I agree a planet would make more sense than an official blog.

yeah, I'd rather see it replaced by a "planet" than just a link to the DHQ account. that planet could easily aggregate the DHQ atom feed (which would also give us an incentive to give that feature some attention)

Okay, here we go, drafts of some possible blogposts.

@goob and everyone else, if you want to read / correct / reformulate...

Is there a way to easily upload images to include in the blogpost? @dennisschubert @seantilleycommunit

Hi Fla, it's telling me I need to log in (as you?) to see that page.

@goob sorry, the pad is now public ;)

Who exactly has access to the blog?

Hey Fla, that's great work. I'm doing some editing now. I'm doing it in a word processor as it's easier for me, so apologies if this shows the whole text, and not just my edits, as being written by me in Framapad.

I'd like to do a little 'Hi, we haven't gone away, we've been busy making diaspora* better' post to reopen the blog before posting other things. I'll try to put that together in the next couple of days and put that on Framapad too.

Dennis gave me access to the blog a couple of months ago, so I'll be able to put up posts. It's worth deciding (a) what things we should (and shouldn't) blog about, and (b) what process we should have in place to 'authorise' text before posting it. We could perhaps mention a few key people (Dennis, Jonne, Sean, Jason etc) for their views before posting.

By the way, the blog appears to use Markdown, so I've converted the links to that format.

@flaburgan will you promise to write blog posts on a semi-regular basis - anyone else? :)

TBH - I know many want a blog (hey I would) - but experience shows people just don't have the time. And to be honest, code is more important at this stage than posts ;)

@flaburgan Well, the posts are formatted using markdown, so yeah, you can embed images. There is no upload available right now, but that's fixable, if neede.

@dennisschubert I can upload them to diaspora-fr.org, as you want. I think it would be better to have them on the same domain.

@jasonrobinson yeah, let's promise that :p As long as there are reviewers, 'cause I can't post alone.

@flaburgan ... as much as I like you, I would not accept hotlinking images from an external - not controllable - server into the project site. :) Please file an issue on https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora-project-site for the upload field. ;)

Done.

If the blog stays - we really need a post at least a few times a year.

But still, it would be nice to also implement the Diaspora HQ account somehow to the site - since in reality that is where the news is. Some embedded RSS plugin maybe?

Hmm, we'd have to do a bit of thinking before linking the DHQ account to the blog, because not every post made from that account is an announcement that we want on the blog - and we wouldn't want to include reshares, etc. Also, if everything on the blog was DHQ and everything posted by DHQ went on the blog, we might as well just have a redirect from the blog to DHQ's profile, as one doesn't have to be signed in to diaspora to read it.

The problem isn't transferring material from DHQ to the blog - that's easy for me, now I have a login - it's the writing of material. If Fla and one or two others can help with the writing, I can post it. @seantilleycommunit said recently he'd be happy to help with this. I said a while ago that I wanted to start writing, but I've had to pull back a lot from doing stuff for D* for health reasons.

Let's first discuss and decide what sort of material we want to publish on the blog, and then get writing. Does that sound like a plan?

ps: I'll always be happy to edit, even if I'm not in a position to write.

Let’s first discuss and decide what sort of material we want to publish on the blog, and then get writing. Does that sound like a plan?

To be honest, sounds like "let's not do anything for a while" ;)

No action is worse than action IMHO. If we don't write stuff, let's just remove the blog and be done with it. IMHO having the DHQ stream somehow on the project page would be great - of course they are not blog entries as such. But worrying about making official communication just means no official communication -> people think the project is dead. Let's face it - the project site looks dead since it has no changing content. People who visit it think nothing has happened since the last blog post.

@goob I value your attention to detail and the attempt for perfection hugely but IMHO we don't want to be too careful here. At least that is how I've been handling the official Twitter and FB accounts - which is kinda weird that we have action there but not on our own project page ;) I can stop posting there but... we need to be more active outside diaspora*.

To be honest, sounds like “let’s not do anything for a while”

Not really. We can decide in a matter of days, and that gives us some direction to go on, so there's no need to question whether each individual post is within the remit.

For example, off the top of my head, we might blog about:

• - news of forthcoming releases,
• picking out some bug fixes and feature ideas for anyone who would like to start helping develop the software,
• and news about what's going on in the community and how the direction of the project is progressing,
• other important announcements (e.g. if we settle on a funding route, if any person takes on particular responsibilities that are noteworthy, or stops, such as when Sean stepped down as Community Manager).

A blog has more of a sense of permanence and feels more of a 'shop window' to D* for the world outside than either Twitter (constantly moving) or posting from DHQ within D* (internal), so I think we have to think a bit more carefully what to write. Let's do that work before we start writing lots of posts. It needn't take long and would save time (and mistakes) in the future.

Some of the DHQ posts are appropriate for the blog, and when that's the case we can just copy and paste them to the blog. That way the blog gets active.

Speaking for myself I wouldn't feel comfortable posting on the blog until we've had some discussion and got agreement on what we should be posting, which is another reason I haven't posted there yet.

@jason what do you think about the drafts I posted above?

I'm sure we can find at least one topic per month to talk about.

I think that diaspora as software isn't quite ready for having an official blog with the purpose of being a "shop window". Diaspora is an evolving part of a new social network, and as such the main purpose of a blog shouldn't be about the next hot release or trying to get people to start using it but to show people that things are happening and that there are visions and ideas on alternative social networking.

I agree with most of the opinions but the marketing thing makes me a bit unsure. I'd like the blog to be a transparency tool and an information channel, not a marketing tool since diaspora isn't just some cool product - it's a community project.

Ivan, by 'shop window' I didn't mean using it as a marketing/advertising tool, but the fact that it is a very visible presence for people (including those not involved in Diaspora) to look at the state of the project. At the moment it looks dead because there is only one post, from almost a year ago.

While release announcements are an important part of the communication a blog would perform, this would be to inform people about how the project was progressing, rather than to try to get people to sign up.

Don't worry, I don't think anyone involved is trying to do the marketing you're concerned about.

Thank you, just wanted to clarify :)

@flaburgan

what do you think about the drafts I posted above?

They look great to me! As long as they don't stay as drafts and at least one ends up as a final I'll be happy to cancel the proposal here (since it's mine) for keeping the blog ;)

I modified the first draft about statistics, I would love to see it more formal, the actual style is far from perfect imo. Does someone want to read it once again and then we could post it?

I don't think that writing a "we are sorry for our long silence" is something we should do, imo.

@seantilleycommunit wanna read the first draft, improve the style and post it on the blog if you're fine with it?

I'd like to see it posted asap to have the time before the release.

Can someone be responsible for the blog? @flaburgan

Don't get what you mean, sorry.

I think we should update the blog at least once a month. Someone, who is responsible for the blog, should find new topics, ask people for text, write first draft and publish.

@flaburgan Absolutely, I'd be happy to look everything over and get something posted to the blog!

@diaspeu I'm ok to do that ;)

@seantilleycommunit https://flaburgan.framapad.org/5
The first draft is ready to review if you can improve the wording it would be awesome.

@flaburgan looks totally cool - don't forget an image, maybe some cropped part of the statistics page or pod list or something - every post should have an image IMHO :D

Btw, can we post the release announcement for 0.4 out on the blog as well once that happens - instead of directly posting it out on DiasporaHQ account as a status message? Easier to share outside, status message sharing is better these days thanks to awesome people working on cleaning things up, but it's still not perfect.

Since action on the blog is clearly hitting off - I'm closing the proposal. If someone feels strongly about closing the blog, please raise a proposal, tnx.

Maybe I could have access to the blog?

Haha - might help in writing something to it ;)

Since @flaburgan already has access to the Diaspora HQ account, I had no objections adding an account for him. Done.

We should create votes for further user additions, though.

@jasonrobinson about the image, I totally agree but don't know what to present. The global stats are mostly false because of the ghosts account on joindiaspora. The table is not fine to screenshot, and the last graph only display on pod at a time. Could you improve the last graph to allow users to select several pods at a time?

And... the blogpost is online

Just disabled the post... I'll fix some grammar and spelling mistakes before publishing again.

Please do this before publishing it...

I had already edited it, but it looks like some new text (with mistakes) has been added since.

@dennisschubert I've just edited it again, so you can make it visible again. Thanks for the alert.

Thanks goob! I was doing some fixing, too, but you were faster. Unfortunately, you destroyed the markdown, so please... pay attention. :) Looked like you just c&p'ed the text from the frontend or something.

Btw, even unpublished blog posts are available at https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/[ID], but they won't be in the RSS feeds or the blog index. Great for testing formatting options. ;)

Anyways, it's back online.

Hmm, that's odd, because I edited the post in Fla's Framapad (which has the markdown) and copied it from there to make sure the markdown wasn't lost, so it should have been present.

When I view a blog post in the admin panel, including the previous community anniversary one, it strips out the markdown in that view, even though the markdown is still in the post. I wonder whether that's what has happened, because I pasted the post from Framapad, including markdown.

ps: I'm happy to do text editing for blog posts and other communications, because you've got more important things to do!

Fla's pad lacks line breaks and also added some conventional bullet points, not the markdownish stars. That was causing the issues... :)

When I view a blog post in the admin panel

Use the front-end to view it! You can replace the "2" with the ID of your draft, even if it's not published: https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/2 :)

I’m happy to do text editing for blog posts and other communications

Sure. And your English is better... But I wasn't sure if you were online/available. :)

Ah, I didn't notice the missing line break, oops.

Use the front-end to view it!

Yes, thanks for that tip, I'll use that in future.

But I wasn’t sure if you were online/available.

Sure, I wasn't telling you not to do it! But you're welcome to ping me if editing is needed and I'll do it if I'm around and can.

Must go, good night everyone! And thanks, Fla and Dennis, for getting the blog going again.

Btw, even unpublished blog posts are available at https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/[ID], but they won’t be in the RSS feeds or the blog index. Great for testing formatting options. ;)

Was not aware of that, that's why I published it. Thank you for your reactivity!

Oh it's live, cool :) Should really be shared on DHQ as well, no one will find it otherwise :P

Will post, thanks @flaburgan !

Btw, any possibility to open up comments on the blog?

Aww fok it - it was posted - the post just never made it to my pod. Federation :(

And of course joindiaspora.com wont delete the dupe post.... we really need the official account away from there or the pod fixed :(:(:(

The pod fixed would be better :p

the post just never made it to my pod. Federation :(

Correction - the post did make it to my pod, but my pod's sidekiq had crashed :P Filed a bug, if someone knows what it could be - https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/4989

great we got the blog going again,
now how about that "planet" ;)

I'm re-opening this discussion since now we actually have a good account for posting news and interesting to users stuff on.

Also, our blog has last been updated with 0.5.1.0 release, which means two releases have not even been announced there. No one has written anything about the hackathon or anything else happening around.

Let's give people who want to follow the project some actual activity.

I'm going to re-propose removing the blog and pointing it to the new HQ account https://pod.diaspora.software/u/hq

Btw, writing posts on diaspora* is actually even nicer than the blog system which is a bit hacky and we shouldn't waste time improving it. Instead of improving the blog, we should make diaspora itself more welcome to bloggers, with things like tag clouds for profiles, profile post search, promoted posts, anonymous comments, etc. Lets promote diaspora.

I'd rather consider rendering a filtered list of the diaspora* HQ items as the blog.

Yes, we should definitely improve the way accounts work for bloggers. Maintaining a separate blogging app for our own blog isn't going to make that happen :)

Personally I'd like something like "promoting" own posts and then having a subroute something like /u/username/promoted to show a stream of those. Or, subroutes for tags and then just use a certain tag. Dirty though.

Let's use the blog properly and frequently rather than abandoning yet another project resource

Give me a dollar for every time someone has said "lets make the blog more active" and I'd be loaded ;)

It's easy to say let's do something but since the blog has appeared we as a project have constantly struggled to write anything on it and the project just looks very inactive for people browsing in.

In marketing, activity is a good thing, not something to feel ashamed of.

To add to the above: I acknowledge that I've been worse than useless re communicating for the project in recent weeks, so my comment is not a criticism of anyone else.

I think we discussed some time ago about getting filtered content from DHQ added to the Planet. I don't think that ever happened, although Dennis got the Planet ready for content. I like the idea of appropriately filtered content going on to the blog.

Yeah, the Planet is there, fully loaded, fully functional. I've asked for contents multiple times but unfortunately there simply are not enough blogs about diaspora out there.

Using a filtered atom view of all DHQ posts is an idea. Although I'd rather have the filtered posts as a list on our blog itself rather than just redirecting to a unfiltered profile.

I can almost smell headlines like "Official diaspora statement: Snowden should use diaspora!"

There are people involved here who are so afraid of speaking, to not hurt anyone or say anything wrong or accidentally give the wrong impression to someone, that if those people were the only voice of the project, everybody, not just most, but everybody, would think the project is dead.

Also, I wonder what people felt if the official Wordpress blog was hosted on Google Blogger, for example ;)

I think using D* itself to promote D* is something that makes sense. If the tool is not perfect yet, it would be a good motivation to improve it, and help adress the issues bloggers may encounter.

As far as I understand, the major concern is about the status of posts which are not always official, and about a filter which would be needed. Why not use a second account then, an official one which would display only the kind of things one would find on the blog? An account such as [email protected]?

Jason, please would you refrain from making personal comments about people with whose position you disagree. It's really not helpful.

Jason, please would you refrain from making personal comments about people with whose position you disagree.

Not personal comments, just true observations, just like the pokes from Dennis :)

And there is nothing personal relating to this proposal - it is a proposal to imho give better communication to people who are interested in diaspora and to also use our own platform for things we want the users to use it for. I can imagine people who think about doing blogging with their diaspora account and then seeing that the project uses a custom built Rails app?

I would think the more appropriate proposal is 'someone start blogging' vs 'delete it because no one does'.

I think that would be voting between;

• Show the project is not very active
• Show the project is dead

Doesn't sound like a very useful proposal ;)

I think that would be voting between;

• Show the project is not very active
• Show the project is dead

Releasing a software update every six weeks sounds fairly active to me...

Releasing a software update every six weeks sounds fairly active to me…

Assuming you blog about it.........

Speaking about release announcements - any reason why they are not posted out from the official accounts, but instead they are posted out from personal accounts?

Also, @jpope , what did you mean by this?

the HQ account being a combo of official and personal.

any reason why they are not posted out from the official accounts

I do not have access to that account.

I do not have access to that account.

If that is the only reason, maybe ask? I don't even mind that developers post release announcements. I just find it conflicts with the stance here on everything having to be so offfiiiiicial that it hurts.