discussion transcript, paraphrased
ja = Jack Aboutboul, md = Mo Duffy, ss = Stephen Smoogen, mc = Mel Chua - this discussion took place in Westford on June 17, 2009. Notes taken by Mel Chua.
ja: explains task-based to milestone-based switch to stephen. we want more marketing metrics - let's do a magazine.
md: why not spruce up fwn? what audience are we trying to reach:
ss: what I'd like to do is bring (non-fedora-dev) people in to show what we're doing... are we reaching people who are not fedora devs?
md: how often are we trying to do this? what do we want to accomplish?
ja: let's break it down. fwn is more short-term oriented; we want more media stuff, fwn is very text-heavy. we have multiple sources creating content, and none of it is coordinated.
md: what are those sources?
ja: fwn, the beat...
md: the beat = docs? that's not really magazine-style content.
ss: these are summaries?
md: yes.
ss: we're looking at doing a full blog... like a post blog, edited.
ja: let me clarify what I mean by a magazine. more of an aggregate/feed, something like linuxjournal's website, this would be the standardized feed for getting interesting featurettes.
md: so this isn't about getting more people to write more content; it's that people are writing content but it's all over the place, so let's get it in one bucket.
ss: we have planet.fp.o, but this would be not your personal blog.
ja: at the same time, I don't want to make planet defunct. another reason this is important is that we want a steady list of stuff we (mktg) need to make - so that every month we know we need to do X. Right now, the list of stuff we make is scattered. But we need a regular cycle for marketing deliverables too.
mc: making sure I understand - examples?
md: gnome journal - it's published monthly
mc: planet sugar labs, planet laptop, and olpcnews, also full circle - similar?
ja: yes, more on the news than the tutorials front, so more gnome journal/olpcnews than full circle
md: sounds like the primary goal is to have a central edited place for this content.
ss: how would this fit into community-the-platform?
md: we could probably fit a module into community, with zikula...
ss: would this be a way to help with community villages? would communty be a good steppingstone?
md: audience = already in the community, not afraid of technical stuff, but who might want a good central content source and a routine for finding information
ja: that's pretty much it. also, from the design end of things, we want to have it fit with whatever design is doing, so it looks consistent. also, when i was up here a month ago and you showed me the apple.com tour, let's get sketches for that, b/c the more consistent we look the more professional we look as well.
md: a look for fedoramagazine.com?
ja: oh, we need a name
ss: "Rob"
md: we have some branding templates we can plug this into.
ss: let's stay away from "magazine" since we're not going there... "magazine" seems brand-y, flash-y...
md: "journal" tends to be like a magazine but more technical... what existing publications are out there that we should model ourselves on?
ja: it's similar to lj but not... or lwn...
ss: what would the licensing be on this, btw?
ja/md unision: CC
md: I'd prefer non-ND license, stuff should be modifiable. name: "fedora first"?
ss: what are the foundations?
md: freedom, first, features, friends. first is like "the first place you go to get news..."
ss: freedom is more a newspaper title...
md: 'first' has a contemporary edginess.
ss: let's ask the list
ja: yeah, I'm going to solicit feedback on everything
md: much of our media content comes from rh and it's not remixable
ss: if we point to it instead of republishing, the licensing problem goes away
mc: fedoraproject.org/first?
md: *starts making a mockup!*
mc: how about i18n, accessibility?
md: *adds a language drop-down chooser*
ja: are there transcription tools for podcasts?
mc: yep, OSS ones.
ss: I also want to make sure we don't overwork the transcribers.
ja: there will be a workflow.
mc: let's go through planet.fp.o and give a quick yes/no to headlines to figure out what sort of content everyone thinks should be in this
everyone: *triages real quick*
md: we should do quick profiles of contributors
ss: if you know someone, you don't flame them
ja: lunchtime!
Content categories
- interviews with community members
- feature focus/update (tour)
- howto (for experienced users)
- upcoming event announcement/reminder
- past event report
- neutral reporting on debates
- rawhide report
- meeting coverage - upcoming-meetings calendar, minutes
Content examples
(taken from recent Planet Fedora posts)
Yes
- What's new in Fedora 11 from SELinux
- Western Digital MyBook as a Backup System (Fedora-specific existing-user tutorial)
- "you should vote; here are upcoming elections" posts
- "people voted, here are election results" posts
- Fedora 11 Release Party Wau Report
- npov coverage of things like "there is a debate on dropping cd media, here are links to several views expressed"
- Read All About the Fedora 11 Retrospective (past event coverage)
No
- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPACEWALK! (not Fedora-specific)
- lolcats
- "I voted!" posts
- "Initial KMS support for radeons merged to Linus tree" (the blogpost-as-commit-message)
- SoaS for the XO-1 uses Fedora
- State of the Poulsbo Address
- Chinese translation of [a book I wrote] is being worked on
- So you’re looking for a hosting provider?
- Social Desktop contest
- Announcing kernelpodcast.org
- The downfall of modern civilization... (on the 'drop cd media?' debate - we're not looking for editorials, but npov coverage)
- Simplez! Simple Pairing support now in gnome-bluetooth. (more of a blog-as-commit-message than a feature report)