Re: Planet posting policy

On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:59, Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We currently have a strict posting policy for planet.postgresql.org
> (http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Planet_PostgreSQL), which has been
> applied in such a way that it prevents users posting anything to their
> syndicated blogs which may be remotely considered to be advertising.
> This has tripped up a number of our regular contributors in the past,
> including some senior community members who have posted technical
> content about their work which happens to be on commercial products
> around PostgreSQL.
>
> I'd like to propose relaxing this policy (or perhaps the
> interpretation of it) to allow useful content to be posted that
> happens to be centered around commercial products, whilst being
> careful to avoid pure advertising content which we certainly do not
> want (and should continue to be posted as news or pgsql-announce
> articles).
>
> The current policy has the following notes guiding on its interpretation:
>
> ---
> The primary test here is whether the information provided would be of
> some use even to people who have no interest in the commercial product
> mentioned. Consider what your entry would look like if all references
> to the product were removed. If there's no useful PostgreSQL content
> left after doing that, that post is an ad.
> ---
>
> I'd like to suggest changing that to something like the following:
>
> ---
> The primary test here is whether the information provided could be
> considered pure advertising. Consider what the article would look like

I don't like the use of "pure advertising". That makes it go overboard
in the other direction instead - it's too easy to argue that almost
*anything* isn't *pure* advertising...

> if all references to any products were removed. If there is technical
> content remaining that may be considered interesting to those working
> with or around PostgreSQL, or the post is in some way describing the
> "state of the art" (as related to PostgreSQL), then it is suitable for

I'm not sure what the "state of the art" part is actually supposed to
mean? As in, what does it actually add on top of the already bbeing
interesting to those working with or around postgres?

> syndication on Planet. In contrast, if all the remains is a list of
> features with no technical discussion around their implementation,
> then that is not suitable for syndication.
> ---

Should we perhaps also add something about referring to things that
are IP protected, such as patented technologies, that we don't really
want people posting about?

> I'm not wed to that wording - in fact I'm sure we can do better.
> However, I hope the intent is clear. Whilst we have had one or two
> cases where pure advertising has been removed from Planet, their have
> also been cases where potentially interesting posts have had to be
> removed due to the strictness of the policy interpretation, which is
> unfortunate for everyone.

While I don't disagree with relaxing the policies a bit, I only recall
a single instance of this actually happening recently, and in that
case it would've also failed the new wording above. Do you have some
examples? (if you don't want to post those publically for obvious
reasons, feel free to just remind me personally or the closed
moderators list about those cases, so we are not missing that
information)

--
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: http://www.hagander.net/
 Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/