Removal of Fedora Planet post links from start.fedoraproject.org

[Sumit Bhardwaj]

Hi All,

Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the redesign
of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to updated/new posts from
planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any specific reason for this?

I, for one, used those links for quickly going through the new blog
posts. Planet Fedora blog articles are much more frequent than those
posted in fedora magazine (although that is needed as well). So 8 out of
10 times when I opened my browser, I used to get something new to read
and  follow from there to the actual blog if I find it interesting.

Now with blog links gone, I feel less and less compelled to open the
page every time I open my browser and I feel like removing it as my
start page. I think the idea behind having a start page is to have users
actually use it as start page and find value in doing that. I personally
feel that is gone, because now, most of the times I get the same
articles. So once a day visit to fedora magazine is enough.

-- 
Regards,
Sumit Bhardwaj

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 16:02:35 +0530
Sumit Bhardwaj <sumitkbhardwaj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hi All,
>  
>  Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the
>  redesign of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to
>  updated/new posts from planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any
>  specific reason for this? 
You likely want the fedora-websites list: 
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/websites

You should be able to talk with the folks that did the redesign there. 

kevin

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 04:02:35PM +0530, Sumit Bhardwaj wrote:
>  Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the
> redesign
>  of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to updated/new posts from
>  planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any specific reason for this? 
Often, those posts were not Fedora related, and generally out of our
control. I'm glad you found them usually interesting — that's valuable
feedback.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Tomasz Torcz]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 11:07:37AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 04:02:35PM +0530, Sumit Bhardwaj wrote:
>  > Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the redesign
>  > of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to updated/new posts from
>  > planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any specific reason for this?
>  
>  Often, those posts were not Fedora related, and generally out of our
>  control. I'm glad you found them usually interesting — that's valuable
>  feedback. 
  I was under impression Fedora about community and friendship.
Not about control.

-- 
Tomasz   .. oo o.   oo o. .o   .o o. o. oo o.   ..
Torcz    .. .o .o   .o .o oo   oo .o .. .. oo   oo
o.o.o.   .o .. o.   o. o. o.   o. o. oo .. ..   o.

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 05:12:35PM +0100, Tomasz Torcz wrote:
>  > Often, those posts were not Fedora related, and generally out of
> our
>  > control. I'm glad you found them usually interesting — that's valuable
>  > feedback.
>    I was under impression Fedora about community and friendship.
>  Not about control. 
I didn't mean control in some sort of fascist sense. Simply that often
posts are not related to the Fedora community at all, and we really
_didn't_ want to be draconian about locking that down. We're not
shutting down the planet aggregator, and if you prefer it as a start
page, <http://planet.fedoraproject.org/> is still a a thing.

If there's general consensus that people really prefer it on the
default start page, we can revisit that for the next design.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 11:07:37AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  > Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the
> redesign
>  > of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to updated/new posts from
>  > planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any specific reason for this?
>  Often, those posts were not Fedora related, and generally out of our
>  control. I'm glad you found them usually interesting — that's valuable
>  feedback. 
After some coffee, I should add some more explanation. Fedora has many
times more users than developers, and the start page should primarily
appeal to that wider audience. Most of the content on the planet — even
that which is properly Fedora-related — is pretty highly tilted towards
the geekier contributor side. There's nothing wrong with that, but it
can be overwhelming. So, the goal with the Magazine is to be more
user-focused (although there's still a lot of contributor-focused stuff
mixed in as well; we're still working on the balance).

If you're deeply involved and want the firehose,
http://planet.fedoraproject.org is there. If *you'd* like to contribute
user-focused content (even reposting from your blog, or whatever), see 
<https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/52782/how-do-i-contribute-to-fe...

There's also value in having users aware of the wider community and
drawing them in, so, again... we're working out the balance, and
everyone's help figuring that out is welcome.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Sumit Bhardwaj]

Well, I understand your point Matthew. Yes, often the post are on the
geekier side and may not be related to Fedora project as such, but most
of them are about Linux in general and day to day problems/solutions in
a Linux user's life. I am not aware of the intentions behind the Planet
Fedora aggregator's invention but if I am not wrong, all the blog posts
that appear on it are from Fedora contributors only, from some project
or other. Many times these posts are very informative and solve highly
technical problems or provide way around some tricky situations based on
real life experiences. So Planet Fedora is important for me personally,
both as a user and as a developer. Going to it directly by entering the
URL is ok but is a additional step.

What you are saying about the start page is correct and yes, it should
cater to the wider audience as much as possible. What I think can be
done at least is since the new UI has tabs on top, another tab can be
added that points to the planet fedora aggregator. It still won't be
that useful but at least it won't be completely gone from the page. I
think its an important part of it and I am sure there will be few other
also, if not many, who developed a habit of checking it from start page
over time like me. 

I will do some more thinking on it and if I come up with some subtle
design changes that can incorporate planet Fedora links without actually
changing the new design language and audience view of the page, I will
surely share it. In that case, with whom can I share these?

-- 
Regards,
Sumit Bhardwaj 

On Tue, 2015-02-17 at 11:54 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:

>  On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 11:07:37AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  > > Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the redesign
>  > > of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to updated/new posts from
>  > > planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any specific reason for this?
>  > Often, those posts were not Fedora related, and generally out of our
>  > control. I'm glad you found them usually interesting — that's valuable
>  > feedback.
>  
>  After some coffee, I should add some more explanation. Fedora has many
>  times more users than developers, and the start page should primarily
>  appeal to that wider audience. Most of the content on the planet — even
>  that which is properly Fedora-related — is pretty highly tilted towards
>  the geekier contributor side. There's nothing wrong with that, but it
>  can be overwhelming. So, the goal with the Magazine is to be more
>  user-focused (although there's still a lot of contributor-focused stuff
>  mixed in as well; we're still working on the balance).
>  
>  If you're deeply involved and want the firehose,
>  http://planet.fedoraproject.org is there. If *you'd* like to contribute
>  user-focused content (even reposting from your blog, or whatever), see 
>
> <https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/52782/how-do-i-contribute-to-fe...
>  
>  There's also value in having users aware of the wider community and
>  drawing them in, so, again... we're working out the balance, and
>  everyone's help figuring that out is welcome.
>

[Kushal Das]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 9:37 PM, Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 04:02:35PM +0530, Sumit Bhardwaj wrote:
> > Hope its the right place to discuss this. Recently, during the redesign
> > of the start.fedoraproject.org page, the links to updated/new posts from
> > planet.fedoraproject.org were removed. Any specific reason for this?
>
>  Often, those posts were not Fedora related, and generally out of our
>  control. I'm glad you found them usually interesting — that's valuable
>  feedback. 
start.fedoraproject.org used to be the biggest referrer to my blog posts.

Kushal
-- 
Fedora Cloud Engineer
CPython Core Developer
Director Python Software Foundation
http://kushaldas.in