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Are the new graphical statistics on the GMN any good?
Yeah, they rule!
63%
 63%  [ 70 ]
Doesn't really improve the newsletter, but doesn't hurt either
31%
 31%  [ 35 ]
They're really bad!
4%
 4%  [ 5 ]
Total Votes : 110

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nixnut
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've created some graphs that I think are more appropriate and communicate their message a lot better:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution-2.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-bugs-1.png
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Eckos
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

V-Li wrote:
Eckos (only irrelavant parts stripped :) wrote:
I'll do something :lol:


How about contributing to the GMN. :P


I wouldn't know where to begin on it or what to contribute :oops: :lol:
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V-Li
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eckos wrote:
V-Li wrote:
Eckos (only irrelavant parts stripped :) wrote:
I'll do something :lol:


How about contributing to the GMN. :P


I wouldn't know where to begin on it or what to contribute :oops: :lol:


Proof reading (if you know English well) is a start. Sitting there and writing articles out of suggestions that come up sometimes is another thing. Do a summary similar to the Planet Gentoo round-up for the forums.
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NathanZachary
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixnut wrote:
I've created some graphs that I think are more appropriate and communicate their message a lot better:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution-2.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-bugs-1.png


I do think that those graphs are much more helpful than the pie charts currently in the GMN.
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Eckos
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like them both. Can't you include both? Like How on one of his bar graphics where it had thestable ones of the total? That can't be represented in pie graphs. So use bars where possible otherwise use pie graphs.
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yngwin
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Best newsletter evah! :wink: 'Coz I'm in it. 8)
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gentoo-dev
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixnut wrote:
I've created some graphs that I think are more appropriate and communicate their message a lot better:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution-2.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-bugs-1.png
10x much more readable than pie charts IMO. Add the links to bugs.gentoo.org so that we can see the list of bugs, and it'd be perfect.
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Thargor
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixnut wrote:
I've created some graphs that I think are more appropriate and communicate their message a lot better:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution-2.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-bugs-1.png

These are really nice, at least the first and the last one, the second one mainly confused me :?
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KillerX
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 3:42 pm    Post subject: Thanks for the suggestions! Reply with quote

I'm really glad that our readers like the GMN, thank you all for your suggestions :D

The general message about the new charts seems to be that 3D pie-charts, while being nice to look at, don't really convey information effectively. I'll definitely be looking into switching to bar-graphs (similar to what nixnut posted, great job!) in the next issue.
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equaeghe
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixnut wrote:
I've created some graphs that I think are more appropriate and communicate their message a lot better:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-keyword-distribution-2.png
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nixnut/images/gentoo-bugs-1.png


Nice suggestions.

I'd take the data (numbers) from the second png (but no after the comma %-precision), and put the plot of the first png next to it (and let the rightmost number on the axis being the total number of different packages in portage).

Alternating line backgrounds (lightgray/white) would further improve readability of the result.

Sorry to say, but for the third png, I'd leave out the graphs to improve readability: the numbers are easier to compare than the lengths... It's not because it's easy to make a graph that one should. To allow the readers to more easily compare the relative differences, I'd add another column, where the absolute numbers are divided by the maximum.

Erik
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 8:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice newsletter, I'm happy such things are back again :)
Good job to the whole team 8)
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incripshin
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:19 am    Post subject: In defense of OpenBSD Reply with quote

As per the BIND test results, in all fairness it should be noted that pf (OpenBSD firewall) has sped up a lot between OpenBSD 4.1 (used in the test) and 4.2. Some information on this is here: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2007/11/01/whats-new-in-bsd-42.html. Some tests showed a 100% improvement in speed. NetBSD and FreeBSD also use pf, so I would imagine they will also speed up when they get the new pf integrated.

Also, I would like to see the same test conducted with djbdns, but it won't happen. :)

The graphs are pretty.
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slackline
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a statistician I don't like seeing pie-charts, there are any number of reasons not to use them (see for example those cited by Cleveland 1994), but even those who do advocate their usage do not believe that 3D pie-charts should be used (Hunt and Mashhoudy 2008).

The main problem is that visually its harder to distinguish subtle differences in the relative size of slices on a pie-chart. It is far easier to make this distinction in a bar graph.

Adding a third dimension just makes it even harder to distinguish the relative sizes as it obscures a lot of the information behind the third dimension.

Its useful that the raw numbers have been included in the pie-charts in the GMN, as this negates the general problem of relative comparisions, but I generally don't like pie-charts, and hate 3D ones (the main reason for their proliferation is the ubiquity of Excel in many places).

There are of course lots of opinions and various statisticians have discoursed at length, a decent search will turn up lots of hits.

References

Cleveland, W.S. (1994). The Elements of Graphing Data. Hobart Press.

Hunt N., Mashhoudy H. (2008) The Humble Pie – Half-Baked or Well Done? Teaching Statistics 30 (1):6-12
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jel
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Are the new graphical statistics on the GMN any good?


URL? All I can find in the GMN mail is a link to this thread.
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slackline
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jel wrote:
Quote:
Are the new graphical statistics on the GMN any good?


URL? All I can find in the GMN mail is a link to this thread.


Its linked from the front-page the exact URL is http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/20080218-newsletter.xml and the graphics are towards the bottom.
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Diezel
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of the things I enjoy reading in GWN/GMN is the developer of the week/month. Don't know why, I just like to see how people got involved with Gentoo and what their favorite softwares are and so on. Also I enjoy seeing the workspace people use, if there is a picture of it. Also the tips and tricks has been a great thing.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good jobs guys, the Gentoo community deserved a quality newsletter again. Still some things have to be fixed, but I think you will realize in the long run. Keep up the good work.
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slackline
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

After re-reading my post above, I realised that it reads a bit negatively (although I do stand by my comments), but I completely forgot to mention....


...its great to see the news letter back! It looks good and reads well. Good work to all involved, its much appreciated and I look forward to reading future issues.

Cheers

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V-Li
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Diezel wrote:
One of the things I enjoy reading in GWN/GMN is the developer of the week/month. Don't know why, I just like to see how people got involved with Gentoo and what their favorite softwares are and so on. Also I enjoy seeing the workspace people use, if there is a picture of it. Also the tips and tricks has been a great thing.


And here is your task. Interview the developers you are interested in and create an article for the GMN. :)
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