Following up with beat writers

[Chris Tyler]

On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 09:36 -0400, Oisin Feeley wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:08:52 -0400, "Josh Bressers"
> <bressers at redhat.com> said:
> > > > 
> > > > 1) as soon as an issue is released, an editor-type changes the date to 
> > > > the next deadline day, and marks every beat as "INCOMPLETE".
> > > > 
> > > > 2) Beats that don't have a writer are marked as "NO WRITER".
> > > > 
> > > > 3) Beats that have a writer but aren't happening that week, for whatever 
> > > > reason, are marked as "NOT HAPPENING".
> > > > 
> > > > 4) Beats that are in progress are marked "IN PROGRESS".
> > > > 
> > > > 5) Beats that are finished are marked "COMPLETE" along with a note to 
> > > > list.
> > > 
> > 
> > Do you expect the beat writers to do this?
> 
> Yes please.  Unless it seems like too much extra burden.  Obviously
> editors would take care of #2 "NO WRITER" but all the other information
> is more easily available to the actual beat writer. So instead of the
> editorial team sending out queries to see what is happening the beat
> writer can just jump straight to a central place to update us on the
> status.

May I suggest an enhancement to this process? Add a column to the beats
table labeled "Default". When the table is reset for the next issue,
instead of filling the status column with "Incomplete", the values from
the Default column are copied into the status column.

Most beats would have "Incomplete" in the Default column, but some might
have "No Writer", and some seasonal beats (picture an eventual FUDCon
beat) would have a default of "Not happening".

-Chris