[Distutils] PyPA Announcements & Twitter

[Randy Syring]

I'd like to pick up a conversation that was happening on another thread:
>> I've only been on this list for about a year. This PEP (and others
>> like it) has been in motion for quite a while. I think the blog would
>> miss far more people than the mailing list would and I'm not sure I
>> agree with "how quickly things change". There doesn't seem to be much
>> content for the blog and it seems like something that would just
>> become neglected. What topics do you really think would be better
>> suited for a blog post than a message to here and related announcement
>> lists?
>
> The blog posts could automatically get copied over to
> Twitter and mailing lists using e.g. IFTTT, and it would
> be possible to subscribe using RSS/Atom feeds.
>
> The advantage of a blog is having news entries persist and be
> easy to find, while at the same time simplifying the whole
> publishing process.
>
> Anyway, just a suggestion.

pypa.io also says:

> They host projects on github <https://github.com/pypa> and bitbucket 
> <https://bitbucket.org/pypa>, and discuss issues on the pypa-dev 
> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21forum/pypa-dev> and distutils-sig 
> <http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig> mailing lists.

I think the issue with the current mailing lists is one of 
signal-to-noise ratio.  Let me give you a little background:

I maintain a small number of pypi published packages.  I'm very 
interested in using best practices and keeping up with the more 
significant changes in the Python packaging ecosystem.  I joined the 
distutils-sig list to stay informed.

However, the more detailed discussions that happen on the distutils-sig 
list are not of much value to me.  I know they are important and I very 
much appreciate those who are pushing things forward, it's just too much 
detail for my context.

So, I'm on the distituls-sig list, but there is a lot of "noise" for me 
and not much "signal."  I would rather be a part of some channel for 
receiving announcements that relate to the broader community of those 
who maintain & release packages and need to stay abreast of python 
packing ecosystem & best practice changes.

Therefore, I'd like to propose something like a packaging-announce 
mailing list.  This could be linked to the PyPA Twitter account. Then, 
announcements that pertain to the broader Python community would be 
cross posted to the distutils-sig and packaging-announce (and therefore 
twitter).  The recent post to distutils-sig "PyPI Rendering Switched" 
would be a great example of something that should be more broadly announced.

If there is no one else currently working in the PyPA admin world who 
wants to do it, I'd be willing to setup and maintain the 
packaging-announce list as well as work on linking that list so it 
automatically posts to the twitter account (and take care of manually 
posting in the mean time).

Then, the question becomes, what gets put on packaging-announce.  My 
guess is that it won't be hard to figure out who should have the 
authority to post and the overhead for making the announcement becomes 
exceptionally small, simply add another "to" line on the email that 
would have been sent to distutils-sig anyway.

Feedback welcome.

Thanks.


*Randy Syring*
Husband | Father | Redeemed Sinner

/"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world
and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36 ESV)/

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