Marketing

Hello Marc,

The test was indeed not covering the private marketing list - there were already a lot of people who did not want to be bugged with this test phase.
One can always complain the test phase was not properly announced - what's done is done.

Have you seen the discussion starting on RedMine about badges?

Hi Charles,

Yes, I'll leave a note on that section.

Thanks for your comments.

Marc

I am in a total disagreement with the decision of not using the marketing list, and I find that this is just a loss of time and a increase of confusion for the marketing project (which has never been able to attract a large number of people, but switching to Redmine will become completely closed and unable to attract people). Redmine is a project management tool, and cannot be used as a discussion tool open to non technical users, as marketing people are. In addition, I definitely want to keep the marketing list open, because it is a traditional tool of open source projects and as such it has to be there (independently from the fact that there is background noise).
I also think that the decision to switch to Redmine by the design team is an extremely negative one for the entire project, because it makes the team unaccessible to others (and especially to new potential contributors). If I were a bord member I would veto the use of Redmine by teams as a discussion tool, because it is not a discussion tool, is awkward and complicated for non technical users, and is extremely close to a private tool (although public).

Hello Italo,

You had more than a week and the conference in Bern to react. I wish you could just leave us one month and try to use RedMine meanwhile.

The purpose of this change is indeed to migrate from a discussion based tool (the mailing list) where useful discussions never happen and that require moderation and maintenance on a daily basis that I'm the only one to handle. The migration would have us migrate from a discussion based tool, as I wrote, to a task based tool, RedMine. I'm not suggesting that it is perfect, far from that. I am however suggesting that we have so far never gained a contributor to the marketing project through the marketing mailing list and that as such this tool is a loss of effort and energy.

Mailing lists are just tools. They are not an end in itself. I am more than happy to see us expand marketing activities outside (Google + is one good example), and it shows enough that people can adapt to a tool like RedMine just like they can adapt to Google +. You only need motivation.

In case we decide to do nothing and accept that the public marketing mailing list is a list where posting has a high trolling potential but does not serve its intended purpose, which is to coordinate and support our marketing activity, I will ask you to moderate and manage the list as well.

Best,

Charles.

Redmine is a project management tool, and cannot replace a mailing list. I can accept to use Redmine to manage tasks, but I do not think that killing the marketing list is a good idea, independently from the fact that has not contributed to attract new contributors or needs moderation on a daily basis. For sure, without a mailing list we will never attract a new contributor, because the mailing list is an open entry into the project (and Redmine is an hidden tool, open only to members). By the way, I have been a moderator of the marketing list for quite a long time, and I did not ask to leave the group of moderators, so I do not have any problem in managing the list as I do for others.

Marc Pare wrote:

Plus, the workings of Redmine does not have any kind of "universal feel" to it ... that is to mean that, for example, if we were to use any Google tool, most people would have some knowledge or experience using Google tools (Google+, Calendar, GDrive), as Goolge is used universally;

Learning how to use Redmine is a new skill, true. I think that projects such as ours face sometime faces hurdles because we don't always (often?) choose a single, integrated solution. Google has a stable of engineers who try to make all of their web properties work together, whereas we just try to maintain the infrastructure that is existing. Modular architecture and modular tools can give groups choice as to what they pick and choose, but do not provide the close integration of other tools. But what does that mean for existing tools such as the TDF wiki?

As it turns out, I stubbed-in a page about Redmine a while ago here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Redmine
The TDF wiki is a very valuable resource, and in many ways pulls together all of our different resources and tools. While Redmine instances can include the capabilities of a wiki and forums, etc.., I think we should be hesitant about becoming dependent on any new service, especially if that service seeks to duplicate, in part or in whole, existing tools.

if we are going to use Redmine, perhaps we should continue with our traditional marketing list as our low level entry point BUT when, on our discussion list, we do agree to any kind of actioned item, that it be put up on Redmine for people to work on; so, at that point, once an item is on Redmine, then the continued discussion on the item would then take place only on Redmine and no longer on the list. At least this way, we would not alienate or turn off any potential new marketing members.

So redmine would just be used for very focused, specific action items? From what others have been saying, I think there's good support for that usage.

ALSO, we should also seriously consider moving ALL of our "private marketing list", where ALL of our serious discussions with our serious marketing members, to Redmine. We should just completely abandon the private list and have it move completely to Redmine. This, would be a true test of Redmine's ability to handle a previious mailing list group moved to Redmine solution. At least we would then be testing the resolve of our serious marketeers who are presumably knowledgable enough to use Redmine's tools and not our group of global marketing members who are there to see if they could participate in a smaller way to the project. At least, we would then see how a group of professionals deal with such a move.

Do you think that might alienate some people? One of the nice things about mailing lists is the ability to have work from multiple sources (different people, different projects, etc..) all sucked in to a single interface: Your email client. If we shift (even for a test) to using Redmine, I think a number of people won't bother to create an account, and even if they do, the barrier (perceived or real) to contributing might be annoying to them.

I love the idea of running tests, but we need to find a way to do so that gets maximum buy-in, and that will reduce/eliminate negative feelings that could persist even after the completion of the test.

IMO, we need to keep the global list as simple as possible to join and manage..

Definitely. It's important to walk through the "first steps" that people take in our project, and ensure that those are documented and trouble-free. From the side of someone trying to work on outreach, it's important that we make it simple for both those who seek to join us, and those who seek to help us attract more people to our ranks.

For example, I've stubbed-in pages for our mailing lists on the wiki using consistent naming, so I know that I can send a newcomer to https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Mailing_List or for QA to https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/Mailing_List, and that one page will tell them everything they need to know to subscribe, see archives, learn the posting rules, etc. Consistency across teams will hopefully make it easier for advocates to point newcomers to the right resources, quickly.

Being the one who introduced Redmine in first place, maybe I should say
a few sentences. ;-)

Redmine was specifically thought as a tool for project management. My
hope is indeed that we can combine a few of the other tools into Redmine
and fold them together, to have less sites and less tools.

However, that may not work out with all tools - ownCloud, as an example,
was setup before Redmine, and migrating stuff over could be a major pain
(and I'm not sure if Redmine has similar capabilities wrt. file
sharing). For the public wiki, it won't work, as Mediawiki provides many
features we require, which Redmine lacks. For the intranet wiki, it will
work, and it's one of the pending action items.

However, moving completely away from a mailing list to Redmine feels
wrong to me and IMHO will only raise the barrier to entry. Maybe
deadlines have passed, but then we all miss e-mails every once in a
while. My strong advice is to not give up the public or private mailing
lists in favor of Redmine, but rather use it as project management tool.

Since we have some mixed use of mailing list and Redmine, should we set this to completed?

ok