Re: Who's *still* or *not* using Debian?
[ Answering two related part of different mails, thus not following
completely the two subthreads ]
Hi,
On 14/11/2011 14:47, Kåre Thor Olsen wrote:
On Saturday 12 November 2011 21:40:21 David Prévot wrote:
Something asked to consultants that would actually makes sense too,
would be to ask for an URL where users stat they are actually using
Debian: the page won't be linked from the Debian website, but it would
provide us an easy way to check via a script if the page is still valid
and actually refers to Debian. I'll add that in my request, it won't be
mandatory for this first run, but could be if nobody disagrees about
that (see attached patch).
I think some organisations may have guidelines restricting what can be
published on their website, or perhaps they don't want to give this
information on their own website, in which case requiring them to have a URL
mentioning Debian, could result in us not being able to list them.
If some organization can't provide an URL mentioning Debian, they could
still be listed on our website, e.g. without a link to their home page
(which is optional anyway), it doesn't seems completely unfair to me.
Anyway, I don't feel totally comfortable asking something that sounds
like a “link exchange” request, and my proposed wording seems to confuse
some people I already contacted, updated patch attached.
Another matter is who is submitting the information to us. When adding a new
entry, I sometimes get the impression that the submitter isn't related to the
organisation itself, but just happens to have "inside information".
Right, that's not totally an issue, but since some people provided us
more than one organization description, it could make the automation a
bit trickier (see bellow).
On 15/11/2011 01:52, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
Brainstorming:
Sounds to me like something a mailing list software is doing. I can
imagine subscribing everybody to a dedicated (pseudo) mailing list.
Periodic pings are sent to the list and we let the mailing list software
track bounces.
It offers a way of automation that could be neat. First thought: it
wouldn't have fit the current initial ping process (since those entries
are pretty old, lots of manual tricks need to be taken care of to have
actually someone who reply the mail), but it could indeed be a useful
tool once the contact database will be up to date.
I don't know Mailman enough: is there a possibility to store related
data (at least the “{com,edu,gov,org}/<name>” part) associated with each
subscribed person? Some people may have referenced several
organizations, and at least this information must be personalized in
each message. If not, this solution can't be used (on pristine Alioth
anyway). Having the possibility to import directly the text from
english/users/{com,edu,gov,org}/<name>.wml like it was done for the
initial ping would be even more useful (so people don't need to follow
the URL in the mail to see the text, even so, someone already found this
initial request “fishy”).
BTW, how about concentrating the handling of all subscriptions to a
separate mailing list (in order not to overload debian-www).
I'm not sure: there is not that much people asking to be listed on the
website (a lot less than the spam gathered), and keeping this handling
in an already existing public place can help to share the load (even if
Kåre seems currently a bit alone on this task, I don't think hiding this
handling in another mailing list will help). Furthermore, a simple rule
on the “Who's using Debian?” subject could easily help someone who would
feel overload by these requests.
Cheers
David
Index: english/users/index.wml
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/webwml/webwml/english/users/index.wml,v
retrieving revision 1.199
diff -u -r1.199 index.wml
--- english/users/index.wml 2 Feb 2011 23:39:23 -0000 1.199
+++ english/users/index.wml 15 Nov 2011 19:41:15 -0000
@@ -59,10 +59,13 @@
</p>
</li>
<li>Organization type (educational, non-profit, commercial, government)</li>
- <li><em>(optional)</em> Home page link</li>
+ <li><em>(optional)</em> Home page link; if so please also
+ provide an URL of your website mentioning you're using Debian
+ </li>
<li>A paragraph or two describing how your organization uses Debian.
Try to include details such as the number of workstations/servers,
- the software they run, and why you chose Debian over the
+ the software they run (no need to specify version),
+ and why you chose Debian over the
competition.
</li>
</ol>
Reply to: