I have been editing the Planet beat in FWN for about 7.5 months now, and
I've noticed a few things. Given the recent discussions about the future
of FWN, creating a Fedora Journal/Magazine and Project FooBar, this may
be a good time to share some ideas that have been ruminating in my head
for a while.
The Planet beat is unique in that it represents a fairly broad
cross-section of not only the people in the Fedora community
(developers, contributors, users, etc...) but also a diverse selection
of topics. Many (most?) of the linked posts cover themes also reported
by other beats. It isn't a complete duplication of effort, as topics are
usually covered from different angles, but it does mean that in order to
get the full picture about anything, you really need to check all of the
FWN beats to see what else might have happened.
So now my [potentially heretical, definitely radical] thoughts: Would it
be worth discussing the format of FWN itself? What would FWN look like
if it was organized around "topics" instead of "sources" (what we
currently call a Beat)?
(As a sidenote: The Developments beat is probably the most
complicated/time consuming beat, and I'm not surprised that no one has
stepped up. The bar--and the barriers to entry--are incredibly high, and
it was a valuable source of information, taken from an incredibly busy
mailing list that understandably can be difficult to stay on top of.
What I'm proposing may also make filling this hole in FWN a little easier.)
I'm not suggesting that FWN be thrown out, or even that tomorrow we turn
around and redesign the whole format. But in the wider context of the
FooBar discussions, and in particular the possibility of finding
software that can support new workflows, this may be the best time for
any sort of change, if that is something that would work. I'm really
only trying to start a bigger discussion, and the above ideas are just a
starting point (i.e. feel free to throw them out). But in the long run,
what is FWN's purpose? I would sum it up as "summarize and share
information relevant to the Fedora community" so we should do that as
best we can.
-Adam Batkin
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