[02:45] <Rinchen> jenda, nixternal - are you guys coming to UDS Boston?  I'm thinking about putting together a fridge session
[03:16] <nixternal> don't know yet
[03:16] <nixternal> United States Government is taking their sweet arse time on my request
[03:17] <Rinchen> That would be normal :-)
[03:17] <Rinchen> I'm off. I'll catch up with you guys tomorrow.
[10:39] <jenda> nixternal: watchya requesting?
[10:39] <jenda> and no, I won't be coming to the UDS :/
[07:45] <LaserJock> anybody around?
[07:48] <LaserJock> beuno, nixternal: pingy pingy pingy
[07:50] <mdke> LaserJock: I'm around, does that help?
[07:52] <LaserJock> yes
[07:52] <LaserJock> I'm concerned that Fridge just isn't getting news up fast enough
[07:53] <LaserJock> I was talking to #ubuntu-us and somebody was saying "I don't use Fridge for news anymore, it's always behind other outside sources"
[07:53] <beuno> LaserJock: pongy
[07:54] <mdke> LaserJock: yes; that's been true for a long time really
[07:54] <beuno> erhm, that does seem true
[07:54] <LaserJock> mdke: exactly
[07:54] <LaserJock> so I'm on the warpath, what can we do to "fix" this?
[07:54] <LaserJock> how do other sources get things before we do?
[07:55] <LaserJock> I suspect we have a lot of delay in getting our stories reviewed
[07:55] <beuno> LaserJock: I think it has something to do with the queue process, and that other sources are actually people's blog, so they are much more careful with getting it out asap
[07:56] <mdke> to be honest, it's less to do with the queue process (which is usually turned around withina  few hours) than to do with the fact that it takes us a long time to write stories; seeing as how there are few contributors with very little time
[07:56] <mdke> the queue process is pretty streamlined, imo
[07:56] <LaserJock> obviously it'd be nice to get news ahead of time, but Canonical at least, seems unwilling to do so
[07:57] <mdke> even turning around a new piece of Canonical news within 24 hours of it being posted on the website would be acceptable, it's just that we don't seem to have the resources to do so
[07:57] <LaserJock> hmm
[07:58] <LaserJock> the people I talked to seem to want it like within the hour
[07:58] <LaserJock> perhaps people have unrealistic expectations of Fridge?
[07:58] <mdke> that's weird; in a virtual world, news always filters relatively slowly
[07:59] <LaserJock> well, for a lot of things Planet seems faster than Fridge, I think
[07:59] <mdke> generally, where people have a vested interest in the story, then it appears quickly on the Fridge (like where a Canonical employee has written it), but for general news, people don't have the motivation to write it up quickly
[07:59] <mdke> LaserJock: that's because planet has more contributors in more timezones though; and less concern about quality control
[08:00] <LaserJock> ok, so maybe emphasizing Fridge as high quality news might help?
[08:00] <mdke> yeah, but we'd have to back that up with high quality news :(
[08:01] <beuno> the quality bit is what delays me most of the time, I can't just blur it out in 5 minutes
[08:01] <LaserJock> mdke: blah, we just tell them it's high quality ;-)
[08:01] <LaserJock> hmm, the stories I write usually take 5-10 minutes
[08:01] <mdke> LaserJock: maybe if we do that, then it will put the editors under enough pressure to produce some :)
[08:01] <mdke> bbl
[08:02] <LaserJock> well, and here's maybe another distinction
[08:02] <LaserJock> do we want to report on what's already happening, sort of an aggregator
[08:02] <LaserJock> or do we want to "make" the news
[08:02] <LaserJock> when it comes to aggregation there's already very good non-human sources on the net
[08:03] <LaserJock> Planet being one
[08:03] <LaserJock> but most of the stuff I've done is basically just rediting what somebody has already sent me
[08:07] <beuno> LaserJock: maybe some people aren't reading the fridge, and we should highlight stuff on the planet?
[08:07] <LaserJock> well, my experience has been that more people read Fridge than read Planet
[08:08] <LaserJock> when I put a Behind MOTU interview on Fridge my hits were 3 times higher than what they had been on Planet
[08:08] <LaserJock> I'm not so much thinking that people don't really go to Fridge
[08:08] <LaserJock> but I think they go to Fridge for the meeting schedule more than the news
[08:13] <beuno> LaserJock: so what do you think we can do?
[08:24] <LaserJock> hmm
[08:42] <LaserJock> your back :-)
[08:43] <LaserJock> beuno: I've got a story up in the queue if you've got a minute
[08:44] <beuno> LaserJock: I'm on it
[08:46] <beuno> LaserJock: it's out  :D
[08:50] <LaserJock> wahoo, we're speedy :-)
[08:50] <LaserJock> well, before you left I was thinking of some things
[08:50] <LaserJock> just brainstorming
[08:52] <LaserJock> I wonder if having more of an aggregator style News section
[08:52] <LaserJock> then having more in-depth real Stories section
[09:14] <beuno> LaserJock: I was thinking too, that most of the times I'm unsure if a news story is fridge-worthy or not
[09:31] <LaserJock> beuno: yeah
[09:32] <LaserJock> I wonder if it's worth sort of having a dumping ground for anything useful, basically the "In the Press" section
[09:33] <LaserJock> where we're linking to something
[09:33] <LaserJock> there's a difference between just aggregating news
[09:33] <LaserJock> and writing news stories