I meant to post this early this weekend but had too many things happening simultaneously and didn’t get a chance. I’m an avid reader of several Open Source blogging “planets” and religiously read them every day in order to keep up with new developments or just to pick up a few things here and there. I’d say that most of the time I really enjoy the posts that get published but every now and then come across a few posts which I find inclined to post a reply.
However, in order to combat blog spam and simplify their lives, some bloggers have decided to disable comments on their blogs. Though I do understand and can relate to their solution against those pesky blog spammers, I find my inability to reply or provide feedback to their posts extremely frustrating some times! I know that there must be “proper” channels to post feedback and what not, but even the big media resources out there (major newspapers and magazines for instance) have a section where people can chime in! It seems to me that in order to comment on someone’s post, you must also be part of the “planet.”
Maybe there should be a better categorization during the selection of posts that get published on Planet Gnome and Planet Debian? One by which several of the non-Gnome or Debian related posts that get automatically published every day don’t get published in their respective “planets.”? I mean, some of them are so personal and of no significant meaning to the community… Lately, a lot of them have a political agenda associated to them too! IMNSHO, those are the kind of posts that should be kept outside of the scope and if anyone feels the urge to find out what some Gnome or Debian developer had for lunch or what kind of beer they believe should be drank while visiting Finland, have them then subscribe to the individual’s direct blog!
Whether some of you (developers) like it or not, both Gnome and Debian affect literally hundreds of thousands of users today. I know that when you decided to share your free time (thank you by the way) to work on your respective projects, you thought of it as a hobby… but your hobby has become an enterprise and you are, by default, responsible for that which you have created. I’ll compare you yo NBA players… They didn’t ask to become role models but they are… by default!!! Like it or not!
All I’m saying is, turn this wonderful thing (planets) that you have built into something that mirrors every thing that open source and linux stand for! I know that there will be a lot of people shaking their heads in agreement with what I said.