openSUSE talk:Newscom

AS

Just an idea...

Newsletters > Variable format (VF)

News & Content Teams (NCTs); Copywriters, Editors, etc. using an INCE (Integrated News and Content Environment) - something like an IDE that devs use but with an integrated set of tools for News & Content creation, editing, translation (CT - Continuous Translation), CI/CD, management, etc

The INCE would then make all News & Content (English and auto translated) available for Editors etc on Staging (Test servers) and Editor approved content available on Live servers

So the whole process is integrated and automated from creation through QA to deployment but for NCTs rather than Devs

The trick is in the INCE and choice of tools

I don't know may be even one of the existing IDEs could be converted by an IDE specialist

Take your pick:

 Eclipse, 
 Visual Studio, 
 XCode (don't know how configurable this is!), etc.

You could call it what you like, for example: MINCE (Managed INCE) Or whatever...

Just saying...

Ad

Things we could do right now 1) Make a list of all platforms, channels and groups used by most communities who are non-English natives, so that we can spread the word to them later.

Russian: @ru_openSUSE
Spanish?

- https://www.forosuse.org/ - https://t.me/openSUSE_ES

Braz. Portuguese?
Indonesian?
German?
Russian: @ru_openSUSE

2) Ask openSUSE for the emails of bloggers subscribed to planet.opensuse.org

Can this be useful? https://github.com/openSUSE/planet-o-o/blob/master/planet.ini

3) Draft a first version of a post for news-o-o explaining the idea, and asking:

   * (a) people, communities, bloggers if they would like to be featured
   * (b) packagers if they would like to have some spotlight on their package
   * (c) teams/heroes/maintainers of all sorts if they are looking for more contributors,and what they can give interesed contributors to quickly get involved
   * (d) people who know how to edit photos or who have other skills to come and join us (we could make a podcast for interviews, or just written inteview people

So we (a-c) would give us some "free" contents, and we add our own with (d).

AS

Newsletters > Fixed format (FF)

A set of "standard" newsletters in English that the translators can translate professionally once with <variable names> in place for some automation (program, app, bot, service, etc) to handle future updates (mailmerge type exercise with a difference)

Proposed tools:

1) Adobe Spark

Pros:

 • Free, online quick newsletter production
 • Speedy workflow
 • Compensates for lack of readily available graphic design skills with a respectable number of professionally designed templates
 • Adobe cloud storage of assets
 • Multiple delivery/publishing  options to subscribers:
    - Upload to a website
    - Submit to social media
    - Email the subscribers

Cons:

 The app itself is not FOSS although its use is free

Note:

 Export option: worth checking if that exists to be able to transfer assets to a FOSS once an agreeable one is found.

Conclusion:

 A useful, free, labor-saving, time-saving, easy-to-use and online stopgap till an appropriate FOSS solution is found.

URL:

 https://spark.adobe.com/make/newsletter-maker/

AS

Newsletters > Fixed format (FF) > xml

A rough initial sample XML format for newsletter automation. A more thorough search might reveal that international open standards organizations, such as OASIS, already have a standard for newsletters.

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <newsletter format="FF" date="2021-March-01" issue="1" title="openSUSE news & communities biweekly newsletter">
   <img src="ff_newsletter_title_back.png" alt="openSUSE Newsletter"/>
   <section title="Tutorials">
     <article title="learn how to git">...</article>
     <article title="useful zypper commands>...</article>
   </section>
   <section title="News">
     <article title="openSUSE foundation founded!">...</article>
     <article title="news & communities first issue!">...</article>
   </section>
   <section title="People & communities">
     <article title="Spotlight on: Geekos Daw to be featured in Teatro alla Scala">...</article>
     <article title="Art & tech: Indonesian community will surprise you!">...</article>
     <article title="Success story: How did the Brazilian community manage to beat the main openSUSE telegram group in number">...</article>
     <article title="Who is <user name here> and what do they do for a living?!">...</article>
   </section>
   <section title="Future events">
     <article title="FOSSDEM '21 around the corner">...</article>
     <article title="pizza party for celebrating release 1.0 of the new docs">...</article>
   </section>
 </newsletter>

Note:

Once finalized might require a supporting XML schema (XSD) or RELAX NG schema for validation.
Alternative serialization formats include: JSON, YAML, etc.

Acknowledgments:

This is based on Ad's proposal on the Project page.