OSM Newsletters Coming Soon

[mattodd]

Hi all. With the increasing volume of activity happening in OSM I think it’d be useful to start up a way to send out the occasional newsletter. We tried this the old fashioned way some time ago, making a PDF and posting it on the ELN. But we all have email and email can reach people not on (or regularly checking) current OSM platforms.

Mailchimp now runs a nice way to manage email-based newsletters. So we’ll try that out - you should all be receiving the first newsletter shortly. Please do forward on to anyone you think might be interested. We'll try to set up a signup form somewhere obvious too.

The idea is to highlight a few recent developments and current project needs, but the idea will be to keep the newsletters brief. They can’t be comprehensive, but hopefully they will help. We can also use them to organize meetings.

Crucially we will operate via a shared login system, so that anyone can make, contribute to and/or distribute a newsletter. Those of us wanting to make a newsletter can just get in touch with someone on the Sydney team to get the password for the site. We can use the Techops wiki to collect together any guidance on how to make newsletters, but the Mailchimp site is admirably clear.

Github issues should still be used as before - for announcements, questions of collaborations. Newsletters can be for summaries.

As always, suggestions and feedback welcome.

[holeung]

Great idea! I think the newsletters will be valuable in bringing in new members and publicity and support for further OSM work.

[alintheopen]

For comment/consideration - is there a cheap/easy way to make sure that the newsletter is written with responsive/adaptive design in mind? In tests for the newsletter, mailchimp seems to work really well, but the newsletter looks much better on desktop than mobile.

There are some mailchimp pages discussing this, but would be great to have input from anyone who is already running a newsletter or savvy in this area.

[mattodd]

Yes, that'd be useful, thanks for pointing out. The draft first newsletter is a little off when viewed on mobile, but we might have to make do for now in the absence of a Mailchimp Wizard.

[mcoster]

I guess that the wheels are already in motion down the mailchimp route, but I think a simple blog based on flat-file CMS with Git sync could be a better solution. This template by @paulhibbitts is a great, open-source example - http://demo.hibbittsdesign.org/grav-open-publishing/

You get responsive design by default, plus RSS and Atom syndication. Its all markdown based, transportable and rigorously archived. Anyone with a login can edit pages via the Admin interface, or the markdown files that form the pages can be edited as text files, directly via GitHub, GitHub Desktop, etc as owner or submitted by anyone as a PR. Indeed, since the blog/newsletter 'pages' can be hosted as a GitHub repository, they could simply be another repository under the OSM organisation, eg. OSM_Newsletter.

MailChimp newsletters can be generated automatically from the RSS feed and there is a simple MailChimp signup plugin that can be added to the sidebar. I did this for a teaching page based on a related Grav template - https://teaching.mcoster.net/DDD/ (see "Subscribe for Updates"). There's excellent documentation at http://learn.hibbittsdesign.org/openpublishingspace and I'm happy to provide any assistance I can. @paulhibbitts is also extremely helpful, enthusiastic about open source everything and keen to act on feedback regarding features, use cases, etc.

If this is of interest, I'm happy to set it up on Nectar Cloud. eResearch Services at Griffith Uni are keen to support use of Nectar Cloud for research purposes and they are very enthusiastic about open science initiatives. As a flat-file CMS based approach with git integration, this approach is easily transportable if that need arises.

Thoughts?

[mattodd]

Hey @mcoster - oh we can do anything we'd like. What you mention looks interesting, and thanks for sharing. For me, the only requirements were:

1) A newsletter containing a small number of things 2) that each link out to primary resources in OSM for people to learn more about current developments 3) that goes out via email 4) that any of us could assemble.

If content can be put elsewhere and could be sent out via Mailchimp, then that would be great. It's certainly attractive if we could assemble a newsletter on Github and have it emailed out from there.

Would it be easy for you to demo? i.e. assemble the next newsletter using the methods you suggest, to see how it all hangs together?

[mcoster]

Sounds like a good plan. I'll put together a demo and share the link soon.

[mcoster]

Hey @mattodd, @alintheopen et al. Here is a mock up of a blog/newsletter with MailChimp integration via RSS-to-Email - http://test.coster.group/

A test email from MailChimp subscription looks like this:

I cut/paste from the 2014 PDF newsletter for sample copy, hence images are bad resolution.

Ironically, responsive image sizing doesn't look good in the email. Also, the RSS feed delivers just the summary upper section of the blog post, so email recipients would need to click through to the blog for the whole newsletter.

Let me know thoughts and feedback. If there is interest I will flesh out more thoroughly and then work with anyone who is interested on how to create/submit content.

Mark

[mcoster]

Quick update to say that the OSM twitter feed is now integrated into this mockup blog/newsletter. If there is interest in going down this route, one route forward would be to send me the info destined for the next newsletter and I will formulate into the blog/newsletter and make notes about the process of writing and/or editing the newsletter - I can make a tutorial youtube video if that is useful.

[mattodd]

Hey @mcoster - just quickly to say i) This is absolutely awesome, ii) sorry for the delay - rush of exams and travel last few days, iii) I'm assembling the recipient list so we can start to send. In touch ASAP.

[miike]

Late to the train but please let me know if you need any help with the newsletter/pulling data etc.

[holeung]

Let me know if you want pretty pictures of molecules.

[mattodd]

Just to reawaken this thread. So are we currently here:

1) The content currently at http://test.coster.group/ could be added/edited by anyone from within Github? If so, where is the source page?

2) Are we still seeing some imperfect formatting in the email and/or incomplete content in the email so that people need to click through. In the absolutely nicest possible way are there still teething problems with the look of it?

3) I think assembly of newsletters in an open place and then emailing that out through e.g. mailchimp is the way to go, but shall I send out the first directly (from the OSM Mailchimp account I set up, which we can use in any case), given that it's made, and given that we can get started? The barrier here is actually the assembly of the initial recipient list itself, but that's a one-off headache.

4) Am I right in thinking that use of the page type at http://test.coster.group/ would also allow integration of sign-up functionality next to the newsletter? Highly useful if so. And of course the "archiving" of the newsletters is useful in itself. Definitely this should be an OSM repo. In fact we need one for newsletters/publicity/marketing/comms - on my desktop but not created online yet.

[mcoster]

1. Yep, anyone can add/edit from within GitHub. The test/demo source is currently hosted on my GitHub account at https://github.com/mcoster/test-osm-newsletter/ Since it is on my GitHub, if anyone else wants to edit, they need submit a PR of the proposed changes. From the blog/newsletter site itself, it is only one click to the GitHub repo:

It should be possible for this button to take you straight to the appropriate file, rather than the base of the repo.

Alternatively, there is a more guided, GUI-style admin interface that might be useful to regular newsletter contributors, but access to the admin interface is restricted by the typical user access control structure.

2. Yes, definitely teething problems with the look of it. TBH, this approach may never give a great looking newsletter directly by email - the best aesthetics would still come from following the link to the full newsletter on the website. I'll look into it some more before the end of the week.
3. Yes, post the current newsletter asap, I think. Makes more sense to go with what is already set up than delay and tweak further. If in, future, we do employ the approach I've outlined above, this first new newsletter can still be archived on the new site. Speaking of which - it would handy to have access to the source files in order to further explore a web-based newsletter.
4. Yes, sign up next to the newsletter is an implemented feature. Note that this is not unique though - a sign-up form for a MailChimp list can be added to any website. The instructions on MailChimp are pretty easy to follow, and it will spit out some HTML that can be embedded. Re: archiving - OSM repo for the newsletter site would be ideal. I don't seem to have repo creation privileges, so I'd either need to gain those or defer to someone else to set it up. Is the publicity/marketing/comms info fairly static in nature? It could potentially be included in a broader OSM newsletter site. There are placeholders in the template I used, for standalone pages, linked off the homepage, eg. http://test.coster.group/standardpage Like everything else on the site, these would be synced with the GitHub repo.

[mattodd]

I've imported to the Mailchimp subscriber list all the people I can think of who have directly contributed to, or expressed an interest in, OSM. It's a list of 300+, and doesn't capture all the students who have also contributed. Two thoughts:

1) We'll need to ensure that there is a simple way to sign up for the newsletter. @mcoster 's solution above would handle this, but it strikes me we need the sign-up possibility on the OSM Landing Page somewhere. Simple? In the interim we could tweet out that people interested in being added could just email the generic OSM email address.

2) I wondered about having the list of subscribers (names, not emails obviously) public. Gives a good sense of who is reading it and is involved. I don't know if that violates a privacy convention, but it aids transparency and might stimulate people to share the newsletter with others not on the list.

[drc007]

I’m not sure you want to get involved in this

The new General Data Protection Regulations are quite onerous, requiring affirmative action, detailed record keeping and can result in substantial fines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation

Cheers,

Chris

On 2 Jan 2018, at 12:28, Mat Todd notifications@github.com wrote:

I wondered about having the list of subscribers (names, not emails obviously) public. Gives a good sense of who is reading it and is involved. I don't know if that violates a privacy convention, but it aids transparency and might stimulate people to share the newsletter with others not on the list.

[mattodd]

"It becomes enforceable from 25 May 2018..." :) But my gut says no to the release of 300 names (even though I'm sure 99% of them would be fine with such a thing and it might be useful) because the action (in this case) doesn't arise from the individuals.