# APC CN Newsletter management manual ###### tags: `APC` The purpose of this document is to explain how we produce our newsletter every month. > **TL;DR** > If you have a certain role, you can go straight to your [role's section](#Roles), look for yours and read it through. > If you want to have an overall idea of how it works and how it was structured, please read on. The newsletter talks about a group of topics that we feel relevant for Community Networks: 1. Events and conferences 2. Resources from past events 3. Community networks in news and blogs 4. Gendering Community Networks 5. News on policy and regulation 6. Research 7. Tools and toolkits 8. Funding opportunities We will be producing a set of resources: 1. a list of sources of information that we see important for the topics we feel relevant for Community Networks 2. a regularly updated list of news and resources about the topics we feel are relevant for Community Networks 3. a highly filtered list of relevant links that we will highlight about these topics This resources will be shared in this way: 1. a blog post with the list of news sources we share 2. an RSS syndication of every news shared, that can/will be replicated over a twitter handle/telegram channel 3. a monthly email with those links that have been highlited 4. two monthly blogposts about the filtered and longer list of news for each of the sections. This system allows us to be aware of news that are published by the people we feel are relevant on each topic, select them as relevant topics, mark them as highlighted for this months' newsletter, and based on the collective effort, share it through different means. ## Description of the platform It involves three systems and a set of steps. ### Tiny Tiny RSS [Tiny Tiny RSS](https://tt-rss.org/) is a free and open source web-based newsfeed (RSS) reader and aggregator. It basically checks websites that have RSS functionality looking for updates and keeps track of them. It also allows to label and leave personal notes in each of the sites updates that it is keeping track of. ### RSS Bridge [RSS Bridge](https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge/) allows to keep track of news updates on sites that don't provide RSS functionality. It does this by 'reading' the site and creating the RSS document based on the updates that it can read from it. ### RSS to HTML/text Transformer There will be a template that will use the labels and the personal notes added to the newsfeed in a date range to build the HTML and text versions of the newsletter. ## Roles These tools facilitate a collaborative effort. These are the roles identified in the process and the responsabilities of each of them. ### Content curator Content curators curate a topic. Each topic has one content curator, and one content curator can have one or more topics. Each content curator can have one or more supporters. The proposed content curators for each of the topics we work on are: 1. Events and conferences: Ndunge or Nico, supported by the whole team. 2. Resources from past events: Ndunge or Nico, supported by the whole team. 3. Community networks in news and blogs: Nico, supported by Carlos. 4. Gendering Community Networks: cynthia, supported by Karla, Josephine and Kathleen 5. News on policy and regulation: Steve, supported by Carlos, Mike and Karla. 6. Research: Kathleen, supported by Carlos. 7. Tools and toolkits: Nico, supported by Mike and Steve. 8. Funding opportunities: Nico, supported by Carlos. Curating implies: 1. Regularly add new sources of information that need to be monitored. 2. Regularly select relevant information to be broadcasted about the topic they are in charge of. 3. Monthly highlight the articles that will be shared over the newsletter, and briefly describe them. ### Content curator supporter Supporters are related to the topic they support, and regularly receive information via non-determined sources (like WhatsApp groups or one-to-one emails with involved parties). They also know about the topic they support. Their role is to make sure the content curator they support gets the information they seem relevant, so he can push it to the system. They can also provide feedback to the content curators about if a link is relevant to be highlighted. They do this in an ongoing basis. The proposed supporters are identified in the [Content curator](#Content%20curator) section. ### Newsletter coordinator The coordinator keeps the pace for the team. It will let everyone know that the newsletter is coming, and trigger the publication, as well as verifying that the output is as expected. It will also customize the bits and pieces like the highlighted image, or leave it prepared for COMMS to do so. ## Tasks ### Add new sources of information This needs to be done each time you have a new source of information. Go to your [ttrss instance](#Tiny-Tiny-RSS), and follow [these instructions](#Sites-that-use-RSS). ### Select relevant information to be broadcasted This needs to be done regularly. Go to your [ttrss instance](#Tiny-Tiny-RSS), and follow [these instructions](#Digest). ### Highlight articles to share When you do the previous task, if you star an article it will be highlighted in the newsletter. You can also come back to your selected articles and star those relevant for you later. ## Procedure Steps involved in the process: 1. Ingress 2. Digest 3. Publish ### Ingress Information comes from different sources: community sharing, updates on relevant websites, social shares, etc. This step happens should happen automatically, but adding new sources and considering the informal sources require manual intervention. We have splitted the incoming sources in three: * Sites that use RSS * Sites that don't use RSS * Resources shared over other means that are none of those above #### Sites that use RSS Add them to the "Community networks" category by going to [preferences](https://apc-newsletter.nohost.me/ttrss/prefs.php), then "Feeds" tab, "Feeds" menu, "Subscribe to Feed" entry. In there add the RSS url that you want to add, and in "Place in category" select the category associated to your topic, and click "subscribe". ![Add new RSS Feed](https://i.imgur.com/UozNryF.png) #### Sites that don't use RSS We will use RSS Bridge for this. In the case this site is already supported on RSS Bridge (check in [here](https://apc-newsletter.nohost.me/rss-bridge/), you configure the export functionality there, copy the URL that it generates, and use that as the RSS URL for that site, following the instructions in the previous step. In the case it is not supported, you need to add a bridge to it by coding it. You can see examples here: https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge/tree/master/bridges This includes shares on social media like Twitter, Facebook or Youtube. ![RSS Bridge](https://i.imgur.com/x9IBsY5.png) #### Resources shared over other means that are none of those above In the case you receive a resource that would like to eventually be shared on the newsletter, the proposal is to share it over the communitynetworks.group website. This serves two purposes: 1. the community is updated regularly with news that happen out there 2. there is one space were to concentrate all news For this purpose we have setted up this post: https://communitynetworks.group/t/community-networks-on-the-web/278 ![communitynetworks.group links post](https://i.imgur.com/RCcupXu.png) ### Digest This task needs to happen on a regular basis, and it involves reading, commenting and labeling the site updates. The updates that will get published on the broader article (TODO describe this) will be the ones that have a comment, at least one label, and have been marked as [published articles](https://git.tt-rss.org/git/tt-rss/wiki/PublishArticles). The updates that will be highlighted will be the once that also have a star on them. At least once per month need to be starred per category. You can do this through the [web interface](https://apc-newsletter.nohost.me/ttrss/) or using the android app available on [f-droid](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fox.tttrss/). ![](https://i.imgur.com/ZDOEXgQ.jpg) The android app will work offline, so you can review articles even if you don't have access to the internet. ![](https://i.imgur.com/Sc6i7uu.jpg) ### Publish One time per month, the newsletter needs to be sent. For that, you will use the RSS to HTML/text transformer mentioned above to get the content that needs to be migrated to APC's CRM platform to be sent via email. This is installed in https://apc-newsletter.nohost.me/gen1/generate.php ## FAQ ### How do we make sure we don't repeat the links we sent (link duplication prevention)? Right now there is no automated mechanism... it is difficult to make sure that a link is not duplicated, so it is a problem that will for now be handled by the people that is in charge of publishing each section. ### Do we all use the same authentication to the system? TTRSS is not prepared for multiuser access and collaboration. If we would use different users, we would have to make a more complex system to integrate all the different instances. Using the same credencials will help us collaborate on sections that are shared without having to add extra burden. It is an approach that works in this case that we are all working on the same body of information. ## Resources General Explaination video: https://share2.apc.org/index.php/f/565222 Android explainations: * how to set it up: https://share2.apc.org/index.php/s/ALBYYBs7GgzWk4r * general use: https://share2.apc.org/index.php/s/czHQMexpbarZL3X If for any reason the videos are not accessible, you can reach me and ask for permission at nicopace@apc.org ## Troubleshoot Q: I went to a feed that has unread items on it, but I couldn't see any articles. A: It might have been because there are filters applied to the view. You can modify them with the top right bar shown in this video: ![](https://i.imgur.com/GQ6hD9g.gif) ## Additional research links These are resources that haven't been yet integrated in the platform, but that could be if we want to grow it in that direction. We can use this plugin to turn any DOI links to scihub links so we can get out of the paywall automatically: https://github.com/joshp23/ttrss-to-Sci-Hub For those feeds that don't share the full article when RSS, we can use this plugin: https://github.com/feediron/ttrss_plugin-feediron