Thread: Planet posting policy
Hi, We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, including some senior community members who have posted technical content about their work which happens to be on commercial products around PostgreSQL. I'd like to propose relaxing this policy (or perhaps the interpretation of it) to allow useful content to be posted that happens to be centered around commercial products, whilst being careful to avoid pure advertising content which we certainly do not want (and should continue to be posted as news or pgsql-announce articles). The current policy has the following notes guiding on its interpretation: --- The primary test here is whether the information provided would be of some use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product mentioned. Consider what your entry would look like if all references to the product were removed. If there's no useful PostgreSQL content left after doing that, that post is an ad. --- I'd like to suggest changing that to something like the following: --- The primary test here is whether the information provided could be considered pure advertising. Consider what the article would look like if all references to any products were removed. If there is technical content remaining that may be considered interesting to those working with or around PostgreSQL, or the post is in some way describing the "state of the art" (as related to PostgreSQL), then it is suitable for syndication on Planet. In contrast, if all the remains is a list of features with no technical discussion around their implementation, then that is not suitable for syndication. --- I'm not wed to that wording - in fact I'm sure we can do better. However, I hope the intent is clear. Whilst we have had one or two cases where pure advertising has been removed from Planet, their have also been cases where potentially interesting posts have had to be removed due to the strictness of the policy interpretation, which is unfortunate for everyone. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:59, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > Hi, > > We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org > (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been > applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their > syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. > This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, > including some senior community members who have posted technical > content about their work which happens to be on commercial products > around PostgreSQL. > > I'd like to propose relaxing this policy (or perhaps the > interpretation of it) to allow useful content to be posted that > happens to be centered around commercial products, whilst being > careful to avoid pure advertising content which we certainly do not > want (and should continue to be posted as news or pgsql-announce > articles). > > The current policy has the following notes guiding on its interpretation: > > --- > The primary test here is whether the information provided would be of > some use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product > mentioned. Consider what your entry would look like if all references > to the product were removed. If there's no useful PostgreSQL content > left after doing that, that post is an ad. > --- > > I'd like to suggest changing that to something like the following: > > --- > The primary test here is whether the information provided could be > considered pure advertising. Consider what the article would look like I don't like the use of "pure advertising". That makes it go overboard in the other direction instead - it's too easy to argue that almost *anything* isn't *pure* advertising... > if all references to any products were removed. If there is technical > content remaining that may be considered interesting to those working > with or around PostgreSQL, or the post is in some way describing the > "state of the art" (as related to PostgreSQL), then it is suitable for I'm not sure what the "state of the art" part is actually supposed to mean? As in, what does it actually add on top of the already bbeing interesting to those working with or around postgres? > syndication on Planet. In contrast, if all the remains is a list of > features with no technical discussion around their implementation, > then that is not suitable for syndication. > --- Should we perhaps also add something about referring to things that are IP protected, such as patented technologies, that we don't really want people posting about? > I'm not wed to that wording - in fact I'm sure we can do better. > However, I hope the intent is clear. Whilst we have had one or two > cases where pure advertising has been removed from Planet, their have > also been cases where potentially interesting posts have had to be > removed due to the strictness of the policy interpretation, which is > unfortunate for everyone. While I don't disagree with relaxing the policies a bit, I only recall a single instance of this actually happening recently, and in that case it would've also failed the new wording above. Do you have some examples? (if you don't want to post those publically for obvious reasons, feel free to just remind me personally or the closed moderators list about those cases, so we are not missing that information) -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 > We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org > (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been > applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their > syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. > This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, > including some senior community members who have posted technical > content about their work which happens to be on commercial products > around PostgreSQL. Can you point to specific examples of blog posts that have been self-moderated as to not appear on Planet due to our policies? I think that would help this dicussion if we could see some actual problematic posts. I am open to changing the wording. > The primary test here is whether the information provided could be > considered pure advertising. Consider what the article would look like > if all references to any products were removed. If there is technical > content remaining that may be considered interesting to those working > with or around PostgreSQL, or the post is in some way describing the > "state of the art" (as related to PostgreSQL), then it is suitable for > syndication on Planet. In contrast, if all the remains is a list of > features with no technical discussion around their implementation, > then that is not suitable for syndication. I'm not seeing much of a distinction here. The key phrase of the existing one is "useful PostgreSQL content", which is a fairly broad description. I'm not sure what "state of the art (as related to PostgreSQL)" even means, honestly. - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201201291021 http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEAREDAAYFAk8lZKoACgkQvJuQZxSWSshKXACfcVYRphYehRIOjXC5nGKWWtY6 z7QAn11vigbf4r1D04K1k6b/73dTnD6p =FJlM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Hi On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:59, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org >> (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been >> applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their >> syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. >> This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, >> including some senior community members who have posted technical >> content about their work which happens to be on commercial products >> around PostgreSQL. >> >> I'd like to propose relaxing this policy (or perhaps the >> interpretation of it) to allow useful content to be posted that >> happens to be centered around commercial products, whilst being >> careful to avoid pure advertising content which we certainly do not >> want (and should continue to be posted as news or pgsql-announce >> articles). >> >> The current policy has the following notes guiding on its interpretation: >> >> --- >> The primary test here is whether the information provided would be of >> some use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product >> mentioned. Consider what your entry would look like if all references >> to the product were removed. If there's no useful PostgreSQL content >> left after doing that, that post is an ad. >> --- >> >> I'd like to suggest changing that to something like the following: >> >> --- >> The primary test here is whether the information provided could be >> considered pure advertising. Consider what the article would look like > > I don't like the use of "pure advertising". That makes it go overboard > in the other direction instead - it's too easy to argue that almost > *anything* isn't *pure* advertising... OK. >> if all references to any products were removed. If there is technical >> content remaining that may be considered interesting to those working >> with or around PostgreSQL, or the post is in some way describing the >> "state of the art" (as related to PostgreSQL), then it is suitable for > > I'm not sure what the "state of the art" part is actually supposed to > mean? As in, what does it actually add on top of the already bbeing > interesting to those working with or around postgres? I was trying to find a way to allow posts that aren't purely technical in nature. For example, if a company started a new website that happened to have 10TB of geo data stored in Postgres, I'd want to hear about it as a good example of Postgres being used in "state of the art" ways, even if it wasn't necessarily a post about how they did it in technical detail. >> syndication on Planet. In contrast, if all the remains is a list of >> features with no technical discussion around their implementation, >> then that is not suitable for syndication. >> --- > > Should we perhaps also add something about referring to things that > are IP protected, such as patented technologies, that we don't really > want people posting about? Sure. >> I'm not wed to that wording - in fact I'm sure we can do better. >> However, I hope the intent is clear. Whilst we have had one or two >> cases where pure advertising has been removed from Planet, their have >> also been cases where potentially interesting posts have had to be >> removed due to the strictness of the policy interpretation, which is >> unfortunate for everyone. > > While I don't disagree with relaxing the policies a bit, I only recall > a single instance of this actually happening recently, and in that > case it would've also failed the new wording above. Do you have some > examples? (if you don't want to post those publically for obvious > reasons, feel free to just remind me personally or the closed > moderators list about those cases, so we are not missing that > information) The cases I'm thinking of probably include the one you're thinking of, however I thought we blocked two posts from different authors on essentially the same subject. Maybe I'm misremembering though, and we let one of them pass. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Greg Sabino Mullane <greg@turnstep.com> wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: RIPEMD160 > > >> We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org >> (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been >> applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their >> syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. >> This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, >> including some senior community members who have posted technical >> content about their work which happens to be on commercial products >> around PostgreSQL. > > Can you point to specific examples of blog posts that have been > self-moderated as to not appear on Planet due to our policies? > I think that would help this dicussion if we could see some actual > problematic posts. I am open to changing the wording. I have no idea of any posts that have been self-moderated, except for one of my own which I posted only to the EnterpriseDB blog: http://blogs.enterprisedb.com/2011/08/23/postgres-enterprise-manager-i-love-it-when-a-plan-comes-together/ I would have liked to have been able to post that to my regular blog so it appeared on Planet, though had I thought that possible I would have gone into more technical detail about how the product is architected, and made it less "marketing" sounding. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Dave, I think a list of what's prohibited would be simpler: ================== The purpose of Planet PostgreSQL is to provide useful news, ideas, technical information, and community discussion for members of the PostgreSQL community. It is not a medium for advertising commercial products and services; the community has other channels for that. Therefore, the following kinds of content are prohibited from Planet PostgreSQL, and may cause your blog to be removed from syndication if you post them: * Posts whose primary purpose is to advertise a commercial product, service, website, or event and lack substantial technical information or news of community interest; * Multiple and frequent posts which center around the same commercial product, service, event, or website with significant advertising content. Since the above evaluations are qualitative, here's some examples: BAD: Post announcing the launch of your new PostGIS-based website, without any real mention of PostGIS. GOOD: Post announcing the launch of your new PostGIS-based website, with a couple sentences about how it's based on PostGIS. BAD: 5 posts in a row about the new PostGIS website, all of which lack siginificant technical content. GOOD: Post about your commercial Postgres fork, how it differs from mainstream PostgreSQL, and why you'd want to use it. GOOD: Post about the technical challenges you overcame when developing your commercial Postgres fork. BAD: Post announcing the availability of version 3.5.641 of your commercial Postgres fork, with details copied directly from the press release. ============================== -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc. http://pgexperts.com
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 7:21 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > Dave, > > I think a list of what's prohibited would be simpler: > > ================== > > The purpose of Planet PostgreSQL is to provide useful news, ideas, > technical information, and community discussion for members of the > PostgreSQL community. It is not a medium for advertising commercial > products and services; the community has other channels for that. > Therefore, the following kinds of content are prohibited from Planet > PostgreSQL, and may cause your blog to be removed from syndication if > you post them: > > * Posts whose primary purpose is to advertise a commercial product, > service, website, or event and lack substantial technical information or > news of community interest; > > * Multiple and frequent posts which center around the same commercial > product, service, event, or website with significant advertising content. > > Since the above evaluations are qualitative, here's some examples: > > BAD: Post announcing the launch of your new PostGIS-based website, > without any real mention of PostGIS. > > GOOD: Post announcing the launch of your new PostGIS-based website, with > a couple sentences about how it's based on PostGIS. > > BAD: 5 posts in a row about the new PostGIS website, all of which lack > siginificant technical content. > > GOOD: Post about your commercial Postgres fork, how it differs from > mainstream PostgreSQL, and why you'd want to use it. > > GOOD: Post about the technical challenges you overcame when developing > your commercial Postgres fork. > > BAD: Post announcing the availability of version 3.5.641 of your > commercial Postgres fork, with details copied directly from the press > release. I like that. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:59:29AM +0000, Dave Page wrote: > Hi, > > We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org > (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been > applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their > syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. > This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, > including some senior community members who have posted technical > content about their work which happens to be on commercial products > around PostgreSQL. > > I'd like to propose relaxing this policy (or perhaps the > interpretation of it) to allow useful content to be posted that > happens to be centered around commercial products, whilst being > careful to avoid pure advertising content which we certainly do not > want (and should continue to be posted as news or pgsql-announce > articles). While I am not against relaxing the rules, it would be a shame if the new rules were more vague than the old ones. The old rules, while strict, were very easy to mentally filter; I am worried more vague rules will lead to more uncertainty and perhaps arguments/hurt feelings. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
On 29 January 2012 18:42, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > I was trying to find a way to allow posts that aren't purely technical > in nature. For example, if a company started a new website that > happened to have 10TB of geo data stored in Postgres, I'd want to hear > about it as a good example of Postgres being used in "state of the > art" ways, even if it wasn't necessarily a post about how they did it > in technical detail. Are you sure that that wouldn't be allowed under our current policy? I'd have thought that was fine, provided that it was actually useful. I'm unsure of my position relating to relaxing those rules. I wouldn't like to arbitrarily prevent someone from talking about a topic of actual interest or utility to the community on the sole basis that it mentioned proprietary software or commercial services in an incidental or matter-of-fact fashion. That wasn't how I understood the rules to work though. It might be helpful if you could cite a specific incident of the current rules tripping someone up in a way that was clearly against the community's interest. Bruce has a good point - the rules should be easily understood. -- Peter Geoghegan http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Peter Geoghegan <peter@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > On 29 January 2012 18:42, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: >> I was trying to find a way to allow posts that aren't purely technical >> in nature. For example, if a company started a new website that >> happened to have 10TB of geo data stored in Postgres, I'd want to hear >> about it as a good example of Postgres being used in "state of the >> art" ways, even if it wasn't necessarily a post about how they did it >> in technical detail. > > Are you sure that that wouldn't be allowed under our current policy? > I'd have thought that was fine, provided that it was actually useful. It might have been under the policy itself, however we've been interpreting that based on the guidance notes which are pretty strict, and essentially only allow posts of a purely technical nature. > It might be helpful if you could cite a specific incident of the > current rules tripping someone up in a way that was clearly against > the community's interest. I can't do that I'm afraid, as it may cause embarrassment for the people/companies involved. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 4:25 AM, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:59:29AM +0000, Dave Page wrote: >> Hi, >> >> We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org >> (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been >> applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their >> syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. >> This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, >> including some senior community members who have posted technical >> content about their work which happens to be on commercial products >> around PostgreSQL. >> >> I'd like to propose relaxing this policy (or perhaps the >> interpretation of it) to allow useful content to be posted that >> happens to be centered around commercial products, whilst being >> careful to avoid pure advertising content which we certainly do not >> want (and should continue to be posted as news or pgsql-announce >> articles). > > While I am not against relaxing the rules, it would be a shame if the > new rules were more vague than the old ones. The old rules, while > strict, were very easy to mentally filter; I am worried more vague > rules will lead to more uncertainty and perhaps arguments/hurt feelings. To some extent I think that's unavoidable. The current rules are interpreted pretty strictly and state that unless there is "useful PostgreSQL content" when product names have been removed, it will not be allowed. The issue I have with that is that it precludes *interesting* posts which may describe new products based on use of PostgreSQL in innovative or unusual ways. That's happened a couple of times in the past. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On 30 January 2012 07:50, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Peter Geoghegan <peter@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: >> It might be helpful if you could cite a specific incident of the >> current rules tripping someone up in a way that was clearly against >> the community's interest. > > I can't do that I'm afraid, as it may cause embarrassment for the > people/companies involved. Maybe you should contact them privately and ask them to share their grievances? -- Peter Geoghegan http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 19:47, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Greg Sabino Mullane <greg@turnstep.com> wrote: >> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: RIPEMD160 >> >> >>> We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org >>> (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been >>> applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their >>> syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising. >>> This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past, >>> including some senior community members who have posted technical >>> content about their work which happens to be on commercial products >>> around PostgreSQL. >> >> Can you point to specific examples of blog posts that have been >> self-moderated as to not appear on Planet due to our policies? >> I think that would help this dicussion if we could see some actual >> problematic posts. I am open to changing the wording. > > I have no idea of any posts that have been self-moderated, except for > one of my own which I posted only to the EnterpriseDB blog: > http://blogs.enterprisedb.com/2011/08/23/postgres-enterprise-manager-i-love-it-when-a-plan-comes-together/ > > I would have liked to have been able to post that to my regular blog > so it appeared on Planet, though had I thought that possible I would > have gone into more technical detail about how the product is > architected, and made it less "marketing" sounding. I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we *don't* necessarily want on planet. It's too bad you didn't write a version that had the technical detali and was less marketing/pressrelease:y to compare with :-) Because AIUI, you don't actually suggest changing the policies as far as to allow that post as it is - it would've allowed the modified version only? -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 06:21, Peter Geoghegan <peter@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > On 29 January 2012 18:42, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: >> I was trying to find a way to allow posts that aren't purely technical >> in nature. For example, if a company started a new website that >> happened to have 10TB of geo data stored in Postgres, I'd want to hear >> about it as a good example of Postgres being used in "state of the >> art" ways, even if it wasn't necessarily a post about how they did it >> in technical detail. > > Are you sure that that wouldn't be allowed under our current policy? > I'd have thought that was fine, provided that it was actually useful. I think it is, under the "it's a use-case of postgresql". I don't see how it would fail to pass the current policies? if they built it on postgres plus advanced server, or greenplum, it would be off limits, because then it's not related to postgresql other than in "second generation". > I'm unsure of my position relating to relaxing those rules. I wouldn't > like to arbitrarily prevent someone from talking about a topic of > actual interest or utility to the community on the sole basis that it > mentioned proprietary software or commercial services in an incidental > or matter-of-fact fashion. That wasn't how I understood the rules to > work though. Me either. It might be that the rules are fine and the *guidelines* are unclear on that though. But the rule of "if you strip mentioning of the commercial product, is it still interesting to the community" would seem to allow that pretty well in my understanding. > It might be helpful if you could cite a specific incident of the > current rules tripping someone up in a way that was clearly against > the community's interest. Yes. I realize, as you said later downthread, that you can't really do it without casting said persons/companie in bad light. But perhaps you can try to "anonymize" an example? > Bruce has a good point - the rules should be easily understood. Yes, this is important. Both to make it clear to people what is ok and what isn't, and also to decrease the risk of long-running arguments when something *is* moderated. (Which has, under these rules, happened extremely seldom) -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: > I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we > *don't* necessarily want on planet. Yeh. It all seems quite simple to me. We're here to contribute to a specific open source project, so write a blog about what you have done lately that furthers those goals. -- Simon Riggs http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 07:50:20AM +0000, Dave Page wrote: > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Peter Geoghegan <peter@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > > On 29 January 2012 18:42, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > >> I was trying to find a way to allow posts that aren't purely technical > >> in nature. For example, if a company started a new website that > >> happened to have 10TB of geo data stored in Postgres, I'd want to hear > >> about it as a good example of Postgres being used in "state of the > >> art" ways, even if it wasn't necessarily a post about how they did it > >> in technical detail. > > > > Are you sure that that wouldn't be allowed under our current policy? > > I'd have thought that was fine, provided that it was actually useful. > > It might have been under the policy itself, however we've been > interpreting that based on the guidance notes which are pretty strict, > and essentially only allow posts of a purely technical nature. I think the real risk we have in relaxing the rules is that postings will be made who's _intent_ is to highlight a commercial product. Once the indent is commercial promotion, the blog itself isn't very interesting to others. We have succussfully blocked such postings --- the big question is whether we can allow postings based on commercial products without having postings that are "intended" to be promotional. I think Dave or Josh mention the pitfall tangentially --- if someone's intent is promotional, they might blog about how to do X with some commercial product, then, next week, show how to do Y with some commercial product. Imagine them thinking, "Oh, I haven't blogged about my commercial product in a while, and the Postgres blog is very popular, let me think of how to do that again." I am not saying that will happen, but it might happen if we aren't as clear as we are now in the guidelines. And if our rules are not as clear as they are now, we then have to guess what their intent was, and pick apart the blog post to get facts to support our interpretation. I think everyone kind of agrees our rules are too tight, but it is unclear how to relax them _clearly_. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
Le 30 janvier 2012 15:57, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> a écrit : > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 07:50:20AM +0000, Dave Page wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Peter Geoghegan <peter@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: >> > On 29 January 2012 18:42, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: >> >> I was trying to find a way to allow posts that aren't purely technical >> >> in nature. For example, if a company started a new website that >> >> happened to have 10TB of geo data stored in Postgres, I'd want to hear >> >> about it as a good example of Postgres being used in "state of the >> >> art" ways, even if it wasn't necessarily a post about how they did it >> >> in technical detail. >> > >> > Are you sure that that wouldn't be allowed under our current policy? >> > I'd have thought that was fine, provided that it was actually useful. >> >> It might have been under the policy itself, however we've been >> interpreting that based on the guidance notes which are pretty strict, >> and essentially only allow posts of a purely technical nature. > > I think the real risk we have in relaxing the rules is that postings > will be made who's _intent_ is to highlight a commercial product. Once > the indent is commercial promotion, the blog itself isn't very > interesting to others. > > We have succussfully blocked such postings --- the big question is > whether we can allow postings based on commercial products without > having postings that are "intended" to be promotional. > > I think Dave or Josh mention the pitfall tangentially --- if someone's > intent is promotional, they might blog about how to do X with some > commercial product, then, next week, show how to do Y with some > commercial product. Imagine them thinking, "Oh, I haven't blogged about > my commercial product in a while, and the Postgres blog is very popular, > let me think of how to do that again." > > I am not saying that will happen, but it might happen if we aren't as > clear as we are now in the guidelines. And if our rules are not as > clear as they are now, we then have to guess what their intent was, and > pick apart the blog post to get facts to support our interpretation. > > I think everyone kind of agrees our rules are too tight, but it is > unclear how to relax them _clearly_. I don't know exactly about rules but I am happy to read planet.postgresql with the current contents (so the rules looks good so far) I won't if its to read about internals of close-source products or derivate work from close-source product where removing the name of the close-source thing is going to remove the interest of the article for PostgreSQL and derivate open-source toools and projects. Also I am not interested in content I won't be able to use because of licence restriction. (not off-topic I believe) Maybe the next time someone got a post refused he/she can be asked if he agrees to be used to debate the rules change... -- Cédric Villemain +33 (0)6 20 30 22 52 http://2ndQuadrant.fr/ PostgreSQL: Support 24x7 - Développement, Expertise et Formation
> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we > *don't* necessarily want on planet. See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about our users. As long as it's not press releases. I don't think it's going to be possible to have one feed which pleases everyone. Maybe we should have two feeds? /oss and /universe ? -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc. http://pgexperts.com
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 18:58, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > >> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we >> *don't* necessarily want on planet. > > See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be > included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the > various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL > hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about > our users. As long as it's not press releases. Did you read the example? It *was* basically a press release... > I don't think it's going to be possible to have one feed which pleases > everyone. Maybe we should have two feeds? /oss and /universe ? Sure, we could probably find a way to do that, but is the demand really high enough to make it worth it? -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
Magnus, > Did you read the example? It *was* basically a press release... Not from my perspective. Dave's post tells me in factual language exactly what the features of PEM are (or are intended to be), sufficient to let me know if I should investigate PEM for my customers and PUG or not. And if you compare it to the EDB press release on the same topic, you'll note some dramatic content and style differences. Based on the EDB press release, I'd dismissed PEM as yet more EDB vaporware until I got to pgOpen. -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc. http://pgexperts.com
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 04:11:31PM +0100, Cédric Villemain wrote: > I don't know exactly about rules but I am happy to read > planet.postgresql with the current contents (so the rules looks good > so far) > I won't if its to read about internals of close-source products or > derivate work from close-source product where removing the name of the > close-source thing is going to remove the interest of the article for > PostgreSQL and derivate open-source toools and projects. > Also I am not interested in content I won't be able to use because of > licence restriction. (not off-topic I believe) > > Maybe the next time someone got a post refused he/she can be asked if > he agrees to be used to debate the rules change... While I agree with you, I should point out that it is unclear what we are _not_ seeing on Planet Postgres which could also be of interest. I think the other comment wanting to see an example of what we are missing might be the only way we can figure this out. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 07:00:26PM +0100, Magnus Hagander wrote: > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 18:58, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > > > >> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we > >> *don't* necessarily want on planet. > > > > See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be > > included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the > > various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL > > hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about > > our users. As long as it's not press releases. > > Did you read the example? It *was* basically a press release... > > > > I don't think it's going to be possible to have one feed which pleases > > everyone. Maybe we should have two feeds? /oss and /universe ? > > Sure, we could probably find a way to do that, but is the demand > really high enough to make it worth it? I think the big question is whether our announce list is sufficient (which allows commercial postings) or whether there is stuff that doesn't fit on announce that should be on our blog. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:05:17AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote: > Magnus, > > > Did you read the example? It *was* basically a press release... > > Not from my perspective. Dave's post tells me in factual language > exactly what the features of PEM are (or are intended to be), sufficient > to let me know if I should investigate PEM for my customers and PUG or > not. > > And if you compare it to the EDB press release on the same topic, you'll > note some dramatic content and style differences. Based on the EDB > press release, I'd dismissed PEM as yet more EDB vaporware until I got > to pgOpen. Let me add I do slip commercial stuff into my blog if it make sense --- e.g. if I am speaking to the Boston user group, and doing training there as well, I mention the training, but that isn't the topic of the blog post (http://momjian.us/main/blogs/pgblog/2012.html#January_16_2012_2). Also, I think the commercial PEM product could be blogged about if it allows users to see aspects of Postgres via graphs that are not usually visible. Also, it possible to blog about Postgres running on the cloud and tangentially mention the EDB cloud product, or other cloud products. (I mentioned commercial products when I blogged about monitoring, http://momjian.us/main/blogs/pgblog/2011.html#November_30_2011.) In summary, there are ways to do it now, but it has to be done carefully. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
On 01/30/2012 10:05 AM, Josh Berkus wrote: > > Magnus, > >> Did you read the example? It *was* basically a press release... > > Not from my perspective. Dave's post tells me in factual language > exactly what the features of PEM are (or are intended to be), sufficient > to let me know if I should investigate PEM for my customers and PUG or > not. > > And if you compare it to the EDB press release on the same topic, you'll > note some dramatic content and style differences. Based on the EDB > press release, I'd dismissed PEM as yet more EDB vaporware until I got > to pgOpen. > I have to say I am with JoshB on this one. I want to know *all* about PostgreSQL. I want Greenplum, VMWare, EDB Advanced Server and .Org represented because they all directly apply to what I do for a living. I want to know about all the tools and all the options available to me. JD -- Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development The PostgreSQL Conference - http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ @cmdpromptinc - @postgresconf - 509-416-6579
On Jan 30, 2012, at 7:29 AM, Simon Riggs wrote: > Yeh. It all seems quite simple to me. We're here to contribute to a > specific open source project, so write a blog about what you have done > lately that furthers those goals. On Jan 30, 2012, at 2:37 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > I have to say I am with JoshB on this one. I want to know *all* about PostgreSQL. I want Greenplum, VMWare, EDB AdvancedServer and .Org represented because they all directly apply to what I do for a living. I want to know about all thetools and all the options available to me. Though these may seem like opposing arguments, I agree with both Simon and JD. Planet blog entries should be pertainingspecifically what's going on in the noncommercial part of the community, but at the same time, it's good for theworld to be aware of what is being developed commercial and how PostgreSQL and it's derivatives are being employed. Afterall, a lot of the commercial development does help provide the necessary financing to put new features into core. That being said, based on the proposals for the Planet acceptance policy, there is too much of a "gray line" on what is acceptable(even by just debate on the list over one entry). Having two separate feeds is a possibility, and has a few pros: * Highlight both feeds on the postgresql.org home page (both in separate sections, and I would put community higher up) -show what is happening in the community, and what is happening the commercial world, hopefully driving more interest inboth * Eliminate "confusion" over what is acceptable content in the community blogs Having a commercial.planet.postresql.org could help community members working on commercial products highlight some of thecool stuff they are doing, while not taking away from community-led efforts. Thus the policy could be: * If the work is strictly community related (i.e. the work is going directly into core, some extension, or some open-sourcePostgres derivative or project), then it's on planet * If the work is for a commercial product, it goes on the other feed Jonathan
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: > > I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we > *don't* necessarily want on planet. As written. I don't think it's a million miles off though. > It's too bad you didn't write a version that had the technical detali > and was less marketing/pressrelease:y to compare with :-) Because > AIUI, you don't actually suggest changing the policies as far as to > allow that post as it is - it would've allowed the modified version > only? Correct - though I would have described the basic features of course, as would be necessary to give the appropriate context to the technical detail. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > >> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we >> *don't* necessarily want on planet. > > See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be > included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the > various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL > hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about > our users. As long as it's not press releases. Right - and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Planet isn't their primarily for us; it's there for the users. Some of them probably only want to know about PostgreSQL itself, whilst others will certainly be interested in the entire eco-system around PostgreSQL. In just about every other aspect of what we do, we encourage input and content from commercial and OSS product vendors alike, both about their products and because they're vendors we're happy to be associated with; news, events, announcements, press quotes, the product catalogue etc. etc. Planet is the only exception to this I can think of. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 6:11 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 07:00:26PM +0100, Magnus Hagander wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 18:58, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: >> > >> >> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we >> >> *don't* necessarily want on planet. >> > >> > See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be >> > included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the >> > various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL >> > hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about >> > our users. As long as it's not press releases. >> >> Did you read the example? It *was* basically a press release... >> >> >> > I don't think it's going to be possible to have one feed which pleases >> > everyone. Maybe we should have two feeds? /oss and /universe ? >> >> Sure, we could probably find a way to do that, but is the demand >> really high enough to make it worth it? > > I think the big question is whether our announce list is sufficient > (which allows commercial postings) or whether there is stuff that > doesn't fit on announce that should be on our blog. -announce is for press-release type stuff, which we definitely do not want on Planet. Similarly, we wouldn't want technical write ups on -announce. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:40, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: >> >>> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we >>> *don't* necessarily want on planet. >> >> See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be >> included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the >> various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL >> hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about >> our users. As long as it's not press releases. > > Right - and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Planet isn't > their primarily for us; it's there for the users. Some of them Agreed. Which is why it's interesting that those posting in favor of allowing more "commercially oriented" posts are the people who either have commercial products they'd consider blogging about or have previous been asked to remove at least one post from the planet... At least AFAICT, forgive me if I got one wrong or so, but the majority is certainly that way... But we haven't heard from any of those users that it's actually there for. Maybe we should post a survey on postgresql.org or something to gauge the *outside* interest? > probably only want to know about PostgreSQL itself, whilst others will > certainly be interested in the entire eco-system around PostgreSQL. > > In just about every other aspect of what we do, we encourage input and > content from commercial and OSS product vendors alike, both about > their products and because they're vendors we're happy to be > associated with; news, events, announcements, press quotes, the > product catalogue etc. etc. Planet is the only exception to this I can > think of. Well, we rate-limit post in other scenarios. If we do allow it on planet, we should probably at least rate-limit it the same way we do for news. While we could (and it would probably make sense to) apply the same policy as we do for news, it would be a lot harder to actually follow up on it on planet since we don't moderate the posts there. The only technical solution I see to that that seems reasonably easy to build would be to have those who want to post these more commercial posts on their blog register for a special "permission" to do that, and that those posts ends up being moderated in the same way we moderate news today. That might work reasonably well, but it's certainly a more complex process... -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:40, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: >>> >>>> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we >>>> *don't* necessarily want on planet. >>> >>> See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be >>> included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the >>> various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL >>> hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about >>> our users. As long as it's not press releases. >> >> Right - and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Planet isn't >> their primarily for us; it's there for the users. Some of them > > Agreed. Which is why it's interesting that those posting in favor of > allowing more "commercially oriented" posts are the people who either > have commercial products they'd consider blogging about or have > previous been asked to remove at least one post from the planet... At > least AFAICT, forgive me if I got one wrong or so, but the majority is > certainly that way... Well, from a sample set of half a dozen or so community members overall. That doesn't really tell us anything though. > But we haven't heard from any of those users that it's actually there for. > > Maybe we should post a survey on postgresql.org or something to gauge > the *outside* interest? That doesn't seem unreasonable. >> probably only want to know about PostgreSQL itself, whilst others will >> certainly be interested in the entire eco-system around PostgreSQL. >> >> In just about every other aspect of what we do, we encourage input and >> content from commercial and OSS product vendors alike, both about >> their products and because they're vendors we're happy to be >> associated with; news, events, announcements, press quotes, the >> product catalogue etc. etc. Planet is the only exception to this I can >> think of. > > Well, we rate-limit post in other scenarios. If we do allow it on > planet, we should probably at least rate-limit it the same way we do > for news. While we could (and it would probably make sense to) apply > the same policy as we do for news, it would be a lot harder to > actually follow up on it on planet since we don't moderate the posts > there. > > The only technical solution I see to that that seems reasonably easy > to build would be to have those who want to post these more commercial > posts on their blog register for a special "permission" to do that, > and that those posts ends up being moderated in the same way we > moderate news today. That might work reasonably well, but it's > certainly a more complex process... Yeah. But that's also drifting off-topic slightly - the question in debate here is "do we want to relax the rules", which a number of people have been in favour of, and only one against if I'm counting correctly, and if so, how do we do so without going too far in the other direction? We only really need a moderation system if people don't follow the guidelines. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On 02/01/2012 08:43 AM, Dave Page wrote: >> The only technical solution I see to that that seems reasonably easy >> to build would be to have those who want to post these more commercial >> posts on their blog register for a special "permission" to do that, >> and that those posts ends up being moderated in the same way we >> moderate news today. That might work reasonably well, but it's >> certainly a more complex process... > > Yeah. But that's also drifting off-topic slightly - the question in > debate here is "do we want to relax the rules", which a number of > people have been in favour of, and only one against if I'm counting > correctly, and if so, how do we do so without going too far in the > other direction? We only really need a moderation system if people > don't follow the guidelines. > A poll will be mostly useless. It is going to only get responses from those who: A. Care about polls B. Read the poll section C. Are directly .Org people (versus remotely) The question to me really boils down to, do we want to relax the rules in an order to increase readership and the value (intellectual) of the content. As long as the rules are as they are, we are limiting the advocacy power of Planet. Maybe that is what we want, maybe not but as Dave has said, most are in favor of relaxing the rules. JD -- Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development The PostgreSQL Conference - http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ @cmdpromptinc - @postgresconf - 509-416-6579
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 17:43, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: >> On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:40, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: >>> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I think that blog post itself is a very good example of content we >>>>> *don't* necessarily want on planet. >>>> >>>> See, while for me it's exactly the kind of post I think *should* be >>>> included. Because I'm a working consultant, I'm interested in what the >>>> various commercial forks can do for my customers, and as a PostgreSQL >>>> hacker I'm interested in what the various commercial tools tell us about >>>> our users. As long as it's not press releases. >>> >>> Right - and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Planet isn't >>> their primarily for us; it's there for the users. Some of them >> >> Agreed. Which is why it's interesting that those posting in favor of >> allowing more "commercially oriented" posts are the people who either >> have commercial products they'd consider blogging about or have >> previous been asked to remove at least one post from the planet... At >> least AFAICT, forgive me if I got one wrong or so, but the majority is >> certainly that way... > > Well, from a sample set of half a dozen or so community members > overall. That doesn't really tell us anything though. Agreed - that's excatly the problem. >> But we haven't heard from any of those users that it's actually there for. >> >> Maybe we should post a survey on postgresql.org or something to gauge >> the *outside* interest? > > That doesn't seem unreasonable. Josh (B), I think you are the one who normally post those - do you have anything else scheduled up that this would conflict with? I'm assuming not since AFAIK you still haven't tried to even use the new interface? ;) >>> probably only want to know about PostgreSQL itself, whilst others will >>> certainly be interested in the entire eco-system around PostgreSQL. >>> >>> In just about every other aspect of what we do, we encourage input and >>> content from commercial and OSS product vendors alike, both about >>> their products and because they're vendors we're happy to be >>> associated with; news, events, announcements, press quotes, the >>> product catalogue etc. etc. Planet is the only exception to this I can >>> think of. >> >> Well, we rate-limit post in other scenarios. If we do allow it on >> planet, we should probably at least rate-limit it the same way we do >> for news. While we could (and it would probably make sense to) apply >> the same policy as we do for news, it would be a lot harder to >> actually follow up on it on planet since we don't moderate the posts >> there. >> >> The only technical solution I see to that that seems reasonably easy >> to build would be to have those who want to post these more commercial >> posts on their blog register for a special "permission" to do that, >> and that those posts ends up being moderated in the same way we >> moderate news today. That might work reasonably well, but it's >> certainly a more complex process... > > Yeah. But that's also drifting off-topic slightly - the question in > debate here is "do we want to relax the rules", which a number of > people have been in favour of, and only one against if I'm counting > correctly, and if so, how do we do so without going too far in the > other direction? We only really need a moderation system if people > don't follow the guidelines. Yes, I also only count one actual "no" - but I count at least four as basically saying "need to know what this would actually mean before I can judge if this is a good idea"... And that's pretty much everybody who doesn't fall into the category above of being one of the probable *posters* of such posts. -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 19:07, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote: > > On 02/01/2012 08:43 AM, Dave Page wrote: > >>> The only technical solution I see to that that seems reasonably easy >>> to build would be to have those who want to post these more commercial >>> posts on their blog register for a special "permission" to do that, >>> and that those posts ends up being moderated in the same way we >>> moderate news today. That might work reasonably well, but it's >>> certainly a more complex process... >> >> >> Yeah. But that's also drifting off-topic slightly - the question in >> debate here is "do we want to relax the rules", which a number of >> people have been in favour of, and only one against if I'm counting >> correctly, and if so, how do we do so without going too far in the >> other direction? We only really need a moderation system if people >> don't follow the guidelines. >> > > A poll will be mostly useless. It is going to only get responses from those > who: > > A. Care about polls > B. Read the poll section > C. Are directly .Org people (versus remotely) The reasonable tihng would be to announce the poll on *planet*. That would make it reach exactly the people we want, which is, those who read planet. > The question to me really boils down to, do we want to relax the rules in an > order to increase readership and the value (intellectual) of the content. No, it also boils down to if relaxing the rule *does* increase readership (probably, but *far* from certain) and the value (much more in debate, I'd say) of planet. > As long as the rules are as they are, we are limiting the advocacy power of > Planet. Maybe that is what we want, maybe not but as Dave has said, most are Is it *for* advocacy, or is it for getting "actual information" for people who are already users? That's a separate question. > in favor of relaxing the rules. I don't agree with that statement. I'd say the majority is *undecided* at this point, because they don't know what it would mean. The majority *of the people who would be posting other things under these rules* are in favor of it. That is hardly surprising. In fact, if they were against it, we wouldn't even be discussing this, and the thread would probably never have been started. -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
On 02/01/2012 10:22 AM, Magnus Hagander wrote: > The reasonable tihng would be to announce the poll on *planet*. That > would make it reach exactly the people we want, which is, those who > read planet. I would agree this would be a reasonable sample but I would not agree that it is as reasonable as it could be (how to solve it, I don't know). > > >> The question to me really boils down to, do we want to relax the rules in an >> order to increase readership and the value (intellectual) of the content. > > No, it also boils down to if relaxing the rule *does* increase > readership (probably, but *far* from certain) and the value (much more > in debate, I'd say) of planet. > I am not sure how much debate there really is except from a puritanical sense that doesn't really add to the value of the content. It is directly appropriate to read about vPostgres and all its goodness on planet (same as Advanced server, IMO). > >> As long as the rules are as they are, we are limiting the advocacy power of >> Planet. Maybe that is what we want, maybe not but as Dave has said, most are > > Is it *for* advocacy, or is it for getting "actual information" for > people who are already users? That's a separate question. Good point. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development The PostgreSQL Conference - http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ @cmdpromptinc - @postgresconf - 509-416-6579
On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 10:56:43AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > On 02/01/2012 10:22 AM, Magnus Hagander wrote: > > >The reasonable tihng would be to announce the poll on *planet*. That > >would make it reach exactly the people we want, which is, those who > >read planet. > > I would agree this would be a reasonable sample but I would not > agree that it is as reasonable as it could be (how to solve it, I > don't know). > > > > > >>The question to me really boils down to, do we want to relax the rules in an > >>order to increase readership and the value (intellectual) of the content. > > > >No, it also boils down to if relaxing the rule *does* increase > >readership (probably, but *far* from certain) and the value (much more > >in debate, I'd say) of planet. > > > > I am not sure how much debate there really is except from a > puritanical sense that doesn't really add to the value of the > content. It is directly appropriate to read about vPostgres and all > its goodness on planet (same as Advanced server, IMO). If I was sure that commercial content would be posted with the same regularity and motivation as our current content, I would be fine, but knowing companies, I doubt that is true. I can imagine company X saying, "Oh, we have a new product coming out --- we need a blog campaign around that." I am afraid that isn't going to be pretty. Now, as a counter example, I just looked at the EnterpriseDB blog and saw what they blogged about the cloud product they just released: http://blogs.enterprisedb.com/ There are only two blog entries, and the rest are PG community ones from me, so I guess if they aren't totally spamming their own company-controlled blog, they might not do too much harm on Planet Postgres. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
On 02/01/2012 02:04 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > If I was sure that commercial content would be posted with the same > regularity and motivation as our current content, I would be fine, but > knowing companies, I doubt that is true. > > I can imagine company X saying, "Oh, we have a new product coming out > --- we need a blog campaign around that." I am afraid that isn't going > to be pretty. I would agree with that and I am not suggesting we allow press releases or advertising etc... However, I do think relevant technical information on a product is useful. JD -- Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development The PostgreSQL Conference - http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ @cmdpromptinc - @postgresconf - 509-416-6579
On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 02:15:39PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > On 02/01/2012 02:04 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > >If I was sure that commercial content would be posted with the same > >regularity and motivation as our current content, I would be fine, but > >knowing companies, I doubt that is true. > > > >I can imagine company X saying, "Oh, we have a new product coming out > >--- we need a blog campaign around that." I am afraid that isn't going > >to be pretty. > > I would agree with that and I am not suggesting we allow press > releases or advertising etc... However, I do think relevant > technical information on a product is useful. Well, as you can see, I am arguing both points, so I am more shooting out possible ideas rather than having a clear goal myself. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 > Yeah. But that's also drifting off-topic slightly - the question in > debate here is "do we want to relax the rules", which a number of > people have been in favour of, and only one against if I'm counting > correctly, and if so, how do we do so without going too far in the > other direction? We only really need a moderation system if people > don't follow the guidelines. Counting, and polls, is silly: what we really need is a rough consensus (from those of us that care enough to read this list) on what is best for the project. Nonetheless, count me as a -1 for changing the guidelines until a better rationale and some solid examples are given. I think the onus is on those proposing a change to convince us the status quo is not working. Also -1 to creating a second "corporate-focused" blog. For an example of what a aggregator with a more relaxed policy might look like, check out planet.mysql.com. It used to be a tighter, more technically focused blog, but it is now a firehouse of all sorts of things that I find challenging to wade through and keep up with (although the blast of Oracle-related posts has subsided a bit in the past few months). - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com End Point Corporation http://www.endpoint.com/ PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201202011838 http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEAREDAAYFAk8pzYgACgkQvJuQZxSWSsgxzgCeJnwfDnprvvh7FdYkz3ZVGj0J PmgAnRcLwkouTNfb8y1SQG2rnJkB+fTd =TOz0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Excerpts from Greg Sabino Mullane's message of mié feb 01 23:41:15 UTC 2012: > For an example of what a aggregator with a more relaxed policy might > look like, check out planet.mysql.com. It used to be a tighter, > more technically focused blog, but it is now a firehouse of all sorts > of things that I find challenging to wade through and keep up with > (although the blast of Oracle-related posts has subsided a bit in > the past few months). Yeah. I used to like how Planet Gnome and Debian aggregated every article from their authors, regardless of whether it was Gnome- or Debian-specific or not. It gave the planet a more familiar feel. However, I don't like that idea anymore. You end up reading how they feed their cats and such. I guess it works for them because it's mainly for their own internal consumption, or something like that. For me, as an outsider, it's not all that interesting. -- Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
On 2/1/12 11:27 AM, Magnus Hagander wrote: > Agreed. Which is why it's interesting that those posting in favor of > allowing more "commercially oriented" posts are the people who either > have commercial products they'd consider blogging about or have > previous been asked to remove at least one post from the planet... At > least AFAICT, forgive me if I got one wrong or so, but the majority is > certainly that way... Yes, although I'll point out that the post I got removed was one which would still be prohibited under my suggested new policy. Personally, I really do think two feeds is the only answer ... -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc. http://pgexperts.com
On 01/29/2012 10:25 AM, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote: > Can you point to specific examples of blog posts that have been > self-moderated as to not appear on Planet due to our policies? > I think that would help this dicussion if we could see some actual > problematic posts. I am open to changing the wording. Missed this party first time around, chiming in late. We have a whole category full of them at http://blog.2ndquadrant.com/en/greenplum/ These examples are further over the line here than the one Dave suggested from his own blog. They're a useful data point though just for that reason. Any rewritten policy that makes these suddenly Planet material has likely gone too far. While surely there's somebody who thinks a Planet PostgreSQL that also mixes in regular Greenplum features is a great idea, I'd put my bet on that being a poor choice. The line is closer for EDB and PEM. I think it's possible to write a PEM blog post that fits the current rules. If I were tasked with doing that, I'd start with some informative comments about things that are hard to monitor in regular PostgreSQL, and what sorts of problems the general management headaches related to it cause. Then an ending that introduces PEM as an example of how one company addressed those problems in a commercial product would be fine. I'd walk away knowing something useful about common deployment problems, and the fact that a commercial product was suggested as one way to solve them would be helpful. I was the original author of the stickiest of the paragraphs here, this one: "The primary test here is whether the information provided would be of some use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product mentioned. Consider what your entry would look like if all references to the product were removed. If there's no useful PostgreSQL content left after doing that, that post is an ad." That came out of seeing two similar violations appear in a short period, and trying to write something that would be helpful guidance to exclude both of them. I hoped that text might improve one day to sound a bit more tolerant. I still don't have a good counter-example to chew on yet though, something that would be blocked by this suggestion but is likely to be popular anyway. It's a tricky line to draw. -- Greg Smith 2ndQuadrant US greg@2ndQuadrant.com Baltimore, MD PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support www.2ndQuadrant.com
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 4:49 AM, Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > > The line is closer for EDB and PEM. I think it's possible to write a PEM > blog post that fits the current rules. If I were tasked with doing that, > I'd start with some informative comments about things that are hard to > monitor in regular PostgreSQL, and what sorts of problems the general > management headaches related to it cause. Then an ending that introduces > PEM as an example of how one company addressed those problems in a > commercial product would be fine. I'd walk away knowing something useful > about common deployment problems, and the fact that a commercial product was > suggested as one way to solve them would be helpful. It's interesting that you think that's possible. I've thus far refused requests from our marketing department to do exactly at as I thought it would certainly be a violation of the policy. I'm not convinced it wouldn't be even now, but it's interesting to know you might find something acceptable. When I get a hour (probably a couple of years from now as things are currently looking!) I might give it a whirl and run it past you guys. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On 4/16/12 9:49 PM, Greg Smith wrote: > These examples are further over the line here than the one Dave > suggested from his own blog. They're a useful data point though just > for that reason. Any rewritten policy that makes these suddenly Planet > material has likely gone too far. While surely there's somebody who > thinks a Planet PostgreSQL that also mixes in regular Greenplum features > is a great idea, I'd put my bet on that being a poor choice. I had a discussion about this with other OSS projects while at PyCon this year (mostly due to the Planet Mozilla firestorm, but that's another story). Several OSS projects have a "main" and a "universe" feeds, with the "main" being strictly limited to stuff about the project, and "universe" being anything someone with any approved blog wants to post. This has worked well for the organizations who implemented it. Other groups have strict planets ( like ours ), and still others (Gnome, Mozilla, etc.) have very liberal feeds where anyone who is a project developer can post whatever they want (and do). As an example, I want to read about 2Q's stuff on Greenplum. I can understand, though, that a lot of Postgres users wouldn't want to. If we had a "universe" feed, I'd both subscribe to it and post to it. For another example, my "Booze and Brogrammers" post really belonged on a "universe" instead of "main", but I was faced with a binary choice and put it on Planet. -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc. http://pgexperts.com
On 04/17/2012 04:10 AM, Dave Page wrote: > It's interesting that you think that's possible. I've thus far refused > requests from our marketing department to do exactly at as I thought > it would certainly be a violation of the policy. I'm not convinced it > wouldn't be even now, but it's interesting to know you might find > something acceptable. I would think this format would work: -What things do people like to monitor/manage on their Postgres database? -Quick intro to what the free tools can do [pgAdmin III, Munin, etc.] -Discussion of the things that PEM provides If people walk away having learned something about monitoring and tools for PostgreSQL in general, I'd consider that a useful article meeting the standard I suggested here--"information provided would be of some use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product mentioned"--even if it ended with a discussion of how PEM aims to solve those problems. -- Greg Smith 2ndQuadrant US greg@2ndQuadrant.com Baltimore, MD PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support www.2ndQuadrant.com
On 04/17/2012 02:01 PM, Greg Smith wrote: > > On 04/17/2012 04:10 AM, Dave Page wrote: >> It's interesting that you think that's possible. I've thus far refused >> requests from our marketing department to do exactly at as I thought >> it would certainly be a violation of the policy. I'm not convinced it >> wouldn't be even now, but it's interesting to know you might find >> something acceptable. > > I would think this format would work: > > -What things do people like to monitor/manage on their Postgres database? > -Quick intro to what the free tools can do [pgAdmin III, Munin, etc.] > -Discussion of the things that PEM provides > > If people walk away having learned something about monitoring and tools > for PostgreSQL in general, I'd consider that a useful article meeting > the standard I suggested here--"information provided would be of some > use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product > mentioned"--even if it ended with a discussion of how PEM aims to solve > those problems. > As would I. JD -- Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development The PostgreSQL Conference - http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ @cmdpromptinc - @postgresconf - 509-416-6579
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 > another example, my "Booze and Brogrammers" post really belonged on a > "universe" instead of "main", but I was faced with a binary choice and > put it on Planet. No, that belonged on Planet, it's an important discussion. However, I'm against a "universe" feed. Too easy for posts to slip from one side to the other, making nobody happy (the main people will be upset if something they care about goes to universe, and will also be upset if something that should be[1] in universe makes it way to main. [1] "should be" according to them! There's the rub. - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201204172312 http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEAREDAAYFAk+OMVUACgkQvJuQZxSWSsjzCgCg3Zzr2xsW/G2uUOQVu08qLhOx 7E4AoLGHcVD3akEkVuAp8Mh/94NE5PDJ =OMhn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 04/17/2012 01:16 PM, Josh Berkus wrote: > For another example, my "Booze and Brogrammers" post really belonged on a > "universe" instead of "main", but I was faced with a binary choice and > put it on Planet. Luckily I have a PostgreSQL 9.1 "With a community that knows how to party" poster here to remember the old Josh by. I'm planning a round of memorial shots at the Royal Oak next month. -- Greg Smith 2ndQuadrant US greg@2ndQuadrant.com Baltimore, MD PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support www.2ndQuadrant.com
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > On 04/17/2012 01:16 PM, Josh Berkus wrote: >> >> For another example, my "Booze and Brogrammers" post really belonged on a >> "universe" instead of "main", but I was faced with a binary choice and >> put it on Planet. > > > Luckily I have a PostgreSQL 9.1 "With a community that knows how to party" > poster here to remember the old Josh by. I'm planning a round of memorial > shots at the Royal Oak next month. Good call. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 3:46 AM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: >> On 04/17/2012 01:16 PM, Josh Berkus wrote: >>> >>> For another example, my "Booze and Brogrammers" post really belonged on a >>> "universe" instead of "main", but I was faced with a binary choice and >>> put it on Planet. >> >> Luckily I have a PostgreSQL 9.1 "With a community that knows how to party" >> poster here to remember the old Josh by. I'm planning a round of memorial >> shots at the Royal Oak next month. > > Good call. +1 for hanging out some place and drinking until late at night; -1 for that place being the Royal Oak. And just to throw in some content that's not totally off-topic, I can see the possible value of a universe feed. I've occasionally posted things and wondered whether they were closely enough related to PostgreSQL to justify putting them on planet; and I've also refrained from posting things at all due to marginal relevance. On the other hand, it's not entirely clear to me that two feeds would be better for our user base. Right now, if you scan down the Planet feed, you're likely to find some things that are interesting to you and some that aren't. Odds are very good that the same would be true of a Planet-Universe feed, so maybe we'd just be giving people two things to look at instead of one. It seems to me that people are already playing fairly fast and loose with the policy. For example: http://lethargy.org/~jesus/writes/omnios has nothing obviously to do with PostgreSQL whatsoever. http://michael.otacoo.com/postgresql-2/postgres-xc-1-0beta1-released/ is about a fork of PostgreSQL. Is it more acceptable to blog about that than about Greenplum or PPAS because it's open source? If so, fine, but I don't think I've seen that spelled out anywhere. http://pyrseas.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/database-user-interfaces-pagination/ has some connection to PostgreSQL, but only really in that it's talking about a technology stack that has PostgreSQL buried in it somewhere, not because there's anything actually relevant to PostgreSQL in that particular blog post. And that is just the front page. In contrast, if you look through the history of what Dave, Bruce, and I have posted on Planet, you will find essentially no mentions of any EnterpriseDB product anywhere. At the end of the day, I don't really care that much what content we do or don't allow on Planet, but seems pretty clear that EnterpriseDB and 2ndQuadrant are self-censoring out of an abundance of caution and a desire to play by community rules, and other people aren't doing that to the same degree. Again, I don't have a strong opinion on what we should or should not allow, but it would be nice if we were all on the same page. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 Robert Haas wrote: > It seems to me that people are already playing fairly fast and loose > with the policy. For example: Thanks for calling this out. I agree there have been some posts of late that are outside both the current guidelines, and even the proposed looser ones. The question is, who calls them out and what do we do about it? I call them out from time to time - sometimes it works, sometimes it leads to long threads with no action. Part of having a clear policy of course, is that it removes subjectiveness and doesn't make people feel like they are being picked on. > http://lethargy.org/~jesus/writes/omnios has nothing obviously to do > with PostgreSQL whatsoever. Agreed. Very cool, but very off topic. > http://michael.otacoo.com/postgresql-2/postgres-xc-1-0beta1-released/ > is about a fork of PostgreSQL. Is it more acceptable to blog about > that than about Greenplum or PPAS because it's open source? If so, > fine, but I don't think I've seen that spelled out anywhere. It does seem like more of an -announce, but we've never discouraged cross-posting, so to speak. Separately, yes, I think we do give more leeway to things that are not just Postgres-related, but Postgres-like in licensing and source availablity. Whether we should spell this out in the policy, I don't know. To be honest, posts like this do make me reconsider my policy of not making a post for each Bucardo or DBD::Pg beta / new release. > http://pyrseas.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/database-user-interfaces-pagination/ > has some connection to PostgreSQL, but only really in that it's > talking about a technology stack that has PostgreSQL buried in it > somewhere, not because there's anything actually relevant to > PostgreSQL in that particular blog post. I'm okay overall with this one, probably because it is so short and is part of an ongoing series (kind of), but I see your point. > At the end of the day, I don't really care that much what content we do > or don't allow on Planet, but seems pretty clear that EnterpriseDB and > 2ndQuadrant are self-censoring out of an abundance of caution and a > desire to play by community rules, and other people aren't doing that > to the same degree. I do care what content we allow, as we don't want a firehose, we want things to be relevant to most readers, and we want the planet to reflect positively on the project as a whole. If you feel people or companies are not playing by the current rules, feel free to name them here. I think most are playing by the rules, but I usually skim planet via RSS on my phone; I will make more of an effort in the future to consider appropriateness and report here. - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com End Point Corporation http://www.endpoint.com/ PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201204181200 http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEAREDAAYFAk+O5XgACgkQvJuQZxSWSsiGBwCghjdUBjIFIn+9bDKle0OcmvpT VnQAnRpFbJWLquRnIDkOY9nDHMwKbAow =7Xrb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 04/18/2012 09:02 AM, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote: > I do care what content we allow, as we don't want a firehose, we want things > to be relevant to most readers, and we want the planet to reflect positively on > the project as a whole. If you feel people or companies are not playing by > the current rules, feel free to name them here. I think most are playing > by the rules, but I usually skim planet via RSS on my phone; I will make more > of an effort in the future to consider appropriateness and report here. Why don't we just make it self policing? If you are logged into planet, there is a button that says "report". Anyone who is logged in can report a post as offtopic or innappropriate (although I haven't seen any of those). That moderation report would submit to the planet admins list for review. Thus.... the readers who log in, set the stage for what is allowed versus some arbitrary small group of people who "think" they know what the community wants. JD -- Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development The PostgreSQL Conference - http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ @cmdpromptinc - @postgresconf - 509-416-6579
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 JD asked: > Why don't we just make it self policing? > > If you are logged into planet, there is a button that says "report". > Anyone who is logged in can report a post as offtopic or innappropriate Well, we could try, but I doubt it would work well, if the MySQL planet rating system is any indication. But I have no objection to trying. How soon can you have a patch ready? :) > as offtopic or innappropriate > (although I haven't seen any of those). Really? > Thus.... the readers who log in, set the stage for what is allowed > versus some arbitrary small group of people who "think" they know what > the community wants. Well, we are the community. Anyone is welcome to post to this list and contribute. Perhaps only those of us who are vocal and take the time to post are misrepresenting the community, but it's hard to know. - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com End Point Corporation http://www.endpoint.com/ PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201204181219 http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEAREDAAYFAk+O6a0ACgkQvJuQZxSWSsgdTwCg6XftTzViAPXANvPNOvfNwdeU 41gAoOTAqvQErJTg7E/9BhbrJ7mZlnoh =qMKa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----