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Newsletter

Questions about the forum itself, suggestions or issues with the forum software.

Do you like to have some sort of newsletter?

Yes
46
88%
No, because... (explain in this topic)
5
10%
I don't know
1
2%
 
Total votes : 52

Newsletter

Postby Gijs » Mon May 26, 2008 8:01 pm

Hi,

Would it be an idea to provide some sort of weekly or monthly newsletter? I often find out that there are new things I didn't new about or other users that don't follow all topics won't know if there's an awsome plane released. That's why I think we need a newsletter.

Possible things to write about could be:
- New planes that are released.
- New scenery projects (like a new/redrawed airport, things like the corse scenery etc.).
- New FG releases (this is not very often, but it should be in the letter if so).
- New forum features/subforums and other news from the forum.
- News from the wiki (only detailed and large tutorials, or new portals etc. so not every new article ofcourse)
- Events that will be held within a short periode or (links to) screenshots of the latest event(s).
- The first 3 or 5 pictures of a screenshot contest.

If you got other idea's, post in this topic so we could extend the list.
I don't really know what's best way to provide the letter. But we have some options:
- a topic that's closed, only open for people that are making the letter (at the moment this sounds best to me).
- emails send to all forum-users (I don't really like this myself).
- a .pdf file with a link on the main page of http://www.flightgear.org
- or even something else

I would like to write the letter, but if there are other people to we might split stuff (someone for scenery news, someone else for aircrafts etc.). Please respond and vote in the poll. Tips/ideas are very much appreciated.

Thanks and happy flying,
Gijs
Last edited by Gijs on Tue May 27, 2008 4:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Newsletter

Postby AndersG » Mon May 26, 2008 8:24 pm

Gijs wrote:Hi,

Would it be an idea to provide some sort of weekly or monthly newsletter? I often find out that there are new things I didn't new about or other users that don't follow all topics won't know if there's an awsome plane released. That's why I think we need a newsletter.


For releases we have that already: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/foru ... r-announce

For people using the developers version flightgear-devel is the list to follow for new developments (although quite a lot of ongoing things are here in the forum too):
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/foru ... gear-devel

However, if you volunteer to write a monthly news summary I'm not going to complain.. :)
Post it to -devel and maybe we could have a topic for it here.

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Re: Newsletter

Postby Gijs » Mon May 26, 2008 8:37 pm

The devel-list is great, I'm subscribed to, but not simple to read. It's more like the forum. Usually I don't want to or have time to read through all emails. So I delete most of it without reading anything more than the subject. We don't want to read a lot of topics if we only want to know what function is new and what it does. The the users (so not the developers) want something more ease to read/check. With some screenies of what they will get with a new function etc. So my idea was to make it especially for users.

Events aren't listed on the pages you gave nor some other stuff we could place in the newsletter. In the letter all important news to know will be listed together. If we get this of the ground it could be a great way to reach users to (for events etc.). So I think the newsletter still will be a addition to the lists. And ofcourse you don't have to help if you won't :)

Thanks for your opinnion Anders!
Gijs

btw: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/foru ... r-announce doesn't look like it's very often updated...
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Gijs » Tue May 27, 2008 8:50 pm

Thanks to another Dutch FG-user I found a free opensource desktop publisher called [url="http://www.scribus.net/"]Scribus[/url]. We probably will use this software to make the newsletter. It's very easy to save as .pdf so we will provide the letter in PDF and propably in html for users without a PDF reader.

We need a name for our letter. Any idea's? It could be something like:
- FlightGear New
- NewsGear
But I don't like these (we need something more catching) and I can't find another good name. So I need your help.

It will be possible for all users to send articles that could be placed in the letter. So you all could become a writer! Do you have started working on a new scenery-project, or are you going to organize an event? You may send it. But first we need to search out a little more. As soon as everything is fine I will inform you.

Thanks,
Gijs
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Re: Newsletter

Postby curt » Tue May 27, 2008 10:35 pm

Gijs wrote:Thanks to another Dutch FG-user I found a free opensource desktop publisher called [url="http://www.scribus.net/"]Scribus[/url]. We probably will use this software to make the newsletter. It's very easy to save as .pdf so we will provide the letter in PDF and propably in html for users without a PDF reader.

We need a name for our letter. Any idea's? It could be something like:
- FlightGear New
- NewsGear
But I don't like these (we need something more catching) and I can't find another good name. So I need your help.

It will be possible for all users to send articles that could be placed in the letter. So you all could become a writer! Do you have started working on a new scenery-project, or are you going to organize an event? You may send it. But first we need to search out a little more. As soon as everything is fine I will inform you.

Thanks,
Gijs


At one time a few years ago we attempted to launch a newsletter. We had two volunteers, but we never got even the first issue out. It's a lot of work so we need a pretty dedicated volunteer. I've heard of other folks using scribus, but even open-office writer would probably be just fine. Let's not get too caught up in the details of a print/publishing quality layout if we have to sacrifice time for content and just getting the newsletter out on a regular time frame. There are a bazillion ideas for articles. I could dust off my unpublished "yasim howto" for instance. That ended up being about 10 pages (so not newsletter material really) but I could trim it down to a teaser article and we could post the full version on the wiki or something?

But if you are willing to get a newsletter rolling, that would be awsome. We might take a look at the JSBSim newsletter for ideas.

Regards,

Curt.
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Galloglas » Tue May 27, 2008 11:44 pm

I voted no *but* if someone really dedicated wanted to do it I support that person completely. :D

I have a hard time supporting things that I cannot personally devote time to but I realize that there are folks willing to expend the energy on our behalf and I salute them. I think a newsletter is very low on the list of things we need but if someone finds that this might be their forte' I say go for it!
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Gijs » Wed May 28, 2008 4:50 pm

curt wrote:It's a lot of work so we need a pretty dedicated volunteer.

I am :)
curt wrote:Let's not get too caught up in the details of a print/publishing quality layout if we have to sacrifice time for content and just getting the newsletter out on a regular time frame.

No, we won't work to long on the layout. The content is more important than the look.
curt wrote:I could dust off my unpublished "yasim howto" for instance. That ended up being about 10 pages (so not newsletter material really) but I could trim it down to a teaser article and we could post the full version on the wiki or something?

That could be very nice. Maybey we could add in every letter one or two tutorials/howtos/manuals?
curt wrote:We might take a look at the JSBSim newsletter for ideas.
I looked there and it's very helpfull for further Idea's.

Thanks,
Gijs
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Re: Newsletter

Postby MaverickAlex » Thu May 29, 2008 1:55 pm

i voted yes, i think anythng that ehances Flightgear is a Plus.

Gijs is right when it comes to being a Developer or a User of FG is Vastly different. I know when i first started here i had no clue about lots of developmental things, now i talk of writing .xml files, modelling nasal scripting. That is due to people describing things is basic easy to understand" Laymans" terms and not the kind of language that the DEvs use (understandably of course)

I am willing to contribute time and effort to the project in any way possible.

As for a name its pretty difficult to dream up some outstanding one so all i could think of is "FLIGHTGEAR MONTHLY"

:D
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Gijs » Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:35 pm

Since 16 to 3 voted for Yes I will release the first Newsletter as soon as possible.
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Natovr » Fri Aug 22, 2008 6:39 pm

I don't really know.. i think it might be better if it was yearly or every 3 or 6 months. There won't be much to write for a monthly or weekly letter

How about a logo? O_o

And a tip of the month...or 6 months
for instance, I didn't even know you could change the HUD with the i/I key o.O
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Gijs » Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:10 pm

Thanks for your ideas Natovr!

Natovr wrote:i think it might be better if it was yearly or every 3 or 6 months. There won't be much to write for a monthly or weekly letter

That's right. I will see how much I can find for the first letter, and then we will see if we have it a few times a year, or every month.

How about a logo? O_o

I don't have a logo yet, but I will try something myself. If someone do have a nice logo, don't hestitate to send it.
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Re: Newsletter

Postby DELTA » Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:16 am

i would love to be part of this i can be relied upon to do this because i do soemthing similar at school , for a title how about "news on the fly "
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Hooray » Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:06 pm

Why not simply start a new page on the wiki where anybody can provide contents, so that whenever it's time to send out a newsletter, the draft from the wiki could be taken?
That way, it wouldn't be too much work for a single person - more like a "community-driven" newsletter, while this may appear to sort of defeat the purpose, not all newsletter recipients are necessarily also wiki users.
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
Thanks & all the best,
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Help write next month's newsletter !
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Fahim Dalvi » Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:29 pm

Nice Idea!!
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Re: Newsletter

Postby Groucho » Fri Oct 03, 2008 8:34 pm

Hooray wrote:Why not simply start a new page on the wiki where anybody can provide contents, so that whenever it's time to send out a newsletter, the draft from the wiki could be taken?
That way, it wouldn't be too much work for a single person - more like a "community-driven" newsletter, while this may appear to sort of defeat the purpose, not all newsletter recipients are necessarily also wiki users.


Backed by a RSS feed that would imho be the best option.
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