[CentOS-docs] Proposal for standardized mugshots

Wed Jun 3 09:44:55 UTC 2009
Dag Wieers <dag at centos.org>

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, JohnS wrote:

> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 08:37 +0200, Dag Wieers wrote:
>> On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, JohnS wrote:
>
>>> Dag Can you send me an email address that will accept html only + one
>>> for text.
>>
>> I don't know what you mean with this. dag at centos.org accepts both.
>
> I just need an email address that will accecpt email in html and text formats
> for testing the html and text newsletters. Example would be to send it to
> host at centos.org so I can recieve it. Needs to be from the mail server
> that will be sending the the letter.
>
> Ok, why? I sent a test case scenario through Exchange Server earlier and
> it ripped out the the html indexing ids and the heading colors. Although
> besides that not to bad.

Here the complexity starts....


>>> Also I just want to say I may be able to do mobile platforms also.
>>> Windows CE and Up for sure.
>>
>> Can you elaborate ? Why wouldn't HTML work ?
>
> It will BUT:
>
> Windows Mobile Platforms work different with web apps than say for
> instance Firefox on Linux or Windows. I can do them under .Net with a
> emulater for those so they will display correctly. Which this could be
> just an option to add on later. I say this option because there are
> people that post and get mail from the regular list with mobile
> platforms. How many I don't know.

Here it continues...


>> To be honest I don't want to make the process more complex. It is more
>> important to me that we have a bi-weekly newsletter rather than get lost
>> in the complexity of technology and fail to produce it :)
>
> *AS* long as there is some type of project managment going on with it I
> don't see a reason to get lost so to speak. There needs to be some type
> of coordination for deadlines to be meet to get it out on time. Like a
> place for people to update there status on it.
>
> For instance: you get it posted into the wiki by every other Friday, we
> can get it out by 12:00AM EST Sunday. The main thing here is
> Communication Effort on the people involved. If someone can not do there
> part they need to notify the members involved 24 hours in advance.

And this to me is where we get lost. Sorry but if the process becomes so 
complex that we have to push out the newsletter 2 days in advance and have 
to wait for people to do something and cover if they don't do something.

Then I think we should *not* do this. If it can't be automated I am not 
even willing to think about it.

We work with volunteers in an international context and I plan to spend 
as little time as possible doing the newsletter to get the content and 
layout right. Once you have find a project manager and there is an 
automated process that doesn't add a few minutes to the work, then come 
back and we can discuss it again :)


>> So I am not going to look into it myself, if someone else wants to pursue
>> this, be my guest.
>
> If you are doing the Wiki Page then the only other thing that is needed
> is how to send these out. ( i know email but how )? Need the specifics
> here. Hmm other thing users would need to subscribe to get it???

We have a centos-newsletter mailing list already, now it is used for 
announcing the newsletter. Nothing is stopping us from sending the 
newsletter with the announcement.

What I do see as a possibility is to convert the wiki to docbook and then 
to HTML. Or convert the wiki HTML to text, depending on whether we want to 
send it as text or send it as HTML and what gives the best output.

Then we can easily automate it with a command that creates the email body 
and sends it to the mailing list and it doesn't require a project 
manager, more communication or more people.

-- 
--   dag wieers,  dag at centos.org,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]