[kwlug-disc] KWLUG Planet

[Chris Irwin]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 04:29:28PM -0500, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote:
>One feature request for the new website was a "KWLUG Planet": an
>aggregator of KWLUG members writing about FLOSSy topics.

Count me in.

>This is a good idea. I have not implemented it yet in the new Drupal
>site, but how hard could it be? (tm) . But if we do this, we need to
>ensure that there is quality content being aggregated on a regular
>basis.

My posts have been fairly rare and mostly self-documentation, but that's 
because I don't expect anybody reads the site. I've got three 
half-finished updates on the go that I just hadn't bothered finishing.  

If the RSS is being consumed, I'll keep posting.

>- Sufficient content: I feel it is not worth putting together a planet
>  if we have fewer than one update per month. From KWLUG bloggers I
>  follow, I think that is a high standard to meet. Many of us do not
>  blog much, and some of us blog less about FLOSSy things than other
>  topics.

I subscribe to a few low-volume RSS feeds. It would still be of value to 
me, even if participants only updated once per month or so, just to see 
what people are up to.

>- Relevant content: the blog posts should be FLOSSy, as much as other
>  topics are close to our hearts. Spammy sales pitches or endless
>  company press releases are probably not good content either.
>- Varied content: if one or two blogs are providing all the updates,
>  then we lose the community aspect.

I actually enjoy reading some planets and getting *some* offtopic posts.  
I agree that there is some content that should probably be omitted from 
the feed (I really don't want to discuss political party leadership 
races, politics, or sportswear preferences in this group), but a certain 
amount of off-topic-but-interesting topics shouldln't be a problem.

It's a fine line for product pitches. If you're working for a local 
company on a product/service that might be of interest, then by all 
means provide a summary. The worst thing that can happen is I skip that 
post. That said, I'm not super-interested in frequently recurring sales 
pitches (though honestly, I'd just filter them out in ttrss).

>Consider this the first call for participants. If you blog about
>FLOSSy things and would be interested in being part of the KWLUG
>Planet, please contact me on or offlist. In order to participate you
>will need an RSS feed that filters your posts so that only ones
>relevant to the planet will be included.

Done. RSS and ATOM feeds available:

https://chrisirwin.ca/tags/planet/

>It would also be good to put together a shadowy unaccountable cabal of
>moderators who can make difficult judgements about whether particular
>blogs/posts are suitable for inclusion. I would like to keep this
>exercise as friendly and friction-free as possible, but given the
>large number of requests we receive to provide advertising space on
>kwlug.org, I anticipate tricky situations will come up. If you would
>like to be part of this then let me know.


The KWLuminati are real?!?


-- 
Chris Irwin

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
 xmpp:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
  web: https://chrisirwin.ca