[openbeos] Re: Progress reports
- From: "Jorge G. Mare (aka Koki)" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:00:15 -0700
Howdy,
Simon Taylor wrote:
Howdy,
My "activity update" posts haven't actually been abandoned, despite how
it looks. I'm currently working on a summary of the last 3 months (600
emails read, over 7000 to go...) Once that's done I'm going to move my
list email address to an IMAP server so I can get the mails at work and
home, so I can keep track of things as they happen.
The kind of audience that I was aiming my update posts at were those on
the fringes of the community, who want a feel for what is happening
without having to subscribe to all the relevant feeds/lists.
Waldemar can confirm, but I think the annotated feed actually aims at
exactly the same target audience. :)
I think the
best way of doing this is an edited handwritten summary, so people can
check the website and get a feel for what's been going on recently. Your
"annotated commits" approach is an interesting one but is maybe aimed at
a different audience - those who want more frequent, yet more readable
updates on progress.
In my experience, one-man efforts (such as this one to provide
handwritten reports) are very difficult to sustain over a long period of
time. After a while, it becomes hard to keep up, so what starts as a
by-weekly report becomes monthly and then quarterly... The problem with
this approach is that as the reports become more spread apart, the
information becomes old and therefore less newsworthy.
Looking at the sample feed that Waldemar provided here (please, do take
a look)...
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/17874889821028276775
...the annotated feed can provide as much depth of information as a
handwritten summary, and it does so in a very timely manner. Given that
generating the annotated feed would require less effort and that it
actually can be done by multiple people in collaboration, I think this
is a smarter and potentially much more sustainable way to push up to
date info on what's happening in the development of Haiku from a central
point.
I think the collaboration aspect of Waldemar's proposal is also very
important. We are a very generous community and thus good at
contributing (as recently proven by the HCD08 donatio drive). But IMO we
lack a bit in the collaboration department (myself included, btw).
Waldemar has come up with good way to participate and collaborate; let's
try to give it a shot. :)
To do my own little part, I am looking into the possible means of
publishing the feed entries on the website in such a way that anyone can
comment on them (just like as if they were blog or forum posts). I don't
know if it's possible yet, but if it is, then this will promote even
more participation, specifically from the (target) audience of the
pushed information.
In summary, I think the annotated feed is a great idea, and I really
hope that we can find people willing to collaborate to make it happen.
Cheers,
Koki
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