Rocky Linux Blog Submission Process¶

This document covers the end-to-end process for writing and publishing a blog post to the Rocky Linux website, from idea to promotion.

Project board¶

All blog work is tracked on the Rocky Linux Community project board. Every post should have an issue before writing begins.

Column definitions¶

Status	Meaning
To Do	Topic identified, needed information collected and documented, assigned to a writer
In Progress	Actively being written
Blocked	Waiting on another party for information or input
Review	Draft complete, in the community feedback process
Approved	All revisions complete, awaiting publication
Done	Published

Step-by-step process¶

1. Come up with a topic¶

Topics can come from anywhere: community needs, security events, release milestones, contributor stories, or survey feedback. If you have an idea, bring it to ~Community on Mattermost before creating an issue, especially if you're unsure whether it's already in progress.

2. Create an issue¶

Open an issue on the project board. The issue title should clearly describe the post (e.g., "Blog: Contributor Spotlight: Jane Doe"). Set the status to To Do and assign a writer if one is already identified.

3. Write the draft¶

Write in Google Docs or another collaborative platform that supports comments and suggestions. This makes it easy for others to leave feedback before the post moves to GitHub.

Follow the style conventions established for Rocky Linux blog posts:

Professional, friendly, and direct tone
Sentence case for titles, no em dashes
Hook opening, no filler phrases or present participle leads
Inline code formatting for package names, commands, and repo references
No excessive bolding or bullet overuse; use prose where it flows naturally

4. Revise¶

Spell check and grammar check the draft. Read it aloud if you need to catch awkward phrasing. Make sure all technical details (package names, version strings, CVE numbers, commands) are accurate and have not been paraphrased.

5. Post to Mattermost for feedback¶

Share the draft link in ~Community on Mattermost and ask for feedback. Move the issue to Review on the project board. Give the community a reasonable window to respond before moving forward.

6. Revise based on feedback¶

Incorporate feedback from the community review. If the post is waiting on input from a specific person or team, move the issue to Blocked until that information arrives.

7. Prepare the markdown file¶

Convert the final draft to a .md file following this structure:

Frontmatter (required, fences must be present):

title: "Post title in sentence case"

date: "YYYY-MM-DD"

author: "Your Name"

Filename convention:

YYYY-MM-DD-short-descriptive-slug.md

Place the file in the news/ directory of the content repo.

8. Submit via GitHub¶

The content repository is rocky-linux/rockylinux.org-content.

Sync your fork using GitHub's Sync fork button before creating any new branch
Create a new branch named news/your-post-slug
Add your .md file to the news/ directory
Open a pull request targeting main on rocky-linux/rockylinux.org-content
Add a brief plain-text description of the post in the PR body
Request a review from the appropriate technical or community reviewer
Address any review feedback and update the branch as needed
Move the issue to Approved once the PR is approved and ready to merge

9. Post-publication promotion¶

Once the post is live, ask the Community team in ~Community on Mattermost to promote it on social channels (LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon). Provide the published URL and any suggested copy if you have it.

Move the issue to Done.

Tips¶

Do not submit directly to main on the upstream repo; always work from a branch on your fork
Verify frontmatter fences (---) are present in the raw file before submitting; they are easy to lose when copying from a rich text editor
Double hyphens (--) are not a substitute for punctuation and must not appear outside of code blocks
The news/ directory uses the filename date as the publication date; make sure the frontmatter date and filename date match