• Re: Review request: publicity microflyer

    From Znoteer@21:1/5 to James Addison on Mon Jun 5 21:40:01 2023
    On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 03:59:02PM +0100, James Addison wrote:
    Hi all,

    [snip]

    I'd like to gather feedback on the wording and content of the flyer;
    the copy attached to this email is based on the latest edit, and is
    available in source form from this debian-flyers.git merge request: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debian-flyers/-/merge_requests/23


    The copy looks good to me. I didn't spot any errors.

    --
    Znoteer
    znoteer@mailbox.org

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  • From David@21:1/5 to James Addison on Tue Jun 6 03:10:01 2023
    [my apologies for spamming multiple lists, but others seems to be doing
    the same and I'm unsure how to avoid doing that]

    On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 at 15:15, James Addison <jay@jp-hosting.net> wrote:

    For and after the upcoming release of Debian bookworm, I'd like to
    (attempt to) promote Debian locally by distributing some small flyers
    that are intended to be cheap to print and that include a QR-code
    suitable for use from smartphones (relevant when the flyers are, for
    example, posted on public noticeboards).

    Hi. That sounds like an admirable project.

    I'd like to gather feedback on the wording and content of the flyer;

    I have this feedback:

    I think your text works fine if your reader does know what an "operating system"
    is. But if they don't, then I think your communication might be entirely unclear
    to them.

    I don't know the best form of words to address this issue, but below is a quickly drafted suggestion. This text might have other flaws which I will
    leave to you or others to improve. Good luck.

    ----- begin -----

    Debian is a free operating system for computers of all kinds. It can
    replace other operating systems such as Windows and MacOS, thereby freeing
    your computer from their commercial restrictions. Debian is entirely non-commercial.

    Debian is generated by a huge community of expert volunteer developers with subject area interest and expertise in the software they maintain – and all of the source code for that software is available for you to read, modify
    and redistribute. It receives timely security updates and continous improvements.

    Debian also distributes 63,000+ packaged non-commercial utilities and applications, including software for businesses, programmers, scientists, educators and artists.

    To learn about Debian and to obtain a copy that you can run and optionally install, scan the QR code above or visit the website:
    https://www.debian.org

    ----- end -----

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  • From Donald Norwood@21:1/5 to Znoteer on Tue Jun 6 02:50:01 2023
    To: jay@jp-hosting.net (James Addison)
    Copy: debian-doc@lists.debian.org
    Copy: debian-l10n-english@lists.debian.org
    Copy: debian-publicity@lists.debian.org

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  • From Paul Wise@21:1/5 to James Addison on Tue Jun 6 05:20:01 2023
    On Mon, 2023-06-05 at 15:59 +0100, James Addison wrote:

    I'd like to gather feedback on the wording and content of the flyer;

    I would recommend replacing the specific number of packages in the
    flyer with a more generic term like "many" or "thousands of" since this represents a maintenance burden as the real number changes. Also, even
    if you were to automate updating the number, the physical flyers will
    get out of date with the number.

    Similarly, the number of people contributing to Debian in 2023 is
    currently estimated at less than 1000 and it was estimated as much less
    than that in previous years. Probably the data isn't very accurate,
    but I do think it is a good idea to avoid specific numbers as our
    contribution levels fluctuate a fair bit. So I would drop "more than a thousand" from it.

    https://contributors.debian.org/

    I suggest that the list of audiences we have software for be expanded
    based on the list of Debian blends and include "other" as well. Perhaps something like "software for businesses, programmers, scientists,
    educators, artists, multimedia, gamers, children, medicine, ham radio, politicians, home servers, accessibility and other uses".

    https://www.debian.org/blends/

    --
    bye,
    pabs

    https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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  • From James Addison@21:1/5 to Paul Wise on Tue Jun 6 16:40:02 2023
    On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 at 04:12, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:

    On Mon, 2023-06-05 at 15:59 +0100, James Addison wrote:

    I'd like to gather feedback on the wording and content of the flyer;

    I would recommend replacing the specific number of packages in the
    flyer with a more generic term like "many" or "thousands of" since this represents a maintenance burden as the real number changes. Also, even
    if you were to automate updating the number, the physical flyers will
    get out of date with the number.

    Similarly, the number of people contributing to Debian in 2023 is
    currently estimated at less than 1000 and it was estimated as much less
    than that in previous years. Probably the data isn't very accurate,
    but I do think it is a good idea to avoid specific numbers as our contribution levels fluctuate a fair bit. So I would drop "more than a thousand" from it.

    https://contributors.debian.org/

    Thanks, Paul - I wasn't aware of that, and agree with updating the
    wording for the contributor count.

    Relating to the package count: I'm still processing some feedback and
    ideas related to that, so: no confirmation either way yet, but some
    edits will likely occur there.

    I suggest that the list of audiences we have software for be expanded
    based on the list of Debian blends and include "other" as well. Perhaps something like "software for businesses, programmers, scientists,
    educators, artists, multimedia, gamers, children, medicine, ham radio, politicians, home servers, accessibility and other uses".

    This is a tricky one. I did consider using mailing lists / blends as
    sources of the audience list. What I ended up deciding instead was on
    some fairly arbitrary list that I think would represent some of the
    areas of expertise that most people around the world would understand.
    I also prefer that to using a generic term like 'everyone' or 'anyone'
    -- I think that inspiring a few general use cases in people's minds,
    and helping them to think of their friends and colleagues, is
    valuable.

    Thanks again,
    James

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  • From James Addison@21:1/5 to David on Tue Jun 6 16:40:02 2023
    Thanks, David - some responses inline.

    On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 at 02:03, David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> wrote:
    ...
    I have this feedback:

    I think your text works fine if your reader does know what an "operating system"
    is. But if they don't, then I think your communication might be entirely unclear
    to them.

    Twenty years ago, I would have agreed with you; and I think that the
    reaction from people who are not engineers (then and now) is one of
    two:

    * Oh, I don't understand what an operating system is - can you explain
    that to me? (an opportunity)
    * People don't understand what operating systems are! (sometimes with
    a dismissive and/or discouraging tone)

    I am looking for more of the former responses, and am OK with those -
    they are people who would like to learn, and I don't think that
    dumbing down our message too much is appropriate. At the same time, I
    don't want to overwhelm people with technical details - but I think
    that it's fine to include a small amount of technical terminology.

    Also: computers are everywhere nowadays, and commercial industry
    itself has attempted to erase the meaning and idea of terms like
    "operating system" and "web browser" - but they still very much exist
    inside computers, so I think we should do our best to be honest, lest
    we lose the ability to understand the technology that we rely on.

    ----- begin -----

    Debian is a free operating system for computers of all kinds. It can
    replace other operating systems such as Windows and MacOS, thereby freeing your computer from their commercial restrictions. Debian is entirely non-commercial.

    Perhaps this is quid-pro-quo (maybe that's the wrong term to use), but
    I doubt that other operating systems would mention Debian in their
    marketing materials, and although I'm not completely certain why that
    is, it could be safest to follow the same approach. My sense is that
    it's because they don't want to raise awareness of other options --
    and in fact, perhaps that's a reason why we should act different and _intentionally_ mention them (alongside helping with user
    understanding, the intent you were going for), but I'm not sure yet.

    Debian is generated by a huge community of expert volunteer developers with subject area interest and expertise in the software they maintain – and all of the source code for that software is available for you to read, modify
    and redistribute. It receives timely security updates and continous improvements.

    I have a slight preference for placing the "what" (the updates) before
    the "who" (the community) in this case, because I think that our
    updates are extremely effective, on-par or exceeding the quality (and transparency) of what most commercial systems offer. That's something
    I enjoy greatly as a user, and why I'm trying to take part (hopefully positively) in volunteering - but the value proposition (for users) is
    likely to be the experience, I think.

    Debian also distributes 63,000+ packaged non-commercial utilities and applications, including software for businesses, programmers, scientists, educators and artists.

    The language here does require some adjustment, thank you (the 63k+
    figure here refers only to packages in 'main').

    To learn about Debian and to obtain a copy that you can run and optionally install, scan the QR code above or visit the website:
    https://www.debian.org

    ----- end -----

    Perhaps I seem a bit defensive about some of these changes; I am
    likely to include them in some form in the resulting microflyer,
    although as probably evident, I'm not ready to incorporate them as-is.

    Thanks again,
    James

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  • From Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jun 6 16:40:02 2023
    To: debian-publicity@lists.debian.org
    To: debian-l10n-english@lists.debian.org

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