Subject: Proposal: pulling newsbytes from www.pgfoundry.org

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:39:00 -0700

WWW team,

In an effort to make PostgreSQL accessory projects more visible, I'd like 
to start including the newsbytes from the pgfoundry main page in the 
www.PostgreSQL.org news ticker.  Probably the best way to do this is 
direct database pull.  Anyone have time to hack something up?  

Also, any reason not to do this?  Just so you know, I do edit the newsbytes 
for relevance and brevity.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:20:28 -0700

> direct database pull.  Anyone have time to hack something up?  

Only really interested if someone puts together an ATOM feed of the
news.

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 17:57:22 -0700

Josh,

> Only really interested if someone puts together an ATOM feed of the

You're aware of the limitations of Gforge.  Be realistic.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:57:39 -0700

> You're aware of the limitations of Gforge.  Be realistic.

I am :) you already brought up a direct database pull. We can just
change that to:

A cron that creates an ATOM file from a direct database pull.

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:53:50 +0200

> for relevance and brevity.

I would not like to add a direct dependency on the pgfoundry database,
given the track record that pgfoundry has for uptime.

I'd like to see some kind of RSS feed, because we already deal with
caching of them there. That way, the main website will survive the
regular pgfoundry outages (at worst it'll cache an empty file, and leave
the pgfoundry list empty).

Oh, and you need to figure out a way to integrate it nicely: see thread
of a couple of days ago about adding more stuff to the frontpage. (No, I
don't think mergeing it it with the "main news" functionality is a good
idea - at least not unless we moderate it...)

//Magnus

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From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:38:18 +0200

> the pgfoundry list empty).

yeah - rss feed is the way to go if we want this

> idea - at least not unless we moderate it...)

iirc the pgfoundry main page news are already moderated - but we would 
still have to find a solution to the integration problem.

Stefan

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From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:58:40 +0100

>> given the track record that pgfoundry has for uptime.

Yeah - what's the status on that new server JD?

> yeah - rss feed is the way to go if we want this

Agreed.

> iirc the pgfoundry main page news are already moderated - but we would still
> have to find a solution to the integration problem.

I'm not convinced that merging them is such a hot idea anyway. It will
likely seriously reduce the amount of time any announcement gets front
page time which will in turn reduce the usefulness of the section.
Further, we then have a potential problem ensuring we don't get
duplicate items when one gets approved on www and subsequently on
pgFoundry. That of course, applies whether we merge the feed with the
existing news, or add it as a new section (ignoring the layout issues
that would involve!)

-- 
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com

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From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:58:12 -0400

> existing news, or add it as a new section (ignoring the layout issues

The other concern that I have is that this gives even less face time to core 
project related news, which already has a hard time getting exposure. Things 
like minor releases, project events (beta/gsoc), and large community 
gatherings (oscon/pgcon) get at best limited exposure and that's if aren't 
just lumped in with everything else. 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:16:54 -0700

> just lumped in with everything else. 

What if we merge them with the blog stream, then?

--Josh

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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:20:45 -0700

> just lumped in with everything else. 

OSCON and PGCON are responsible for their own promotion. As pgfoundry is
an official PostgreSQL supported project, it deserves more face time
than either of those two. One option would be to have:

PostgreSQL News
 * Core
 * PgFoundry
 * Releases

Related News
 * OSCON
 * PgCon
 * West
 * East

etc...

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:35:16 -0700

> What if we merge them with the blog stream, then?

That would be reasonable if we could get some kind of ATOM output. We
already give a lot of space to planet.

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:26:20 -0400

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 23:20:45 Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > The other concern that I have is that this gives even less face time to
> > core project related news, which already has a hard time getting
> > exposure. Things like minor releases, project events (beta/gsoc), and
> > large community gatherings (oscon/pgcon) get at best limited exposure and
> > that's if aren't just lumped in with everything else.
>

Thats the kind of thinking that helps keep the postgresql community small. We 
should be promoting those events that rally our existing community and help 
raise exposure for Postgres outside of the community, no matter who runs 
them.

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:02:55 -0700

>  We 

Uhh yeah... O.k. then I want CMD to have a big splash across the screen,
let's not forget EDB and Truviso. :P

Seriously though, I wasn't suggesting we not list OSCON or PGCON, but
they can be listed in events and news and they can blog and we can grab
their feeds, we don't need to give them "special" attention.

Special attention should be limited specifically to community. That is
how you are going to drive a larger community, by reinforcing the
community itself. Not by becoming advertising space.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:22:17 -0700

Guys,

> community itself. Not by becoming advertising space.

Can we *please* get back on topic here?  Absolutely none of this is relevant 
to a pgfoundry feed.

First, I wasn't proposing merging pgfoundry news with *events* (which only has 
3 slots) but with *news* (which has 6).  Right now, 3 of those slots are 
taken up by commercial products; don't you think it's fair that pgFoundry 
projects should bump them?  If we have a problem with core release 
announcements scrolling off too fast, isn't that a *code* problem for the WWW 
team to solve?

The pgfoundry team can easily regulate the volume of pgfoundry traffic that 
gets passed on.

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:29:42 -0700

> Can we *please* get back on topic here?  Absolutely none of this is relevant 

Well yes it is, if you want a feed to show up on the website.

> projects should bump them?  If we have a problem with core release 

Yes I do, which was my point.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:40:51 -0400

On Thursday 12 June 2008 13:02:55 Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > > OSCON and PGCON are responsible for their own promotion. As pgfoundry
> > > is an official PostgreSQL supported project, it deserves more face time
> > should be promoting those events that rally our existing community and
> > help raise exposure for Postgres outside of the community, no matter who
> > runs them.
>

Note I said we need to promote the *events*, not the people behind them. If 
your going to make attempts at reductio ad absurdum, at least have the 
decency to read the posts you respond to. 

> community itself. Not by becoming advertising space.

PGCon happens to be the largest dedicated gathering of postgresql contributors 
in the world, and one of the largest conferences dedicated toward postgresql 
in general. (You might know this if you bothered to show up to one :-P  )

Further, when the PostgreSQL project takes part in evetns like OSCon, GSoC, or 
LinuxWorld, it helps raise the status of the project outside of our 
community.  Because of that, it's in our best interest to make sure as much 
of the community can attend these events, so people can see that we have a 
large, vibrant community behind the project.

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:50:53 -0400

On Thursday 12 June 2008 13:22:17 Josh Berkus wrote:
> First, I wasn't proposing merging pgfoundry news with *events* (which only
> has 3 slots) but with *news* (which has 6).  Right now, 3 of those slots
> are taken up by commercial products; don't you think it's fair that
> pgFoundry projects should bump them? If we have a problem with core 
> release announcements scrolling off too fast, isn't that a *code* problem
> for the WWW team to solve?
>

I think it is only a code problem once we decide on a policy we want to use. 
Right now we have a few different types of content we promote on the main 
page:

core release announcements 
other core specific news
project announcements
product announcements
training information
large event information
pug information
blogs

As I see it, promoting core information should be our largest priority, which 
would include the top two items. 

our next priority should be promoting postgresql to the general populations, 
which would include large event and pug informations. 

after that we have service level information, which is projects, products, and 
training.

now, I left out blogs because they are kind of across the map as far as 
content, but based on popularity of them, they should probably be held high 
on the list, I'd say somewhere below large event information but above pugs. 

looking that list over, istm just aggregating pgfoundry and our current news 
feed is the way to go, but there are still a number of areas that should be 
addressed, imho.

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:46:38 -0700

Robert,

> pug information

Where?

> As I see it, promoting core information should be our largest priority,
> which would include the top two items.
>
> our next priority should be promoting postgresql to the general
> populations, which would include large event and pug informations.
>
> after that we have service level information, which is projects,
> products, and training.
>
> content, but based on popularity of them, they should probably be held
> high on the list, I'd say somewhere below large event information but
> above pugs.

Hmmm.  I'd put blogs lower on the list just because their content is less 
vetted.

> looking that list over, istm just aggregating pgfoundry and our current
> news feed is the way to go, but there are still a number of areas that
> should be addressed, imho.

Which areas?

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:28:19 -0400

> Hmmm.  I'd put blogs lower on the list just because their content is less

right, but based on the stats, it's one of the things that draws a lot of 
visitors, so I think that counts for something. 

> > should be addressed, imho.

More focus on core announcements / events, regular pug promotion, highlighting 
large community events, and sorting out training (which most seem to agree is 
sub-optimal)