[Geany] RFC: Setting up a monthly newsleter?

[Russell Dickenson]

On 7 February 2011 03:00, Frank Lanitz <frank at frank.uvena.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Sorry for the late coming back. Somehow I missed this mail ...
>
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:08:15 +1000 Russell Dickenson
> <russelldickenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think this is a *great* idea and am willing to volunteer as a member
>> of the newsletter team.
>
> Cool. Great to hear.
>
>> I'm happy to "give it a go" and will let
>> others judge my work. My time is rather limited at the moment but I
>> believe I could make a useful contribution. I speak (and write) only
>> English, I'm afraid, so I couldn't contribute to translations in any
>> way.
>
> As we should start in English, a native speaker could be a great help
> beside of contributing content also on spell checking, grammar and
> stuff.

I'll do my best. :)

>> In thinking about the format, I wonder if a blog-style format might be
>> better than a regular newsletter. I say this only because a newsletter
>> can be delayed solely because one item is not quite ready. I am the
>> author and editor of the Frugalware Linux newsletter, so I have some
>> experience in this area. For the moment I'll await further details and
>> team members. :)
>
> Well, I'm not sure how this could look like. Can you give a more
> detailed exampled?

For examples of "my" work for Frugalware Linux, look here -
http://www.frugalware.org and click on the links in the newsletter
announcements.

The question is: in what format would people like to see the
newsletter published? The Ubuntu newsletter is published as a weekly
email, for example. The Frugalware Linux newsletter is published on a
web site in HTML format. Personally I would prefer that the
newsletter's content be hosted on a web site instead of sent out via
email. The hosted method makes it easier to correct errors which may
occur occasionally. Of course we could announce the latest newsletter
in the usual Geany ML(s).

> Right now I started to put some content together into a LaTeX-file
> which will be compiled to PDF and plain text and send out later once
> its done.

Would you mind sending the finished product to me?

A question to Frank and others - do you mind in what format the
newsletter's content is written in? I only have experience in using
HTML and AsciiDoc (http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/). I would *much*
prefer to use AsciiDoc because it "is a text document format for
writing notes, documentation, articles, books, ebooks, slideshows, web
pages, man pages and blogs. AsciiDoc files can be translated to many
formats including HTML, PDF, EPUB, man page." I know that there are
similar tools such as "plain text" markup languages but AsciiDoc is
the one with which I have most experience.

Assuming we were using AsciiDoc, we could have a master document which
then draws in content from various contributors and is then converted
to various formats. This method would make the job of the newsletter's
editor a little easier since each piece can be edited separately, then
combined into one document.

> Cheers,
> Frank

Thanks for your reply.

Another question to everyone - since I am the only person to have
volunteered so far I'm putting my thoughts out for everyone to read.
Am I going too far in suggesting formats and tools?


-- 
Russell