Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting developer-oriented and expert user mailing lists

[R0b0t1]

Hello,

In every mailing list conversation, there are at least three people:
the two conversing, and the future reader. I point this out as I think
it important that everyone realize that not all posts are written for
those immediately participating in the conversation.

Some time ago I was offered some equipment due to my history of
open-source contributions to a variety of projects. I asked the donor
to forward it (or money) to the Gentoo foundation, but they declined,
citing a general distaste for the management of software projects in
general and specific issues they believed existed within Gentoo.


On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
> Hello, everyone.
>
> This is something that's been talked about privately a lot lately but it
> seems that nobody went forward to put things into motion. SO here's
> a proposal that aims to improve the condition of our mailing lists
> and solve some of the problems they are facing today.
>

If you have in fact discussed this off list with people who agree, I
think it is important that you invite them to comment. Not only will
it show support for what you have detailed, it will allow them to
explain the problems they have in greater detail, so that perhaps a
solution that does not involve restricting list access could be found.

It may be that I am misunderstanding your language, but what you have
presented does not leave many things open for discussion. It seems
like what you have presented is to be either accepted or rejected as
is. Seeing as my opinion does not matter, it further seems like it
will simply be accepted as is.

>
> Problems
> ========
>
> Currently the developer-oriented mailing lists gentoo-dev and gentoo-
> project are open to posting by everyone. While this has been generally
> beneficial, we seem to be having major problems with some
> of the posters for more than a year. Off hand, I can think of three:
>
> 1. Repeating attacks against Gentoo and/or Gentoo developers (including
> pure personal attacks). While it is understandable that some people may
> be frustrated and need to vent off, repeating attacks from the same
> person are seriously demotivating to everyone.
>

No one has any right to not be offended. If Gentoo developers are
receiving criticism for their behavior, then perhaps it would be best
that they critically analyze their actions and the effect that they
have on other people.

As far as I am aware most developers never get harassed and go quietly
on about their business. I have even asked some questions similar to
the questions I have asked on this list that people have felt were
adversarial. However, these developers didn't seem to mind my
questions and spent 5 minutes or so of their time on a response.

> 2. Frequent off-topics, often irrelevant to the thread at hand.
> I understand that some of those topics are really interesting but it is
> really time-consuming to filter through all the off-topic mails
> in search of data relevant to the topic at hand. What's worst, sometimes
> you don't even get a single on-topic reply.
>

Does the list have a digest subscription option? I find that extremely
helpful for one list I am subscribed to (Perl6 development) which is
very high volume. On the other hand, lots of offtopic chatter would
still be hard to sort through, but I think it needs to be considered
whether the chatter the list currently receives is truly off topic.
What if it is simply concerns or subjects that the OP did not want to
consider? Does that make it off topic? Is the problem more involved
than previously thought?

> 3. Support requests. Some of our 'expert users' have been abusing
> the mailing lists to request support (because it's easier to ask
> everyone than go through proper channels) and/or complain about bug
> resolutions. This is a minor issue but still it is one.
>

In the case of actual support requests, it might be worth taking some
kind of action against the user, but the general level of competence
of Gentoo users makes me wary that this may be a mischaracterization
of the intent of the email. If something like a "support request"
percolates to gentoo-dev, it may be of a similar vein as a complaint
about a bug resolution. Complaining about bug resolutions seems valid,
especially if questions on the tracker have been ignored.

Some developers in particular seem to not appreciate being held
accountable for their actions. In most notable cases, all anyone ever
does is ask for an explanation as to why something occurred - and in
most notable cases, that question is ignored, with no recourse left to
the user or contributor.

Personally, I tried to ask why eix's "optimizations" flag was removed,
when other packages *do the exact same thing.* Still no response. How
am I supposed to interpret this?

>
> All of those issues are slowly rendering the mailing lists impossible to
> use. People waste a lot of time trying to gather feedback, and get
> demotivated in the process. A steadily growing number of developers
> either stop reading the mailing lists altogether, or reduce their
> activity.
>
> For example, eclass reviews usually don't get more than one reply,
> and even that is not always on-topic. And after all, getting this kind
> of feedback is one of the purposes of the -dev mailing list!
>

It may be that this is separate from the content of the mailing list.
Do some of the developers simply not like the format of a mailing
list? A lot of projects are now using Slack and Discourse in addition
to IRC. I personally do not like either of those services, but some
people think they allow reduce response times, aid in comprehension,
allowing greater involvement of developers.

As it is, it seems to me like a lot of development happens on IRC and off list.

>
> Proposal
> ========
>
> Give the failure of other solutions tried for this, I'd like to
> establish the following changes to the mailing lists:
>
> 1. Posting to gentoo-dev@ and gentoo-project@ mailing lists will be
> initially restricted to active Gentoo developers.
>
> 1a. Subscription (reading) and archives will still be open.
>
> 1b. Active Gentoo contributors will be able to obtain posting access
> upon being vouched for by an active Gentoo developer.
>
> 2. A new mailing list 'gentoo-expert' will be formed to provide
> a discussion medium for expert Gentoo users and developers.
>
> 2a. gentoo-expert will have open posting access like gentoo-dev has now.
>
>
> Rationale
> =========
>
> I expect that some of you will find this a drastic measure. However, I
> would like to point out that I believe we've already exhausted all other
> options to no avail.
>

There is an option that has not been discussed, and that is
questioning why the gentoo-dev list receives offtopic replies,
personal attacks, and trolling.

> The problems of more abusive behavior from some of the mailing list
> members have been reported to ComRel numerous times. After the failure
> of initial enforcement, I'm not aware of ComRel doing anything to solve
> the problem. The main arguments I've heard from ComRel members were:
>
> A. Bans can be trivially evaded, and history proves that those evasions
> create more noise than leaving the issue as is.
>
> B. People should be allowed to express their opinion [even if it's pure
> hate speech that carries no value to anyone].
>
> C. The replies of Gentoo developers were worse [no surprise that people
> lose their patience after being attacked for a few months].
>

People only ever do things that make sense. Again, I invite the people
who are being attacked to consider why someone cares enough to bother
to do that. Bored teenagers go to #archlinux to have pissing contests,
not #gentoo.

>
> The alternative suggested by ComRel pretty much boiled down to 'ignore
> the trolls'. While we can see this is actually starting to happen right
> now (even the most determined developers stopped replying), this doesn't
> really solve the problem because:
>

To me this sounds like ComRel realized it is too easy to turn good
intentions into fascism.

> I. Some people are really determined and continue sending mails even if
> nobody replies to them. In fact, they are perfectly capable of replying
> to themselves.
>
> II. This practically assumes that every new mailing list subscriber will
> be able to recognize the problem. Otherwise, new people will repeatedly
> be lured into discussing with them.
>
> III. In the end, it puts Gentoo in a bad position. Firstly, because it
> silently consents to misbehavior on the mailing lists. Secondly, because
> the lack of any statement in reply to accusations could be seen
> as a sign of shameful silent admittance.
>

It is also entirely possible that a new user will see the troll, agree
with the troll, and not want to contribute to Gentoo because they
think the troll is right.

>
> Yet another alternative that was proposed was to establish moderation of
> the mailing lists. However, Infrastructure has replied already that we
> can't deploy effective moderation with the current mailing list software
> and I'm not aware of anyone willing to undergo all the necessary work to
> change that.
>
> Even if we were able to overcome that and be able to find a good
> moderation team that can effectively and fairly moderate e-mails without
> causing huge delays, moderation has a number of own problems:
>
> α) the delays will make discussions more cumbersome, and render posting
> confusing to users,
>
> β) they will implicitly cause some overlap of replies (e.g. when N
> different people answer the same question because they don't see earlier
> replies until they're past moderation),
>
> γ) the problem will be solved only partially -- what if a reply contains
> both valuable info and personal attack?
>

I agree with this logic, but please be careful - it states a problem,
presupposes a single solution, and then concludes that there is only
one course of action based on the critique applied to that one
solution. This is partly why I see the proposal as something which
does not seem to be accommodating to alternate viewpoints. It makes
addressing this section with an alternate viewpoint difficult, and if
I ignore it then it looks like I ignored part of your argument.

>
> Seeing that no other effort so far has succeeded in solving the problem,
> splitting the mailing lists seems the best solution so far. Most
> notably:
>
> а. Developer mailing lists are restored to their original purpose.
>
> б. It is 'fair'. Unlike with disciplinary actions, there is no judgment
> problem, just a clear split between 'developers' and 'non-developers'.
>
> в. 'Expert users' are still provided with a mailing list where they can
> discuss Gentoo without being pushed down into 'user support' channels.
>
> г. Active contributors (in particular recruits) can still obtain posting
> access to the mailing lists, much like they do obtain it to #gentoo-dev
> right now. However, if they start misbehaving we can just remove that
> without the risk of evasion.
>

I feel this is still a fairly large barrier to involvement. Getting
people to the point they want to contribute or have the knowledge to
contribute is the hard part, and what this will make harder to do.


Respectfully,
     R0b0t1