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Re: On -news and -announce usage



On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 02:15:36PM -0400, David Prévot wrote:
> 
> I just noticed (gmane seems to not work anymore for -announce) that
> - -announce is not only used for “*Important*announcements* Major news and
> very important changes in the project.” [1], anymore but is also used
> for “*Debian*News*[…]*and*otherwise* General news about the distribution
> and the project.” [2]: artwork contest [3], BSPs [4] and New machine [5]
> are definitely not -announce material.
> 
>   1: http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/
>   2: http://lists.debian.org/debian-news/
>   3: http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2012/msg00002.html
>   4: http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2012/msg00003.html
>   5: http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2012/msg00004.html
> 
> I'm a bit disappointed that such change on our mailing lists usage came
> up without a proper public discussion, or at least a public statement
> about it.

Yes. You're right about it and I apologize with you all for this: it was
my initiative, after having read a mail in which Alexander Reichle-Schmel
asked if any of us remembered why we don't use debian-news Mailing List
for DPN only and debian-announce for or the other announcements.

 I thought it could be a good idea to
rationalize the use of the two mailing lists used for press/publicity
announcements and, as no-one objected in the press team,  I started using 
-news only for DPN and -announce for all the announcements.
I didn't think it could have such an impact, since David noted it on
IRC. (So: thank you David for the heads up)


> 
> As a user, I was pretty happy with a low traffic -announce that allowed
> me to be aware of major changes (as a new stable release or point
> release), and I used to advise other users to subscribe to it (or its
> localized equivalent). Now that its purpose changed, I'm not so sure
> anymore about its value.

AFAICT, in the past, debian-announce was used for announcement of a
certain importance (as new releases, releases updates, eol of oldstable,
etc) while debian-news for all the rest.
This was not a rule carved in the stone, but just a praxis.

I agree with the fact that is important to provide people a low-traffic
mailing list with major changes regarding the release. My question is:
aren't debian-security-announce and debian-stable-announce enough for it?
Point releases are also announced on debian-stable-announce (see, [1] for
instance), and on debian-security-announce we had recently the reminder
for the EOL of Lenny (see [2]).

I'm not against continuing with the old way, but I'd really like to
understand if it's possible to rationalize things and avoid to duplicate
efforts.

Note also that with the soon-to-come blog.debian.org we will probably
decide to publish some minor news only there, and this will make
-announce probably lighter than now.

[...]

> Maybe should we change the description of the list
> and prepare an announcement about it anyway if we decide to push all
> - -news material in -announce…

Yup, agree on it. I just didn't think of creating such a mess ;). But
sure, let's talk about it and decide!


Cheers,
Francesca

ps: in the meanwhile, I'll send announcement and DPN in the old way (just
the last one I did a mess, and send it on -announce even if I wanted to
send on -news)

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-stable-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2011/msg00238.html

-- 
"Nostra patria è il mondo intero
e nostra legge è la libertà
ed un pensiero
ribelle in cor ci sta."		P.Gori

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