News Queue

This is a page is about how news gets posted for www.osgeo.org.

= News Editor = News for osgeo.org goes through a news editor that ensures some degree of consistency and appropriateness. Currently the news editors are Frank Warmerdam and Jo Cook. The News function is a function of the Website Committee, though it is normally handled by the news editors.

= Submitting News =

Email new news items to [mailto:news_item@osgeo.org news_item@osgeo.org]. This goes to the news editors. Projects, committees or other interested parties can submit a news item to that mailing list. Then the editor (or if they are unavailable, the backup editor) would take care of formatting the item for consistency and putting it on the news page. Community visible details on submitting are documented at:

http://www.osgeo.org/content/news/submit_news.html

On occasion the news editors may also post items based on stuff they see happening without explicit direction, though this isn't the main task of the editor.

= Mechanics of Posting =

Announcements
News items are published using the "News Item" content type under "Create Content" on the Drupal site. This can be done directly at http://www.osgeo.org/node/add/content_news_item as long as the editor is logged into Drupal and has appropriate permissions.

Ensure the news item title is reasonably brief as it will be in the news box in the right column. Also ensure that the date is set to reflect the date of the news item (or the date of posting if that makes more sense). The date is used to order the news items.

The news item will then be automatically posted to the OSGeo twitter account (http://twitter.com/OSGeo), through an RSS converter.

A clean plain text version of the announcement should be sent to the announce@mail.osgeo.org mailing list if the news item is significant (we aim to keep announcements down to 2-3 per week on the announce list). Please ensure that these emails follow good email styling. Less than 80 characters per line, plain text (no html!), formatted for easy reading as text, spell out urls fully with http prefixes so that url detecting email programs can turn them into followable links. Use the title of the item as the title of the email. Using your own email address as the From: is fine, but remove any personal "signature" from the email.

All announcements will need to be approved by an announce mailing list moderator. Hopefully any news editor will have an appropriate password. Approval can be done at:

http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/admindb/announce

Please check the "delete all messages marked defer" flag at the bottom to clear all the other junk out of the queue after you approve your new announcement.

Announcements should also be posted via the OSGeo Google+ page (https://plus.google.com/101749668136525815391/posts). Currently Arnulf Christl, Jody Garnett and Frank Warmerdam have manager access to do so. Normally we post a link to the announcement on the OSGeo web site, but remove the "description" since it picks up the wrong stuff, and instead summarize the topic as the main test of the post.

Announcements should also tweeted using the info@osgeo.org twitter account. The password is available in the secure "access" file kept by SAC if not known.

Event Items
Events should be posted to the Events manager on the drupal site as soon as practical. New events can be posted at:

http://www.osgeo.org/node/add/event


 * Format the name of the event in the event item to include the city and country of the event too. eg. "Intergeo, Hannover, Germany" or "Indian National FOSS4G Conference, Hyderabad, India".


 * Try to pick the appropriate time zone, and set the start time to 8am and end time to 5pm on the corresponding days.


 * Make sure there is a link back to a more comprehensive description of the event.


 * Limit events to those which have at least some OSGeo or open source geospatial aspect. If possible highlight that aspect in the post.


 * Events may be submitted via the news_item alias, or directly added by those with Drupal editor access.

Developer Spotlights
Developer spotlights currently live in www/content/spotlights in Drupal. These aren't strictly the news editors reponsibility at this time (as far as I know).

= Press Releases =

Some effort should also be made to ensure that any press releases from the Marketing Committee make it into the news stream, and vice versa that major announcements are proposed to Marketing Committee as press releases.