New draft workflow for magazine articles

[Ryan Lerch]

Hi all,

I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we write 
and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started with the 
following document:

http://fedoramagazine.org/publishing-workflow/

it outlines the 4 types of users that i would like to see used in the 
magazine, and the statuses for posts (pitch, draft, pending and published).

I have also enabled the editflow plugin on the site, so now it is 
possible to provide editorial comments on posts in the "edit" page of a 
post that only authors and editors can see.

please take a look.

my next steps in this is to write up a public-facing howto on writing a 
new article that covers the workflow steps above (as well as logging in 
for the first time, and getting author access to the site.)

cheers,
ryanlerch

[Joe Brockmeier]

On 04/27/2015 03:47 AM, Ryan Lerch wrote:
>  I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we
> write
>  and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started with the
>  following document: 
Is this likely to encourage more folks to write for the magazine, or is
this going to seem like a lot of overhead to people who've never
contributed?

Will this workflow apply to everything posted or mainly directed at new
contributors? (e.g. Am I going to have to pitch something like a beta
announcement or final release, or something we've worked on in the Cloud
Working Group?)

Best,

jzb

-- 
Joe Brockmeier | Principal Cloud & Storage Analyst
jzb(a)redhat.com | http://community.redhat.com/
Twitter: @jzb  | http://dissociatedpress.net/

[Pete Travis]

On Apr 27, 2015 6:27 AM, "Joe Brockmeier" <jzb(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 04/27/2015 03:47 AM, Ryan Lerch wrote:
>  > I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we write
>  > and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started with the
>  > following document:
>
>  Is this likely to encourage more folks to write for the magazine, or is
>  this going to seem like a lot of overhead to people who've never
>  contributed?
>
>  Will this workflow apply to everything posted or mainly directed at new
>  contributors? (e.g. Am I going to have to pitch something like a beta
>  announcement or final release, or something we've worked on in the Cloud
>  Working Group?)
>
>  Best,
>
>  jzb
>
>  -- 
A clearly defined workflow would help, IMO.  It is a common question and
new contributors will benefit from active review, as will the quality of
content.

I don't think it will be a problem to find people to push an announcement
or such through the process, either.  There's usually group drafting
anyway.

--Pete

[Ryan Lerch]

On 04/27/2015 11:26 PM, Joe Brockmeier wrote:
>  On 04/27/2015 03:47 AM, Ryan Lerch wrote:
> > I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we write
> > and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started with the
> > following document:
>  Is this likely to encourage more folks to write for the magazine, or is
>  this going to seem like a lot of overhead to people who've never
>  contributed? 
This is bascially the workflow we currently have, with the exception of 
having the pitch status. The new workflow just moves steps that would 
have been discussed on the mailing list to a more central location of 
the wordpress instance.

The magazine is not a wiki, so IMHO, this is the bare minimum of 
workflow that we can put in place to ensure that the magazine is not a 
free-for-all post whatever you feel like place. Having a small amount of 
editorial oversight will result in better focused content and better 
quality content.

>  Will this workflow apply to everything posted or mainly directed at new
>  contributors? (e.g. Am I going to have to pitch something like a beta
>  announcement or final release, or something we've worked on in the Cloud
>  Working Group?) 
I think these steps will be good for all posts, as it will give other 
editors the chance to review and edit the content before it is 
published. I have also started putting a few post ideas up on the 
magazine in "pitch" status as placeholders for forthcoming posts.

Getting posts drafted up in the magazine interface earlier is a good 
idea, IMHO, as everyone involved can see the posts that are upcoming, 
and when we start getting more content, we can be more selective on a 
publishing schedule.

--ryanlerch

>  Best,
>
>  jzb
>
>
>

[Joe Brockmeier]

On 04/27/2015 10:53 PM, Ryan Lerch wrote:
>  On 04/27/2015 11:26 PM, Joe Brockmeier wrote:
> > On 04/27/2015 03:47 AM, Ryan Lerch wrote:
> >> I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we write
> >> and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started with the
> >> following document:
> > Is this likely to encourage more folks to write for the magazine, or is
> > this going to seem like a lot of overhead to people who've never
> > contributed?
>  
>  This is bascially the workflow we currently have, with the exception of
>  having the pitch status. The new workflow just moves steps that would
>  have been discussed on the mailing list to a more central location of
>  the wordpress instance.
>  
>  The magazine is not a wiki, so IMHO, this is the bare minimum of
>  workflow that we can put in place to ensure that the magazine is not a
>  free-for-all post whatever you feel like place. Having a small amount of
>  editorial oversight will result in better focused content and better
>  quality content.
>  
> >
> > Will this workflow apply to everything posted or mainly directed at new
> > contributors? (e.g. Am I going to have to pitch something like a beta
> > announcement or final release, or something we've worked on in the Cloud
> > Working Group?)
>  
>  I think these steps will be good for all posts, as it will give other
>  editors the chance to review and edit the content before it is
>  published. I have also started putting a few post ideas up on the
>  magazine in "pitch" status as placeholders for forthcoming posts. 
Are we currently defining editors as anybody who has that role in
WordPress, or...?

>  Getting posts drafted up in the magazine interface earlier is a good
>  idea, IMHO, as everyone involved can see the posts that are upcoming,
>  and when we start getting more content, we can be more selective on a
>  publishing schedule. 
My two cents - we're a ways away from needing this much process, and our
largest issue is getting content in the pipeline. Suggesting that some
types of content (contributor-focused) are unwelcome/belong on planet,
and putting more hurdles between contributor and publication seem at
odds with having more content in the pipeline.

Note that I'm all for ensuring the content is edited and in top shape
before publication - but my concern is more around editing for
typos/grammatical errors and so forth rather than "is this content of
interest to everybody?"

Who is currently reviewing the "ready to review queue"? We've had a post
from one author sitting in the pending queue since the 1st, AFAICT.

Best,

jzb
-- 
Joe Brockmeier | Principal Cloud & Storage Analyst
jzb(a)redhat.com | http://community.redhat.com/
Twitter: @jzb  | http://dissociatedpress.net/

On 27 April 2015 at 13:17, Ryan Lerch <rlerch(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hi all,
>
>  I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we write
>  and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started with the
>  following document:
>
>  http://fedoramagazine.org/publishing-workflow/
>  
I am getting "Error 404", does anyone else as well?
-
Pravin Satpute

[Ruth Suehle]

I like the idea, which is pretty much how most professional blogs function. Except
it's a bit at odds with the main problem, which is contributions. So I think a
compromise is to boil it down much more simply: 

Authors can enter posts. "Draft" status means "I'm still working on
this." "Pending" means "an editor can look at this now." 

Editors can move posts from "Pending" to "Published." 

The end.

[Ryan Lerch]

On 04/28/2015 01:43 AM, Ruth Suehle wrote:
>  I like the idea, which is pretty much how most professional blogs 
>  function. Except it's a bit at odds with the main problem, which is 
>  contributions. So I think a compromise is to boil it down much more 
>  simply:
>
>  Authors can enter posts. "Draft" status means "I'm still working on 
>  this." "Pending" means "an editor can look at this now."
>
>  Editors can move posts from "Pending" to "Published." 
This is basically what the process is as documented in the page. With 
the exception of the Pitch status, which is in place to stop newer 
writers from spending a lot of time writing up an article that might not 
be suitable for the magazine, and not even get published.

--ryanlerch
>  The end.
>
>

[Ryan Lerch]

On 04/28/2015 01:11 AM, pravin.d.s(a)gmail.com wrote:
>  On 27 April 2015 at 13:17, Ryan Lerch <rlerch(a)redhat.com 
>  <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
>      Hi all,
>
>      I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we
>      write and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started
>      with the following document:
>
>      http://fedoramagazine.org/publishing-workflow/
>
>
>  I am getting "Error 404", does anyone else as well?
>  -
>  Pravin Satpute 
Currently this is a private page, you need to be logged in to the 
magazine as an author or higher to see it. This document is not the one 
that we will give new users to follow when writing a post, that one is 
yet to be written.

regards,
ryanlerch

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:55:18PM +1000, Ryan Lerch wrote:
>  On 04/28/2015 01:11 AM, pravin.d.s(a)gmail.com wrote:
>  >
>  >
>  >On 27 April 2015 at 13:17, Ryan Lerch <rlerch(a)redhat.com
>  ><mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>  >
>  >    Hi all,
>  >
>  >    I have been working on trying to write up the workflow for how we
>  >    write and publish new articles on the magazine, and have started
>  >    with the following document:
>  >
>  >    http://fedoramagazine.org/publishing-workflow/
>  >
>  >
>  >I am getting "Error 404", does anyone else as well?
>  >-
>  >Pravin Satpute
>  
>  Currently this is a private page, you need to be logged in to the magazine
>  as an author or higher to see it. This document is not the one that we will
>  give new users to follow when writing a post, that one is yet to be written. 
That one could include the tl;dr workflow version if we care to impart
it.  At the new contributor level, I think most people might only care
about their immediate next step.  "Want to write for us?  Do this, and
here are tips to do it well."

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
    The open source story continues to grow: http://opensource.com