Re: postgresql publication - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

At 3:56p -0700 on 31 Jul 2007, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
> Robert Bernier wrote:
>> On Tuesday 31 July 2007 13:06, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>> I'm personally dubvious about the advisability of having our own
>>> Journal vs. having regular articles in other people's publications.
>>> I don't think that we have so many writers in the community that
>>> doing a PostgreSQL journal wouldn't rob Linux magazines, sysadmin
>>> magazines, blogs, oreillynet etc. of content.
>>
>> I don't believe we're robbing anybody.
>
> Well I guess Josh's point was that there is only so much content that
> the currently not so gigantic group of people competent in writing about
> PostgreSQL community can write up.

Hmm.  I don't think I agree with this point, then.  Considering the
absolutely ginormous volume of knowledge and the number of _extremely_
intelligent people on this list, I think the problem may be more
"instant recall" or ideas than the fact that they have "nothing to write
about."  Knowing about what to write is generally the crux.

Also, don't forget: just because the regulars on these lists know
something, doesn't mean that it would not be helpful to noobs.  Even
trivial things are useful to those who don't know them.

If one is looking for ideas about which to write, it seems to me that
the fairly active mailing lists would be an excellent thermometer from
which to gauge (-general, -performance, -hackers, -interfaces, -admin
... basically any/all of the non-developer lists) what would be useful
to readers of such a publication.

> So the question is if this content
> should best be published in a specialized PostgreSQL mag or in other
> types of mags, like linux, programming etc.

I can't speak to this(, but I've scene a couple of articles regarding
PostgreSQL and MySQL in Linux Journal {April,May,June}\ 2007, I think) . . .

> Because if the current crop
> of writes would take the time they currently have and write for this new
> journal, they might not have content to offer to other mags.

. . . but this seems to me a silly argument.  We don't know that this
would be the case.  If there is sufficient interest in a publication,
why not see what happens?  If we don't have the authors, then we don't
have the authors.  If we don't have readers, then we don't have readers.
 At least we tried.  No need to future.

> Obviously if the creation of this mag would result in more good content
> being written on PostgreSQL, then it would be a whole different story.

Agreed.

Kevin