spyderous: [Gentoo] Planet on-topic-ness

Donnie Berkholz (

spyderous) wrote,
@ 2005-04-27 10:24:00

[Gentoo] Planet on-topic-ness
It seems that Planet Gentoo readers have a problem with me posting about things that aren't related to Gentoo on my blog. So I've asked to have it removed from that Planet.

If you're interested in following what I talk about, either go to Planet Freedesktop or directly to my blog.

If people reading my blog from a Planet have a problem with how on- or off-topic it is, let me know and I'll have it pulled from there. At least until I have some time to waste setting up categories at some site besides LiveJournal, which apparently doesn't support them.

Incidentally, it's fairly annoying that everyone who has problems with me has chosen to remain anonymous in comments.

Thanks.

(Post a new comment)

	Damned be policy (Anonymous) 2005-04-27 05:53 pm UTC (link)
	Blergh. Personally, I disagree with the "keep things on topic" here, I -like- reading other devs personal/random musings, since I don't hang much on IRC anymore, and mail is just impersonal.. it supplies just the level of contact that I want from a Blog. Effing buerau-crazy. //Spider ( Yes, I'm anonymous. you know where to reach me ;) (Reply to this)(Thread)

Re: Damned be policy
(Anonymous)
2005-04-27 06:50 pm UTC (link)

actually the problem is not getting some out of topic topics.
problem is that more than 50% of the posts are your posts and a majority are
1: off topic (not so harmfull, but still)
and
2: ONE LINE LONG WITH ZERO EXPLANATION

Do you think having a link of random link is fun to read ? NO

Your gentoo/linux related posts you made were fine, nice, and appreciable. the others are sometimes just not to nice toward readers.
So yes, either you flood, spam, and i do mean its spam when its a list of links, either you put an explanation to your links, either you remove your blog, either your filter it all out.. we'll just miss some nice articles but the noise from your own blog is honestly very high

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Damned be policy

spyderous
2005-04-27 07:06 pm UTC (link)

So would you rather I wrote up pages of explanation for every link I post instead of leaving it to the reader to find it if so inclined? Because that would really do a good job of flooding planets.

Perhaps you could give some examples of the one-liners with no explanation, and I can explain my thought process on them.

It also is useful to note that blogs started out as basically collections of links that the blogger thought were interesting, rather than being diaries.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Damned be policy (Anonymous) 2005-04-28 03:23 am UTC (link)
	No, no one is asking for pages of explanations, but your one line posts that say nothing more than "Click here for something kewl." Got old, very damned fast. Especially when we see, what nine posts from you, just today? (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Damned be policy
(Anonymous)
2005-04-28 03:29 am UTC (link)

Examples:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/20908.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/19310.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/18949.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/18131.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/17708.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/16994.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/15916.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/15180.html

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Damned be policy

spyderous
2005-04-28 04:05 am UTC (link)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/20908.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/19310.html

These are conversations on the same Planet. Shouldn't be too tough to get if you follow it. Then again, maybe you don't. So half-credit. =P

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/18949.html

This was on purpose. I wanted people to see it without getting judgments from what I said about my thoughts on it.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/18131.html

If you read the subject, this one is obviously going to be something about it.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/17708.html

Same. It's clearly going to be about a bug filed for a reason that doesn't make any sense.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/16994.html

This may be out of context for some people unfamiliar with Bugzilla, but for anyone who is, it's pretty clear what it will be about.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/15916.html

How can you keep asking about these things? The subject explains it -- the body doesn't need to re-explain it.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spyderous/15180.html

That one's an inside joke, so I'll give you credit there again.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Damned be policy

lazymalevolence
2005-04-27 07:44 pm UTC (link)

Well, what you could do is either:

Use a newsreader that can filter certain posts, OR
Ignore them. It's not that difficult. Seriously.

I really don't care about the link one-liners. They can be interesting at times, but if it's not, I ignore it. If one is THAT much of a purist, download the OPML file from Planet Gentoo and dump that into a newsreader. Be proactive instead of complaining, sheesh.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Damned be policy
(Anonymous)
2005-04-27 07:57 pm UTC (link)

So mr. someone......
You're new to this blog thing I take it? If you think someone is going to have a different blog for every different project/thought/flush just so you save about 4 k of downloading with your rss reader of a "planet" then you are very clueless about the blog/planet scene.

I'd really hope you change your mind about dropping off the gentoo planet list too spyderous since your xorg work with gentoo and your occaisional thoughts about that are very welcome to the majority even if the peanut gallery likes to bitch about stupid shit. Keep up the good work.

firephoto

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Damned be policy (Anonymous) 2005-04-27 08:51 pm UTC (link)
	One line long. Sounds like a flood to me. Grab a bucket! IMO anyone who has dedicated as much time to Gentoo, and Freedesktop by extension, as Donnie has can spam me all they want. --tseng (Reply to this)(Parent)

	xtat 2005-04-27 07:31 pm UTC (link)
	mehh that is pretty lame. I wouldn't worry about it. 'sounds quite trollish to me. (Reply to this)

I Enjoy Your Post.
(Anonymous)
2005-04-27 07:50 pm UTC (link)

Your post on Gentoo Planet are some of the best post I have read. And I agree that planet gentoo should be more about the Devs than Gentoo. I too hardly get on IRC and I love to understand the minds of the people who are Making my preferred Distro.

Not to mention that 90% of all Internet links are one word unexplained links in the first place. Plus I personally enjoy being surprised about what Donnie's Next link will be.

The thing that bugs me about complainers on the Internet, is that they are too lazy to either hit the delete key or back button when they see something uninterested and instead take 5 minutes to complain about something and disagree with it instead. They just don't make since to me.

When it comes down to it, people have to be very flexible about blogs and planets, especially the planets like Gentoo Planet, because others want what others don't and others don't want what others do.

My advice to people who complain about such things. Would you please be considerate of those people who enjoy personal post and instead of complaining, just hit the delete key or the next/back button.

My name is Dave by the way. Thanks!

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: I Enjoy Your Post. (Anonymous) 2005-04-27 09:10 pm UTC (link)
	This is not simply a matter of people whining. What you may not be aware of is that Planet Gentoo is for Gentoo-only or at least Open Source-related posts ONLY. Donnie was aware of the rule before he asked to have his feed included. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: I Enjoy Your Post. spyderous 2005-04-27 09:28 pm UTC (link)
	What you may not be aware of is that I didn't actually ask to be on this planet. People on the experimental Planet weren't required to be on-topic, then Daniel transferred over those who talked about Gentoo. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: I Enjoy Your Post.
(Anonymous)
2005-04-27 11:03 pm UTC (link)

I never said it was about winning, I just said I don't understand it. I do agree that it is not a simple matter, and that was the point I was trying to get across.

First I must say that I'm not making person attacks, I don't want to be that type of person. Nor do I completely disagree with you point of view on the matter. I completely agree that there has to be some type of control of the planet and that it should be Gentoo centered.

The opinion that I do want to express, is that yes the sight is about Gentoo and it's related projects. But who is not to say that the understand of the Developers philosophies and Lifestyles is not gentoo related. The main reason I started using Gentoo five years ago, was because I read one of Daniel Robbins articles (That was not about Gentoo, just some of his programing philosophies) and I look more into Daniel himself and found out he was making portage.

So my point is (Almost just like you said) the planet is more complex than just source code. Or at least this is my opinion on what I would like the planet to fulfill for me. And It is important to note that people who subscribe and post the planet all have different opinions about what is Gentoo related, so it is important to be open minded about such subjects. I know we can't make everyone happy, but common courtesy and open mindedness can solve a lot of those problems.

--Dave

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: I Enjoy Your Post.

psykil
2005-04-28 06:15 am UTC (link)

IMHO that's a ridiculous policy. Half the point of even having a Planet is to personalize the devels by putting a face to the name. It serves to break down the great user/dev divide a bit and bring the community closer. If what you want to do is increase communication among the dev team there are many tools that are far better suited to doing that. The world does not begin and end at Gentoo, nor should it. Off-topic posting is inevitable, and in fact adds depth and variety to any Planet and should be welcomed within reasonable limits. For examples, please see any other Planet out there. If you don't like it, there's a feature that most GUI browsers have implemented to solve these types of issues. You should find it sitting along the right hand side of the window.

And so what if he posts a few times a day? That's actually a good thing. As you might have noticed, Planet Gentoo is not exactly bursting with traffic. More devs need to start blogging, and blog often, or this great resource will end up abandoned just because someone did't understand the concept.

Donnie, glad to hear you're staying. Don't listen to the trolls. If there's one thing i've learned in life it's never take advice from anyone named anonymous.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: I Enjoy Your Post. spyderous 2005-04-28 04:06 am UTC (link)
	Glad to hear it, Dave. =) Also encouraging to hear I'm not the only one with my opinion: Planets should be about anything -- it's the people that matter, not the material. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	robbat2 2005-04-27 08:04 pm UTC (link)
	go back and look in the mailing list archives for the script I posted. I just put 'Gentoo' or some similar tag in my subject line, and my script generates a subset of the LJ RSS feed that the Planet can then use. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	whatever. (Anonymous) 2005-04-27 08:10 pm UTC (link)
	who's lame now. thanks robbat (Reply to this)(Parent)

spyderous
2005-04-27 09:01 pm UTC (link)

Thanks Robin.

I'm actually aware of this, but there are a couple of problems with me using it:
1) Doesn't it require webspace where one can also run cron jobs? I don't have my own Web site like so many people seem to. Last I heard, user cron jobs weren't allowed on toucan. I might be able to get a login on fd.o but seems like a waste just for this.
2) It seems like a hack. If I have to categorize, I'd like to find a place that can do it for me instead of hacking the RSS around myself and posting alternate feeds.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	robbat2 2005-04-27 09:24 pm UTC (link)
	I'll gladly run an instance of it for you. I wrote it with the original intention of it actually being run in the planet code, but it hasn't been integrated. Some of the blog software out there actually does the same thing directly, categorizing via subject lines, and placing output into seperate stores. So it's not much of a hack that way. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	spyderous 2005-04-27 09:39 pm UTC (link)
	OK, let's get this going. Since Gentoo is the only place that cares, I suppose we can just do [Gentoo] and everything else. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	robbat2 2005-04-27 09:51 pm UTC (link)
	Done. Tell the PlanetGentoo admins that your new feed location is here: http://www.orbis-terrarum.net/spyderous-livejournal-gentoo-rss.xml The script runs at 3 minutes past every hour. I haven't set up an everything else feed, but I can do it if you have a need for it (I don't see one myself), since no other planet requires it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	spyderous 2005-04-27 10:03 pm UTC (link)
	You're absolutely right. So it's filtering on "[Gentoo]" -- no colons involved? The original script shows '/^Gentoo:/']. I'm not really sure how that translates from Perl to English. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	spyderous 2005-04-27 10:07 pm UTC (link)
	Nevermind, a test showed me. Thanks! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

your still on planet right??
(Anonymous)
2005-04-27 11:50 pm UTC (link)

I just don't want to be clear, having followed the posts, that I'd hate to see you suspend your planet posts. Shnike, man, you make me laugh, your fun to read. I don't want to read your motorola post - i don't read it...man, that was tough, ya know? I follow 2 planets right now - kde (don't ask, but i got hooked on aseigo's blog) and gentoo, and think its a sham to ask you not to post non-gentoo stuff. my own blog has something like 6 categories set up when i thought i'd be writing stuff across the board- turns out i only use 1 category, gentoo, for all my posts. yeesh. (and the image test thing on posting seems broken in konqueror...will this day ever get better???)

Hang in there donnie,

-mcummings

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: your still on planet right?? (Anonymous) 2005-04-27 11:51 pm UTC (link)
	frell...that might make more sense if you join me on my nyquil shots... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: your still on planet right?? spyderous 2005-04-28 12:10 am UTC (link)
	Looks like you're gonna have to suck it up and either read my blog directory or read Planet Freedesktop, at least for now. How to change this, you ask? Start pushing for an open Planet Gentoo, where we learn about the developers, their lives, interests and communities instead of being locked into Gentoo-related posts. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: your still on planet right?? spyderous 2005-04-28 12:12 am UTC (link)
	Oops, that was directly -- spellcheck doesn't catch that. =P And I realized I didn't even answer your question. I'll have Gentoo-tagged ones on PG, but that's it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: your still on planet right??
(Anonymous)
2005-04-28 10:04 pm UTC (link)

So thats what all these stupid posts lately are about?

You don't like the planet rules or whatever. But who complained? The planet admin or your *readers* who don't even know about the rule until now.

Whos complaining about the odd post here and there? Nobody. You are overdoing it and your readers spoke up.

p.s. We post anonymously because we don't have live journal accounts.

Sincerely,
Ted Kennedy

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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