KDE Apps Release Announcement

[Paul Brown]

On Friday, 14 December 2018 13:07:22 CET Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> Nobody on the promo team contacted Christoph that I saw. 

That is correct. Indeed, I did not know who Cristoph was or that he was in 
charge until yesterday. I am not sure how this is relevant to the discussion, 
though.

> The article
> on Dot is great but would be been better written a few days before so
> it could be the main announcement.

Can you explain this? Are you saying the announcement should've been on the 
Dot?

Cheers

Paul

> 
> Jonathan
> 
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2018 at 10:10:45AM +0100, Paul Brown wrote:
> > On Thursday, 13 December 2018 19:46:57 CET Christoph Feck wrote:
> > > Hi Alex,
> > 
> > Hello Cristoph,
> > 
> > > CC'ing kde-promo and release-team.
> > > 
> > > On 13.12.2018 18:27, Aleix Pol wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 6:14 PM Christoph Feck <cfeck at kde.org> wrote:
> > > >> On 13.12.2018 17:56, Aleix Pol wrote:
> > > >>> I hear there's been some turmoil regarding the announcement, can you
> > > >>> fill
> > > >>> me in about what happened?
> > > >> 
> > > >> KDE Applications 18.12 were released 3 hours ago. Did I miss
> > > >> anything?
> > > > 
> > > > I think it would be interesting that for the next release announcement
> > > > you
> > > > talk with kde-promo, because they had the impression that they were
> > > > rushed
> > > > into working on it.
> > > 
> > > The Promo team was informed https://phabricator.kde.org/T10070 about the
> > > coming release on Nov 17, with a detailed schedule
> > > https://phabricator.kde.org/T10131 filed on Nov 26.
> > 
> > Hello Cristoph,
> > 
> > Pleased to meet you. I hope you are happy with the impact the announcement
> > has had.
> > 
> > You are right of course, the schedule said the day, and we were aware of
> > that for a long time. What we were missing was the time. We were also
> > missing a direct line to you or to any of your colleagues and I would
> > like to clarify why these two things are important to Promo:
> > 
> > 1.- The impact an announcement has varies depending on the time it is
> > published on social media. We have researched this in depth and the
> > patterns are clear. We want to take advantage of this and give important
> > announcements, like .0 releases, the best time slots. Yesterday's
> > announcement, for example, would have worked much better if it had been
> > made between the times of 10.00 am and 11:00 am CET.
> > 
> > 2.- We (as in "KDE") want to be the ones who break the story and we want
> > to do it through Promo. If someone else comes out with the news before us
> > by as little as several minutes (because, I don't know, it was lunch
> > time, for example, and we missed the announcement going live) it waters
> > down the impact of the news story we want to post. Also,  if some third
> > party gets ahead of us, their story can be incorrect, focus on things we
> > think will impact negatively the spreading of the news, or will simply be
> > dull and boring.
> > 
> > On things like this, Promo spends days beforehand discussing and shaping
> > all aspects of the story, deciding on what we are going to say, how we
> > are going to say it, what images we are going to include, and when would
> > be the best day and time to publish. We have published stories that have
> > come out
> > simultaneously or even behind those of other people with the exact same
> > content, and, even so, thanks to having written them better, we have had a
> > much larger impact than them. So we are pretty confident that we know what
> > we are doing.
> > 
> > This may not seem important to other people within the community, but it
> > is
> > Promo's main task: to get as many as people as possible talking about
> > KDE's
> > stuff. It is literally what the word "Promo" means.
> > 
> > And that is why, as the day (and time) approaches, we have to have a
> > direct
> > line to the people in charge of launch. We need a minute to minute update
> > of what is going on so we are not late and we don't get bulldozed by
> > somebody else.
> > 
> > Other projects do this by dropping by the Promo IRC or Telegram group near
> > the time of the launch. They are only in the group during, say, the
> > critical 24 hours prior to the launch and they keep the Promo team up to
> > date as to whether things are running smoothly, or there is any kind of
> > problem that may result in a delay. Krita, Kdenlive, Plasma and others
> > all do this on a regular basis and their launches have become much better
> > because of it. It is also quite exciting when it al comes together.
> > 
> > Once whatever it is we are working on is launched, it is "Hasta luego
> > Lucas!" and until next time.
> > 
> > The problem is that yesterday we did not have any of that. We were running
> > blind, which made us nervous. And, when the announcement was made, it came
> > out in a time slot which was not very good.
> > 
> > But, hey, lesson learnt for everyone. Next time will be much better.
> > 
> > I am glad to meet you, regardless, and look forward to working with you on
> > future announcements.
> > 
> > If we don't talk before, have a very merry Christmas.
> > 
> > Cheers
> > 
> > Paul


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