Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Christel Dahlskjaer <christel@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Improving Gentoo User Relations
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:49:24
Message-Id: 1144424843.20252.72.camel@gaspode
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Improving Gentoo User Relations by Alec Warner
1 On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 11:42 -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
2 > Thomas de Grenier de Latour wrote:
3 > > On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:21:54 +0100,
4 > > Ciaran McCreesh <ciaranm@g.o> wrote:
5 > >
6 > >
7 > >>* If we're looking to increase the flow of end users -> super users ->
8 > >>developers, perhaps we should focus more upon improving development
9 > >>tools or development documentation.
10 > >
11 > >
12 > > I would also suggest creation of a gentoo-dev-help@ mailing-list.
13 > > Something similar to what, i guess, the homonym IRC chan is, but for
14 > > people who don't like IRC. Maybe i'm wrong and that's not the
15 > > intention, but after 4 years of reading on gentoo-dev@ (yeah, today is
16 > > anniversary of my subscription - yik, that's more than 36K emails in
17 > > this maildir) , my feeling is that it's not the right place for users
18 > > to ask technical questions about development/contributing (ebuilds
19 > > writing, etc.). It's not that i fear this ML, but i see it mainly as a
20 > > place for dev-to-dev communication on general/important topics (gleps
21 > > discussion, common sense reminders, random flamewars, etc.), and thus i
22 > > see the occasional "How {c,sh}ould i do something?" messages about
23 > > small details as somehow off-topic, and i tend to avoid posting some.
24 > >
25 > > Seeing how more numerous this kind of messages are on "Portage &
26 > > Programming" forums, or on gentoo-user*@ lists, i guess i'm not the
27 > > only user with such feeling. But forums or users MLs are not really
28 > > satisfactory for non-obvious questions, because the devs/users rate
29 > > there is too low.
30 > >
31 > > So, what i usualy do when i'm not sure about something, in an ebuild i
32 > > wrote for instance, is to post it as-is on bugs.g.o, with the
33 > > questions left open in my report. But they will stay unanswered if
34 > > the bug falls in the "maintainer-wanted@" oubliettes, or if the
35 > > assignee is too short in time to explain me why he choosed one solution
36 > > rather than an other. And even if i get my answer, it will be from a
37 > > single dev, whereas others might have had a different views on the
38 > > topic.
39 > >
40 > > Finally, i think such a mainling list could give good hints on what to
41 > > improve in the documentation. Some legitimate questions may point to
42 > > real lacks in the documentation, and some answers could be starting
43 > > point for new chunks to add to the official or unofficial handbooks.
44 > >
45 > > --
46 > > TGL.
47 >
48 > +1, plus the ML is archived unlike IRC, and users can search archives
49 > and we could more easily compile a FAQ about ebuild writing and such.
50
51 What Alec said, however, this would require that we have interested
52 developers who would subscribe and be active when they can, to avoid it
53 becoming another -user.
54
55 But yes, I like that idea too! Thank you.
56
57
58 --
59 gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Improving Gentoo User Relations Alexandre Buisse <nattfodd@g.o>
Re: [gentoo-dev] Improving Gentoo User Relations Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@g.o>