Subject: POW -- start spreading the news
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Thu Feb 10 2000 - 00:19:42 CST
Now that everyone's catching up with the backlog of POWs, it's time to get
some fresh ones out there for folks to sink their teeth into.
If you're one of the many AbiWord fans who's been looking for a non-coding
way to help out, this week's project may be one to consider.
the goal
--------
We need someone with a flair for writing to start editing and producing a
weekly summary of news items related to AbiWord (or AbiSuite, if you feel
really ambitious.)
Any Open Source project that gets to a certain size has at least one of
these publications, some of them quite elaborate. For example:
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2000/5/
http://lwn.net/2000/0210/a/gnomesum0202.html
http://mozilla.org/status/
http://lwn.net/2000/0210/a/zwn.html
http://www.winehq.com/News/2000-06.html
As anyone who's tried to keep up with the flood of traffic on abiword-dev
recently knows, there's a *lot* going on. Anyone who's involved in active
development gets immersed in this flood, which is fine.
However, there are tens of thousands of people interested in AbiWord, so it
would be very useful if someone could summarize the high points of what's
been happening each week for "the rest of us".
scope
-----
To be a weekly publication will require a regular, steady time commitment.
However, how big a job this is depends on how ambitious you are. :-)
For an example of the bare minimum this takes, I've gone ahead and done one
myself:
http://lwn.net/2000/0210/a/awn.html
I got this into the rotation at Linux Weekly News, but there may also be
other places where people would want to see news like this (such as Linux
Today). Part of the job here is for *you* to figure out who'd be interested
in reading the news you're covering, and how to get it to them.
For example, should the news be sent to any of our existing mailing lists,
or should it have its own list? Are you interested in hosting your own
website with archives of each issue, or do you want it published on our
site?
hints
-----
1. Start small. What's most important to people is the quality of the
content. Innovative formats and delivery mechanisms can come later. Once
you've established a readership, they'll let you know what they like and
don't like. Once they like what you're already doing, they'll love it when
you start adding more and more.
2. Be reliable. If you're not publishing just about every week, people
won't read you. Also, remember that Linux Weekly News needs everything in
on Wednesday, or else you'll slip a week.
3. Be selective. Summarize and excerpt. Focus on the stuff that *you*
think will be interesting. If people want a comprehensive look at what's
going on, they can subscribe to the lists and drink all they want from the
firehose.
4. Be organized. Take a look at what the weekly news editors for other
projects are doing. You'll notice that they all make use of hyperlinks,
subheads, and whitespace to help make their content easier to skim and read.
5. Be interesting. This one's more important than you might think. A
little personality in your writing goes a long, long way.
extra credit
------------
Just getting weekly summaries published on a regular basis will be quite an
accomplishment, and might even require a team effort. However, once you get
well-established, it might be interesting to branch out even further. For
example, what would the AbiSuite equivalents of the following sites look
like?
http://news.gnome.org/gnome-news/
http://www.mozillazine.org/
First things first, though. :-)
Enjoy!
Paul
PS: For more background on the whole POW / ZAP / SHAZAM concept, see the
following introduction:
http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/99/September/0097.html
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