PR Test Respin

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andreas84
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by andreas84 »

Z98 wrote: When people first asked for a PR team, it was fairly evident at the time, to us in the project at least, people did not quite know what they were asking for. They had some ephemeral idea of what the PR team's goals might be, but not on what the team itself would do. One thing they did claim was that they wanted it to be an official component of the project.
Ah i understand now that the starting initiative came not from react os itself but from other non official members.

So this would be case one:
These non official members asked for approval for leading an official pr team.
Z98 and vic came up and took this leadership over the project out of those volunteers hands.
They succeeded in taking the project to themselves but they not succeeded in assembling a team.

Did i understand it right?
So i have a question. Why z98 and vic want to lead the project when the idea originally came from someone else? Usually their work would be to either approve the pr team as officially and later on monitor it or to not approve it at all. But take the team over seems strange for me.

Case two did react os officials ask for a team?

And vicmarcal took it up and involved z98. Those two created an idea but vic was not able to work on it lateron and z98 continued the idea with the steam the project is going forward now.
So in the end z98 was not able to find a positive response for that idea and it does not look like he will find it. So now if ros still want to have and prteam would in first line mean that z98 comes up with more that gets positive response (and likely will be some work) OR involves someone who can come up with something that gets positive response OR some other solution i dont see?
Witch
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by Witch »

Indeed this issue is just getting trickier and trickier the more we dig.
  • All I know is that the non-Developer and non-PR community have a big ball of energy floating out there on the ethernet.
  • This non-Developer and non-PR community is not able to jump through all the hoops that ReactOS team requires before they can be trusted and put into work that people believes in.
  • The community have tried to reach out a hand to help ReactOS team with "ReactOS Fundraising Campaign 2012" in various ways. But have been declined.
  • Still after being declined so many times that big ball of energy floating out there on the ethernet still remains.
  • There's not much the community can do about this.
  • It's up to the ReactOS team to figure out how to channel that big ball of energy on the ethernet.
  • Because when that ball of energy is unhappy then it's not very likely that they will be repeat donators towards "ReactOS Fundraising Campaign 2012". And if ReactOS team cannot make community happy then how do they intend to make outsiders happy and repeat donate?
milon
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by milon »

@Z98:
The first thing I want to say is that I didn't find your post harsh at all. (I know, weird eh? ;) ) You were frustrated with the community's response to your reasonable requests, and I get that.

Honestly, I did not understand before all the thoughts and rationale behind the approach you took to form a PR Team. I sincerely thank you for laying that out clearly. I could be wrong, but I feel the lack of response for PR applications came from a lack of understanding. People were saying "I want to be on the PR Team" and the response was "Okay, do Seemingly Unrelated Project X". There was a perceived disconnect, so people didn't apply. I agree that clarification could have been asked for, but this was already a somewhat emotionally charged topic and people just reacted. They didn't want to do "Seemingly Unrelated Project X" - they wanted to do "PR Stuff". We didn't understand that "Seemingly Unrelated Project X" was the first step towards "PR Stuff". People have to understand where you're coming from before they can agree with you or work with you. For the future, the forum members (if I can presume to speak for all of us) will need to know the why behind the what. That's the best way I know of to get people on your side.


@ Everyone Else:
I would apply to be on the PR Team, but I simply cannot commit the time to it. Maybe that makes me biased, but please hear me out anyway. I think Z98's requests are valid and fair. ReactOS is a technical project, and it's fair to expect that those who want to talk about it will have some technical knowledge, especially since it's not yet a mature product. If you don't have that knowledge yet, that's fine. We're all here on this forum to support you and help you get there. Z98 said they'd look at the applications and figure out what you need to be a good PR person. He'll point you in the right direction and you can always ask for help from Z98, the forum, people on IRC, etc.

If you are against being on the PR Team but still want to help ROS out, then make a YouTube video showcasing ROS. Show off a new feature or demonstrate it booting on real hardware. Just don't say you're an official representative. Take the "Hey let me show you this really cool thing!" approach. YouTube is just an example, of course, and there's many more ways you can help the project. The ROS team has enough on their plate right now to figure out everything they need to do. It's not their job to also figure out what non-official people can do. That's up to us. And so, my fellow ReactOS Forum members, to paraphrase JFK, ask not what ReactOS can do for you - ask what you can do for ReactOS.
AmineKhaldi
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by AmineKhaldi »

If I may shed some light on this subject:

Please note that the "ReactOS PR and PR Team" idea was started and pushed by Vic, so andreas84's assumption that:
These non official members asked for approval for leading an official pr team.
Z98 and vic came up and took this leadership over the project out of those volunteers hands.
doesn't hold.

As you can see, the idea didn't originally come from someone else, it came from Vic, and Z kindly stepped up to help him with this.

From what I see, they were both working under the assumption that there is
a big ball of energy floating out there on the ethernet
i.e. several committed people from the community, willing to take actions to help spread the word about ReactOS, help finance its fundraising campaign to accelerate the development, help demonstrate it to people (the youtube suggestion from milon is an excellent example) to raise awareness, help informing people who ask about ReactOS in other places than our forum (setting up google alerts on "reactos" helps here, for example)... and so on.

The PR ideas exist, obviously, and the examples mentioned above are well known PR techniques, so with ideas + committed people, things looked good to go, and the PR Team idea was officially announced.

Hopefully there is no misunderstanding anymore, and whoever is willing to contribute to PR for ReactOS on an official level will join the PR Team. The rest are more than welcome to continue helping however they can, we only require that they explicitly mention that those efforts are unofficial, that's all.

I found this topic interesting so I thought to clarify what I can, and I liked how milon understood quickly what Z explained.
I also didn't appreciate the way some posts were shaped here as replies to Z, at all (and the implications that they carried) so I felt the need to reply even more.

It's not too later folks.. it's never too late ;)
andreas84
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by andreas84 »

That does not make it easier i do not see a way to get this working without vic or a person who is skilled in creating groups with creative thinking people. This is a different task from making a normal group just to mention.
Z98
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by Z98 »

Note that Victor agreed with the rationale behind the original tests and that they should be carried out.
andreas84
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Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:09 pm

Re: PR Test Respin

Post by andreas84 »

Its not about the tests them self more about how to handle the situation that came up now.
The one thing is creating the right working conditions and the right startset to get the people join the tests.
The other thing is maintain a good and stable relationship with those people.
I think myself - and i think i sayed it before - the minds between programmer and pr people goes only sometimes along good. However most of them will not join at all if they feel it does not fit so the group creator must be able to go along good with those people and then he can raise conditions from that point. Thats why i said vic might be good for this job i did read a good statement about him which at least gives hope that he might fit with pr people.
wildschwein
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by wildschwein »

My opinion to solve the gordic knot...

Use a part of the Foundraising money FIRST to PAY a webdesigner to make the new website, with better possibilities to give smooth forum-rights and better moderation possibilities. Connect to twitter and facebook with those accepted "like" buttons and so long, and the most things come on its on volition.

make a place where community can put it their you-tube-videos of ROS...

make more forum threads for more fun, like videos, own backgrounds, own ROS Styles etc....

make the possibility to spend money "selective" - for USB, for WIN32, for Printing etc....
Z98
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by Z98 »

Note that it also didn't really matter who came up with the idea. If people wanted to be officially sanctioned by the project, they would have been held to a standard the project set, not one they themselves set. There is simply no way the project would ever have handed responsibility for an official subgroup to people whose credibility and reliability had not been firmly established. Victor was one such person, and I was asked to help him and act as a backup sounding board in case he needed a second opinion on matters.
andreas84
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by andreas84 »

huff i thought it would create a good answer. Okay then i again put it very blunt without talking around.

The only way i see to solve this is:
z98 silently pick a person of your choice who you think is able to create a team then test him how you wish and if he pass give him the authority for this project and look over his shoulder if he is performing well.
milon
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by milon »

Why should Z98 pick someone to do the job that Z98 is already doing? (The PR Team application is still open, by the way.)
andreas84
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by andreas84 »

Last time it worked not out this way it would be wonderful if it does now.

I will not sign up for any regular work like the pr team likely is as i will not be around regulary in certain times and i also dont think i would fit with z98 idea how it works (aka getting a job assigned instead of choosing myself what i do).
DOSGuy
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by DOSGuy »

I stopped reading this thread because it was too frustrating, but I've had another look. I really think the situation is simpler than it may appear. If I understand correctly, the community wants things to go one way, and the PR Team leaders want it to go another way.

The community wants a forum to propose and discuss projects. If the ReactOS Team approves those projects, the team would divide up the work and try to get it done.

The PR Team Leaders have some clear ideas of what they want the PR Team to work on: the newsletter, perhaps the website, and eventually -- if anyone worthy is discovered within the ranks -- to present the project to the public. Other projects can be discussed when PR Team members prove themselves, but they don't trust the PR Team to turn words into action until they prove themselves by submitting themselves to being trained to work on the newsletter and website.

There's nothing unreasonable about either side's vision. The only problem that I can see is that the volunteers only want to participate in the first approach, while the PR Team Leaders only want to work on the second approach. If no one on the team is interested in working on the newsletter/website, and the leaders are unwilling to discuss anything else until someone works on the newsletter/website, there seems to be no point in any further discussion. We don't want to do it their way, and they don't want to do it our way, so let's call the whole thing off.
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andreas84
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by andreas84 »

Is there any objection from the ros team when the community appoints 4 or more people as react os pr brainstorm team which will brainstorm in this or other forum?
AmineKhaldi
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Re: PR Test Respin

Post by AmineKhaldi »

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