openSUSE:News team

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Icon-news.png

Introduction

Our mission is to make news.opensuse.org a place that is worth reading by openSUSE community and people interesting in openSUSE by informing them about what's going on and showing them how to engage with the project.

The news editor takes care of two things: Quality of articles and scheduling of them. The editors will ensure the content, quality of articles with reviewing and editing meet the readme on the github page. The team also works on getting more articles and news out, as well as spreading the news across the web.

Use of news.o.o.

The openSUSE News Website, provides news to the community.

news.opensuse.org is the primary platform for publishing official news about the openSUSE Project and its distributions. While official announcements and updates remain the core focus, the site welcomes community-contributed articles that highlight real-world use cases, tutorials, and tools provided these align with the project's goals and editorial standards. Content should focus on official packages, or tools with a clear path toward inclusion in the distribution, and topics of interest to the broader openSUSE community. Articles out of scope, in particular written to promote home repositories or open-source projects not specific to the openSUSE, are discouraged and may be subject to rejection or removal.

We advise that information be published on the author's blogs instead of news.opensuse.org, but welcome community-contributed stories, tutorials, and showcases, provided they meet quality standards and align with project values.

Official content includes:

  1. Release announcements
  2. Infrastructure and packaging updates
  3. Governance and board communications
  4. Events and community initiatives

Community content may include:

  1. Real-world use cases and user workflows (e.g. design, science, education, gaming)
  2. Software tutorials and how-tos (for packages in the official repos or headed there)
  3. App showcases and reviews
  4. Productivity and desktop tips
  5. Interviews, highlights, and stories from the community

Not suitable for news.o.o. (please use a blog or mailing list instead):

  1. Promotions of unofficial packages without intention to be added to the distro
  2. Generic open-source news unrelated to openSUSE
  3. Calls to action that are not specific to the openSUSE Project

Blogs are shared on https://planet.opensuse.org/, which is a web feed aggregator that collects blog posts from people about openSUSE.

Communicate

If you want to publish something to get a wider audience of openSUSE users, consider using your blog and https://planet.opensuse.org/ to get the word out.

Here are some basics for publishing an article for planet.opensuse.org:

  • scheduling: news gets most attention on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Don't publish big news items on Friday or no weekends! Also, due to the loyalty of our audience and the limited attention span of the modern Homo Sapiens, try to spread big announcements out with at least a week but preferable a month between major announcements. This includes for example not doing big announcements during the 2 weeks after an openSUSE release. *Contact the team in advance to plan releases!*
  • writing quality: don't worry. The team can help you. It is easier to remove things than to make new 'facts' up ;-)
    • What is relevant? Features and what is unique, special about your project/software; changes that impact users and/or other developers; in general, think about what excites YOU about what you do and note those things down!
  • other things: Share screenshots even if it just shows text on a console. Logo's are nice, too, if you don't have one, it would be nice if you could ask the artwork team to come up with something.

See below for an example marketing plan for a (big) release.

Procedure

  1. Fork https://github.com/openSUSE/news-o-o
  2. Create a new markdown file in _posts (format: yyyy-mm-dd-title.md)
  3. Add the appropriate header metadata (see below)
  4. Submit a Pull Request and post the preview link to the openSUSE mailing list
  5. Wait 4 days for community feedback. Editors will help finalize before merge

Write content. You can start with the following template: 

   ---
   author: Your Name or Team (Please use your real name)
   date: 2025-07-15 15:00:00+02:00 (Please note +02:00 is +or- your UTC time)
   layout: post
   license: CC-BY-SA-3.0
   title: Your Title
   image: /wp-content/uploads/(year)/(month)/omw.png   # Place in the correct folder
   categories:
   - Announcements
   - Community Contribution # ← Add this if it's a community article
   tags:
   - openSUSE
   - topic-tag
   ---

Write you post in Markdown or html.

Please include:

  1. An image (650x400+ recommended), stored in /wp-content/uploads/yyyy/mm/
  2. Clear, structured writing (headings, sections, etc.)
  3. A short summary if applicable

How to join

Email ddemaio Talk - Contributions or attend a community meeting. You can meet members of the community who are helping at https://t.me/openSUSE_Marketing


Workflow of the team

Scheduling and managing articles

To keep news.opensuse.org organized and timely, coordinate with the team. Only one article per day should be published to maintain visibility and prevent overlap.

When working on an article (either your own or submitted by someone else): 

   Notify others by sending a message to the project mailing list

   Post a preview link (if available) for early feedback and visibility

   Clearly mark article status in comments. For example, WIP (Work in Progress) or Please Publish


on top of the article, write down the todo and scheduling info. For example:

SCHEDULING:

  • can go live anytime (normal article)
Some (writing) tips for the articles themselves:
  • Some graphics with an article are highly recommended but not mandatory!
  • Make headlines less than seven words.
  • Remember: writing is not something you can or can't do, it simply takes experience and exercise. Also, nobody can make an article perfect. Review is always needed and will almost always improve things. A fresh set of eyes often helps.

Getting the word out

We should also inform journalists before an important article goes live about something and involve the marketing team to spread the word as well.

Checklist for reviewing an article

  • Spellchecker (US English)
  • Includes image(s) and alt-text descriptions
  • Categories and tags assigned
  • Author credited
  • Thank contributors at the end
  • Press coordination if needed (for major news)

References


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