Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Call For Agenda Items - 13 May 2014

[Tom Wijsman]

On Sat, 10 May 2014 13:43:04 +0000
hasufell <hasufell@g.o> wrote:

> Exactly, they should rather be the guys who jump in discussions that
> affect tree consistency etc. and help with general inquiries.

If only the community would expect and know us to be those guys.

Tried to help with a general inquiry today where QA team was CC-ed ...

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509962#c3

... where I ...

 1) hold on to policy by quoting it, which QA is asked to do;
 2) give Samuli the benefit of doubt, as to let him talk first;
 3) contact multiple persons from the arch teams to be fully aware,
    answers ranging from "Samuli can do that" [a personal exception?]
    to "That's rude" [the opposite of that exception?]; so, confusing;
 4) explicitly choose not to bitch at all or escalate to ComRel;
 5) ...

... but in response I get ...

 1) "try actually doing something for qa@ and stop messing with other
 peoples work";
 2) "you have to be kidding.";
 3) "stop wasting everyones time.";

... continuing on #gentoo-qa ...

 4) "i'm getting really tired of the newer developers from
 qa@ wasting everyones time by bitching about proper work";
 5) "you just succesfully demotivated me for the rest of the day";
 6) "it's no longer fun to work if everything you do (albeit what you
 do broke absolutely nothing, but improved things) get complained at";
 7) "qa this and that";
 8) "/me is starting to understand hasufell better by the day";
 9) "not be a policy nazi";
 10) "i didn't ignore anything, you did";
 11) "i don't count that as valid apology";
 12) "he has serious problems admitting his own mistakes";
 13) "contuining with the mistake, as opposed to admitting and
 apologizing his own fault";
 14) "TomWij is improving qa, didn't you notice? ;)".

Do people really expect QA to be communicative, be motivated and work?

It's not just a single developer here, it's also worth noting that I
don't have a problem with ssuominen at all; especially not, as that
comment on the bug was written to help him rather than to work against.

But if multiple developers communicate in this way, which is what is
happening these days; then really, QA can't be expected to communicate
with them, be motivated to help with their work and work with them.

This "problem" is too big for QA, ComRel or Council to fix; from what
is seen; if people want to fix it, it has to come from the community.

Don't say what QA shouldn't do, but say what to do; don't communicate
against us, but communicate with us; don't reject QA when they do what
you ask, but understand it; you get what you set up and expect.

The bug linked to above is relying on an announcement that has been
made on gentoo-core in 2007, which is invisible to everyone that joined
in 2008 and later. Not every recruiter brings it up either, thus it's
stuck in a collective memory for those whom remember that; this is why
policy, or "knowledge codification", is important. At least if you don't
want to accuse people of not following things they're not aware about.

A single line of docu / policy can spare out a lot of talk and time...

> Instead, they point me to dev-ML and... council.

Our way out of the thick-skinned legendary-patience approach, as some
fans like to label it; until one day, yet another one bites the dust
because duty calls whilst someone is "wrong" on the internet.

Time to go play a FPS game until I'm motivated to fix more QA bugs...

-- 
With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@g.o
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D