On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:35:25PM -0700, Dale Bewley wrote: > ----- "Paul W. Frields" <stickster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:28:23AM -0400, Mel Chua wrote: > > > Thanks for asking, Dale. > > > > > > On 09/10/2009 06:19 PM, Dale Bewley wrote: > > >> After reading https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Insight I > > >> wanted to login and see what Zikula looks like and how it would > > >> actually be used. > > > > > > The Fedora Insight (FI) workflow is being hacked on in Marketing, so > > > > > I've copied the Marketing list - actually, you have impeccable > > > timing. Robyn Bergeron has gone through and made a basic > > > workflow (and her work was the initial driver that made sure a > > > lot of basic functionality in Zikula was put in), but it's time > > > to figure out the actual workflow for News, so I was literally > > > *just* about to ask the News list about this. > > > > > >> I created an account and logged in, but do I need to have my > > >> account authorized by someone? I don't see how to create a test > > >> post. > > > > > > It looks like all new accounts are being made administrators by > > > default on the test instance, so you can go to > > > > > > https://publictest6.fedoraproject.org/zikula/index.php?module=News&type=admin > > > > > > to create new articles. This obviously needs to not be the case > > > for the live instance. ;) So we need someone from News to figure > > > out the workflow you would like. > > > > > >> I realize it's early, but it seems like a pretty flat > > >> hierarchy. I'm having trouble picturing how "FWN" would be > > >> carved out. > > > > > > The answer is "we don't know, and we were actually just about to > > > ask you." > > > > > > Dale, would you or anyone from News be willing to tackle > > > https://fedorahosted.org/marketing-team/ticket/32? It shouldn't > > > be that hard, and the best way to carve out FWN so that the News > > > team likes it is to have the News team carve it out. ;) > > > > It's much easier than it seems to "carve out" space for any > > topical area in a CMS. The flatness essentially means things can > > be organized or reorganized at will very easily. That sounds kind > > of hazy and conceptual, but it's pretty simple to have URLs and > > navigation on the site work to support something like: > > > > http://insight.fedoraproject.org/weekly-news > > http://insight.fedoraproject.org/podcasts > > ... > > I'll admit to being somewhat curmudgeonly on the whole CMS idea, but > I am doing my best to put that aside and give it a fair shake. :) I > can see benefits, but wonder what barriers to entry it might create. > > I went back and read up on the fedora-news discussion of what was > referred to as Fedora Journal and Project FooBar before being named > Fedora Insight. > > Most of the conversation took place in July > * http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-news-list/2009-July/thread.html > > Here are my repeatedly edited thoughts which may or may not make > sense by this point. > > > = How might it work? = > > FWN has typically served to provide a roundup of the developments in > Fedora over the previous week, comprised of several "Beats" > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Beats which cover mailing list(s) > etc for a topic. I can imagine a mapping of Categories in Zikula to > a set of "Beats" or Topics. Presumably each Category produces its > own RSS feed. Users could ignore FWN and subscribe to just a single > beat. Yup, all makes sense. > Each Category may not have or need a beat writer, but if the concept > of FWN is to continue there would have to be a means for a writer to > adopt a Category and feel responsible for monitoring it. The beat > writer or others could contribute stories at any point during the > week. Once a week a beat writer could post a roundup of their beat > including the usual sources, plus any postings made to the Fedora > Insight category during the week. > > A FWN editor could then gather these beat roundups into a larger > roundup called FWN (or something else) for publishing with a ToC and > a summary abstract. That post would go in the FWN category, and the > RSS feed from that would become FWN. This makes sense too -- LWN.net does something that looks like this from the outside, although I'm not sure how their internal process works. > That whole concept could also possibly go out the window, but that > seems a shame. It seems to me there is value in a regularly > scheduled newsletter. Otherwise, isn't it just a forum or a blog? If > developers and others post enough news, maybe there won't be much > need for a beat writer, or maybe the writer will feel discouraged > that way. The way LWN does it seems to work very well. I don't check it every day, but I usually look at the weeklies to see what I missed by not doing so. By giving the users more choices we're doing a better job getting news out there. Some people read RSS every day, some people will read the weekly aggregations. > The creation of categories is something to work out. They seem to be > flat and would span the CMS. The mechanics of assigning beat writers > is something to ponder. Also a means to notify an editor that a > category round up is complete would need to be pondered. Tags? Same > old wiki page? This is where a CMS can excel -- workflow. It could actually notify the editor via email (or some other way) when a beat writer simply checks a box or tags a beat done. > = Ease of adoption = > > Putting my curmudgeon hat back on... Posting content is going to be > very inconvenient without the leverage of wiki markup. Constructing > links to list postings, wiki content, other news items will be much > more painful. Perhaps there are Zikula plugins to recreate some > functionality like the <ref></ref> <references /> in mediawiki. Such > plugins would require explanation to new beat writers. I reckon way > more newcomers will be familiar with Mediawiki. > > It seems to me this could make it harder to attract beat > writers. Maybe that's only a personal bias. Maybe more time poking > Zikula will yield more optimism, but it's time spent poking. (I'll > continue to poke some more) Zikula should include one or more WYSIWYG editors that make life even easier than the MediaWiki markup. A contributor could use the same tools they're used to on Wordpress, Google Docs, forums, and all around the web. > Besides all the logistics, this is the biggest problem to me as a > beat writer. I am loathe to hand code HTML. Beat writers burn out > all the time. The more painful it is, the quicker the > burnout. Life's hard though. :) Agreed, no one should have to hand code HTML to do this work! -- Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug _______________________________________________ Fedora-news-list mailing list Fedora-news-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-news-list
