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Roy Bamford wrote: |
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> Steve, |
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> |
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> I've in lined my words of wisdom ... you may not agree with them but |
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> they are mine, after all. |
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> |
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Heh welcome to the first amendment ;) UK, you say? That's the 51st state.. |
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/me wanders back on-topic. |
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> On 2007.08.05 02:36, Steve Long wrote: |
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>> I was thinking about the recent discussion re flames and firefighting |
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>> on the dev m-l. One thing that occurred to me, as a user who has been |
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>> on one side of those, is that it would have been better if I had |
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>> never been able to post more than two posts in a day. (I mean this |
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>> for the technical dev m-l, not project.) |
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> That's ok as long as you only want to respond to flames and be off |
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> topic. It would limit the noise a non dev can create. As soon as you |
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> want to use -dev for its intended purpose, it would cramp your style. |
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> This could not be usefully automated |
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> |
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Yeah but this is a mailing list, not IRC. As a non-dev, my input |
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necessarily has less technical weight, since I am unfamiliar with gentoo |
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development processes and policy. In normal circumstances, I usually just |
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read the list, and if i have any questions i try and answer them myself. If |
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i post, it means i haven't got a clear answer from irc, prior ml or |
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bugzilla discussions. Given the timescale on a ml, 2 posts per day is |
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plenty for me to ask about stuff that isn't clear. |
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|
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>> |
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>> That's plenty for me to say "I think that's out of order" and to |
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>> answer a response, but it also means I can't get too emotional if I |
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>> get flamed by a stressed-out dev. |
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> Nor can you easily take part in technical discussions, should you want |
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> to :) |
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> |
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See above (not being pedantic; not ignoring this point is all.) |
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>> After all, since the proctors have gone, there's no one to respond in |
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>> anything like mail-list time in the (admittedly unlikely ;) event |
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>> that there is another flamewar on the dev list and more cogently |
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>> no-one to mute a troublesome user (in real time). A dev who is |
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>> consistently anti-social (especially out of the blue when they should |
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>> just ignore the thread) can be dealt with by devrel. (And have been |
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>> in the past.) |
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> After the fallout from the "Bubble thread" that lead directly to the |
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> death of the proctors, -dev appears to have calmed down. I'm not sure |
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> if that's because the proctors got so much publicity over that one |
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> incident that everyone knows of it and reviewed their behavior, or if |
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> they have just gone on summer holidays. I think this list will help |
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> take the pressure of -dev too. |
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Agreed. |
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>> |
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>> If the user is making a valid point, surely others will post in |
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>> support, and in any event they can respond the next day. That would |
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>> minimise the chance that a user unused to the rough-and-tumble of dev |
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>> behaviour would react in a hostile manner, and can in no way be seen |
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>> as censorship of the user community, at least to my mind. |
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> If you are making a valid technical point, your posts don't need to be |
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> throttled. If not, you should not post to -dev at all. |
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> |
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Yes, but for a novice user (in terms of interaction with the dev m-l) it's |
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hard, and people make mistakes. The first time i got flamed I was totally |
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bewildered by it. The three or four times that's happened since, I was |
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still totally blindsided, since I thought I was posting common-sense, |
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typically to try and present the other side of the argument when someone |
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was being misunderstood. (Please don't review all of my mistakes, I am |
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aware they /were/ mistakes.) You then find yourself drawn into a flamewar |
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which you were trying to calm, typically by one of the participants being |
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offensive to you. |
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|
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>> |
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>> What do you think? |
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>> |
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> Social problems demand human in the loop control. That's why courts |
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> have (skilled ?) judges for sentencing, not just a look up table of |
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> offence - punishment. |
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> |
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Yeah but this isn't punishment. It's just acknowledging that the list is |
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specifically for technical development, and that devs have more to say in |
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that debate. Since there is a history of misunderstanding with users, it |
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makes sense to me to limit the user posts to two per day. If there is a hot |
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buzzing thread which I have to respond to, it'll still be hot tomorrow (if |
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I can't be bothered to review the threads first.) |
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|
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And let's face it, more new users are interested in stuff that belongs |
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on -project (if not help from the user m-l) like "Why are devs so prickly?" |
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|
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> A part of Gentoos problem and probably other OS projects, is that most |
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> devs are still learning their social skills. They are school or |
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> university students. |
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|
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Heh ok. I'd also support a more proactive devrel in that regard, ie actively |
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monitoring the list, as a quid pro quo for limitation on users. This to me |
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is about helping devs to deal with users, which is part of the process for |
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being a dev in the real world. |
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|
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OFC if everyone thinks this is a silly idea, no problem. List seemed |
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quiet.. ;P |
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|
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|
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-- |
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