Daniel
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Sven Vermeulen]

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On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 08:34:21AM -0500, Nathan L. Adams wrote:
> Almost all of them publish 'errata'. That is why I suggest a single
> place for all technical info such as the recent apache upgrade:
> 
> http://errata.gentoo.org/
> 
> i.e. Upgrade/migration stuff would go there as opposed to 'fresh
> install' stuff (which belongs in the normal docs area).

I disagree. Upgrading documentation can be part of the normal docs area as
well.

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee          |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Documentation Project Lead  |  http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Xavier Neys]

Duncan wrote:
>>Number of users subscribed to gentoo-announce: 7,988
>>Total number of GETs on our home page and news feed in a *single day*: 75,302 
>>from 19,240 different IPs (on Sunday 2005-10-30).
> 
> I read announce very regularly (checking it several times a day, most
> days), but wouldn't show up in your announce stats.  Why?  Because I
> subscribe to gmane.org's gmane.linux.gentoo.announce newsgroup.

> Bottom line, then, announce has far more readers than the ones Gentoo
> tracks thru its subscription list.  A wild guess, as it'd take some work
> to make it anything more than that, would put it on par with the
> gentoo.org front page.  It may actually get more circulation than the
> front page.  (That said, as others have posted, if more news gets posted
> to the front page, those unique IP counts will probably go up accordingly.
> LWN and others could easily grab from there, as well.)

Of course there are more readers than subscribed ones.
Far more, I doubt it, how many would that be?
As many as our front page and news feed, definitely not.

FYI, 81,054 different IPs have hit our front page or the news feed in just 5 
days, and we're talking about a resource where hardly anything but the GWN and 
the occasional GDP status is ever posted.
Anyway, it's not like we had to choose between them, it's a trivial thing to 
post a news item to -announce.

-- 
/  Xavier Neys
\_ Gentoo Documentation Project
/  French & Internationalisation Lead
\  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en
/\
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Getting Important Updates To Users

[Stuart Herbert]

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Hi,

On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 15:25 +0100, Xavier Neys wrote:
> FYI, 81,054 different IPs have hit our front page or the news feed in just 5 
> days

What happened to my earlier request about visitor numbers?  Have you
done any clickstream analysis to work out why these people are visiting
the site?

Using unique IPs is a pretty poor way to guestimate visitor numbers :(

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                         stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer                                  http://www.gentoo.org/
                                              http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

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