[Debconf-team] Cooperation between the DC and the publicity teams (was: DebConf11 call for contributions)
Hi DebConf orgas,
thanks for your work to organise a nice conference year after year, you
are doing a splendig job! But may take the opportunity to introduce you
to Debians Publicity Team? We are open for collaboration, and are
willing to help you in any way we can, but you don't make it very easy,
although I repeatedly contacted you, and asked you to contact us well in
advance.
As previous attempts didn't seem to work, I'll show you a very positive
example of cooperation between Debian's release team and Debian's
Publicity and Press team, when new Point Releases are announced.
Weeks before an point release is created, they ask at press@debian.org,
if we will be available on the planed date, to send out the
announcement. As postings to the debian-announce and debian-news
mailing list are restricted (and no, allowing some DC orga falks to
allow posting there as asked previously is not an option as long as
collaboration doesn't work), they make sure, that someone is available
at the release date.
Usually a week before the announcement has to be sent out, they contact
us again, with details of the desired content - actually they do even
more: By now, they have their scripts adapted so they create the
announcements in the form we need them for our webpage. This allows
reviews and translations of the announcements. They also keep us
updated regarding the timeline, and send us patches for last minute
updates. If something is found during the reviews, they are also open
for patches, so furutre announcements won't have the same error.
On the day the point releases are done, they also keep us updated about
their progress, and when they consider it safe to send out the
announcements. When our time has come, we know exactly whome to ask for
a final okay, can add the announcement to Debian's web page (including
translations), and finally send out the e-mail version.
>From our point of view, that's a perfect workflow!
Now compare that with the DebConf Orga Team. On the evening of the 7th
I got hilighted on IRC, which I only saw the next morning, when I was at
work. I didn't found any details or timeline, but got some pointers to
a wiki page (which only seemed to me like some notes, not even a draft
for an announcement and still had some questions in it) and a pointer to
last years announcement 'for the usual blub' IIRC. As I was at work I
didn't had much time to actually do something, so I do, what I usually
do, when I'm not aware that something is urgent: I ask to contact the
publicity team via the list or the irc channel.
So I was quite suprised, when I looked at my mails this midday, and
found, that the announcement (which IMHO still needed some improvements)
has already been sent out. Without any coordination with us.
I hope you understand, that it is quite frustrating for me to see press
related work fail year after year. I have no idea, why cooperation
between your team and us seems to be impossible...
So, if anyone reading this has an idea, what's going on or how to
improve things, feel free to speak up, I'm willing to listen. But by
now I've lost all energy and interst in trying to try to improve things.
Best Regards,
Alexander
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