Let's discuss a new workflow for the Fedora Magazine!

There are a few issues with the current one I see:

• Higher barrier to entry — We kind of expect that ideas for articles (pitches) are submitted by the writer, which might prevent people who are not writers from submitting potentiaily interesting topics. Also, it happens right in Wordpress which might make newcomers to feel too committed or worried they accidentally brake something (I felt that way back then).
• Tracking state — It's not always easy to tell whether certain article is in progress and being actively worked on, has been done, or is stalled. Also, it's hard to distinguish pitches that have been just submitted vs. approved, and claimed vs. free to take ones.

I tried to fix some of that some time ago by using a Kanban board, but that didn't prove to work as the process still expected things to happen in Wordpress and the board — while providing some of the benefits — seemed as an extra work. So I sat with @bcotton during Flock and we put together a whole new process built around using an external tracker.

Fedora Magazine editorial workflow

As ideated by Adam Šamalik and Ben Cotton at Flock 2019

1. Idea — this is 1-3 sentences to describe the general topic of an article. It can be submitted by a writer or a reader. (but can be more, which might speed up some of the next steps)
2. Article spec — this is a longer description of an article, similar to the pitches we ask for now. An Idea becomes an Article spec when it is accepted as post topic by the editorial team. Anyone can claim one and start writing.
3. Article in progress — An Article spec moves into this state when it is claimed by a writer who is working on it
4. Review — The writer moves the article in this state when it is ready for editorial review. If it requires non-trivial edits, the editor moves it back to Article in progress
5. Formatting — The article is entered into the content management system (CMS) and given the appropriate style and metadata. This also includes editing
6. Art — Artwork is generated for the article, if required
7. Queued — The article moves into this state when the Formatting and Art are complete. The editorial team schedules the article for publication
8. Published — The article is published

Notes:

• This flow is designed such that articles do not need to be in the CMS until they are complete. Authors may choose to write in the CMS, but may use any mechanism reasonable for writing and editing
• Part of the goal of having small ideas that get approved/rejected by the editors is to encourage the separation of author and subject matter expert (SME). SMEs may not be able or willing to write articles, and authors may be able to write articles that they are not an expert on. By making ideas and requests more visible, the hope is that writers will see an interesting article and claim it
• We intentionally did not include implementation in this workflow, although we did consider it. For example, Ideas might be submitted as Taiga issues, which get converted to user stories when they are approved as an Article spec
• The guidelines should suggest that Idea content focus on “how?” questions