Re: Count me in

Hi there,

I've decided I no longer want to be involved with this initiative, please
remove me from the list.

Katie

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 7:30 PM Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> * Valeria Kaplan (vk(at)dataegret(dot)com) wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 1:52 PM Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>
> wrote:
> > > * Valeria Kaplan (vk(at)dataegret(dot)com) wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 11:50 PM Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>
> > > wrote:
> > > > > * Valeria Kaplan (vk(at)dataegret(dot)com) wrote:
> > > > > > I gave a talk at pgconf.eu about marketing and proposed an idea
> of
> > > > > having a
> > > > > > centralised working group that will be initiating and
> implementing
> > > > > advocacy
> > > > > > and marketing activities that will develop and strengthen
> Postgres
> > > brand.
> > > > >
> > > > > This sounds very much like what this list is actually intended to
> be,
> > > > > with a set of smaller groups who manage particular activities
> (Press
> > > > > Releases, Twitter, Updates to postgresql.org, etc).
> > > > >
> > > > > What would be different with this "working group"..?
> > > >
> > > > First, if there is a list somewhere listing all those different
> subgroups
> > > > and who is a part of them can you please direct me since that would
> be
> > > > incredibly helpful.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately there isn't a public list that I'm aware of (I've
> actually
> > > pushed for that in some discussions in the past; in particular, I
> > > believe it'd be good to have something similar to:
> > > https://www.debian.org/intro/organization ).
> >
> > That's a cool example! Agree, something like that would be great.
>
> Yeah, I don't think it'd actually be all that hard to add support for
> pulling that information from the PGLister system to populate a webpage
> on the main site (of course, Magnus will probably correctly point out
> that those are different systems and it won't be as easy as I'm
> suggesting, etc, and then someone else will complain that maybe not
> everyone on a given mailing list should be listed as a member of that
> 'team', and then we'll get some additional bikeshedding happening...).
>
> Perhaps we should take this particular part of the discussion out of
> this thread and start a new thread with it on -www, so we can argue to
> our heart's content about it?
>
> > > The closest that we have to a formal list of who is on what team is the
> > > membership on the relevant mailing lists (... most of which are
> private,
> > > and we don't disclose membership explicitly anyway). There's some
> teams
> > > we have where we duplicate the list membership (I believe anyway, I've
> > > not specifically verified it) between the list system and the .Org
> > > website (thinking of Core and Coc here as examples). This would also
> go
> > > towards improving things around recognition of contributions to the
> > > project, especially when those contributions are not code and therefore
> > > don't get recognized through our git history.
> > >
> > Oh man, it's a shame you couldn't come to Milano :( , you'd be a great
> > addition to the group.
>
> I'm doing my best to try and be helpful even though I wasn't there. :)
>
> > I'm putting some notes and action from our meeting here together and
> we'll
> > be sharing once they are final with the mailing list early next week.
>
> Yes, I saw those, thanks for that!
>
> > > > The idea is to have a small group that can be strategic about all the
> > > > different activities that need to be done for Postgres and will be
> very
> > > > active (have regular catch ups and follow ups, will move activities
> > > forward
> > > > and so on). One of the problems with a mailing list that there is a
> > > problem
> > > > that people tend to "hide" behind the list if there is a need for
> some
> > > > action. Also, it is much easier to have a manageable size group of
> up to
> > > > about 10 people to actually function (that's from my personal
> experience
> > > so
> > > > maybe you'd have a different opinion on that).
> > >
> > > I tend to agree with the concerns about "regular/open" mailing lists,
> > > and that each team should work to have a cadence of some kind, with
> > > reports being made to a larger body.
> > >
> > > This was attempted at the PGCon Developer meeting earlier this year,
> > > though with an attempt to go across all of the teams we have in the
> > > project (notes available here:
> > > https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PgCon_2019_Developer_Meeting ). Teams
> > > were reached out to asked to provide a name or two to join the meeting
> > > and then provide an update to all the other individuals invited to that
> > > meeting, notionally to the project leadership in the form of Core and
> > > the committers.
> > >
> > > What's being discussed here sounds like an attempt to add a level
> > > between the annual PGCon meeting (presuming it continues in a similar
> > > fashion next year... I don't know if it will, or not) and the various
> > > specific teams (web, twitter, et al). A more formal "advocacy" team
> > > which has actual/regular meetings and works across the different
> > > platforms to send a consistent message and has a higher touch frequency
> > > than an annual meeting.
> > >
> > > There's value in that in a couple ways. First is that advocacy should
> > > certainly be a discussion that's ongoing throughout the year, and an
> > > annual touchpoint isn't frequent enough. Second, the overall advocacy
> > > team could provide a single report to the annual meeting and that might
> > > be more efficient for that meeting (there's only one spot in the agenda
> > > for that as recorded, though my recollection is that there was some
> > > difficulty figuring out who from what team should be invited and asked
> > > to provide an update as there's a number of different teams with
> > > different individuals on them, not all of whom know what's going on
> with
> > > the other teams..). Having each of the working-level teams ("working
> > > groups"?) having to regularly report up to another group would also
> > > hopefully encourage them to have their own regular meetings and take
> > > more responsibility to ensure that things are happening.
> >
> > yup, my thinking exactly.
>
> Great.
>
> > I didn't realise there is also an annual (developer meeting) gathering
> > where one could report about advocacy was in place already, that's cool.
>
> Well, it's only happened once so far that advocacy was explicitly
> brought up as a topic and included/reported on. :) I'd like that to
> continue, as I feel it's an important part of project maintenance, but
> that meeting is pretty difficult to work out who should/shouldn't be
> there and we can't really make it a larger group than it is without it
> becoming quite difficult to actually manage the discussion.
>
> > > > This is not to say that there isn't a place for advocacy mailing list
> > > and I
> > > > think it actually a perfect forum to bring forward the shortlisted
> and
> > > > structured tasks that the smaller working group come with and ask for
> > > > members on the list to join a specific activites (for example the
> Twitter
> > > > managing team , as you have now).
> > >
> > > Sure, I can agree with that, and the middle-level group being discussed
> > > above could also be tasked to provide regular reports or meeting
> minutes
> > > to this list.
> > >
> > I'm planning to put our minutes on wiki once they are finalised.
>
> Ok, thanks. Let's try to focus on specific, actionable, tasks and then
> get assignment made for them- and let's try to make sure we include
> relevant individuals from the NPOs too when it comes to things like
> meetup.com and such.
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Stephen
>