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Hello, everyone. |
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|
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This is something that's been talked about privately a lot lately but it |
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seems that nobody went forward to put things into motion. SO here's |
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a proposal that aims to improve the condition of our mailing lists |
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and solve some of the problems they are facing today. |
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|
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|
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Problems |
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======== |
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|
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Currently the developer-oriented mailing lists gentoo-dev and gentoo- |
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project are open to posting by everyone. While this has been generally |
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beneficial, we seem to be having major problems with some |
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of the posters for more than a year. Off hand, I can think of three: |
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|
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1. Repeating attacks against Gentoo and/or Gentoo developers (including |
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pure personal attacks). While it is understandable that some people may |
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be frustrated and need to vent off, repeating attacks from the same |
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person are seriously demotivating to everyone. |
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|
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2. Frequent off-topics, often irrelevant to the thread at hand. |
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I understand that some of those topics are really interesting but it is |
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really time-consuming to filter through all the off-topic mails |
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in search of data relevant to the topic at hand. What's worst, sometimes |
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you don't even get a single on-topic reply. |
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|
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3. Support requests. Some of our 'expert users' have been abusing |
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the mailing lists to request support (because it's easier to ask |
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everyone than go through proper channels) and/or complain about bug |
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resolutions. This is a minor issue but still it is one. |
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|
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All of those issues are slowly rendering the mailing lists impossible to |
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use. People waste a lot of time trying to gather feedback, and get |
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demotivated in the process. A steadily growing number of developers |
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either stop reading the mailing lists altogether, or reduce their |
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activity. |
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|
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For example, eclass reviews usually don't get more than one reply, |
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and even that is not always on-topic. And after all, getting this kind |
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of feedback is one of the purposes of the -dev mailing list! |
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|
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|
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Proposal |
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======== |
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|
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Give the failure of other solutions tried for this, I'd like to |
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establish the following changes to the mailing lists: |
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|
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1. Posting to gentoo-dev@ and gentoo-project@ mailing lists will be |
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initially restricted to active Gentoo developers. |
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|
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1a. Subscription (reading) and archives will still be open. |
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|
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1b. Active Gentoo contributors will be able to obtain posting access |
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upon being vouched for by an active Gentoo developer. |
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|
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2. A new mailing list 'gentoo-expert' will be formed to provide |
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a discussion medium for expert Gentoo users and developers. |
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2a. gentoo-expert will have open posting access like gentoo-dev has now. |
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|
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Rationale |
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========= |
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I expect that some of you will find this a drastic measure. However, I |
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would like to point out that I believe we've already exhausted all other |
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options to no avail. |
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|
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The problems of more abusive behavior from some of the mailing list |
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members have been reported to ComRel numerous times. After the failure |
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of initial enforcement, I'm not aware of ComRel doing anything to solve |
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the problem. The main arguments I've heard from ComRel members were: |
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|
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A. Bans can be trivially evaded, and history proves that those evasions |
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create more noise than leaving the issue as is. |
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|
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B. People should be allowed to express their opinion [even if it's pure |
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hate speech that carries no value to anyone]. |
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C. The replies of Gentoo developers were worse [no surprise that people |
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lose their patience after being attacked for a few months]. |
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|
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|
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The alternative suggested by ComRel pretty much boiled down to 'ignore |
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the trolls'. While we can see this is actually starting to happen right |
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now (even the most determined developers stopped replying), this doesn't |
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really solve the problem because: |
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|
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I. Some people are really determined and continue sending mails even if |
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nobody replies to them. In fact, they are perfectly capable of replying |
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to themselves. |
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|
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II. This practically assumes that every new mailing list subscriber will |
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be able to recognize the problem. Otherwise, new people will repeatedly |
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be lured into discussing with them. |
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III. In the end, it puts Gentoo in a bad position. Firstly, because it |
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silently consents to misbehavior on the mailing lists. Secondly, because |
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the lack of any statement in reply to accusations could be seen |
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as a sign of shameful silent admittance. |
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|
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Yet another alternative that was proposed was to establish moderation of |
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the mailing lists. However, Infrastructure has replied already that we |
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can't deploy effective moderation with the current mailing list software |
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and I'm not aware of anyone willing to undergo all the necessary work to |
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change that. |
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|
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Even if we were able to overcome that and be able to find a good |
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moderation team that can effectively and fairly moderate e-mails without |
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causing huge delays, moderation has a number of own problems: |
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α) the delays will make discussions more cumbersome, and render posting |
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confusing to users, |
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β) they will implicitly cause some overlap of replies (e.g. when N |
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different people answer the same question because they don't see earlier |
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replies until they're past moderation), |
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γ) the problem will be solved only partially -- what if a reply contains |
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both valuable info and personal attack? |
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Seeing that no other effort so far has succeeded in solving the problem, |
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splitting the mailing lists seems the best solution so far. Most |
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notably: |
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|
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а. Developer mailing lists are restored to their original purpose. |
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б. It is 'fair'. Unlike with disciplinary actions, there is no judgment |
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problem, just a clear split between 'developers' and 'non-developers'. |
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в. 'Expert users' are still provided with a mailing list where they can |
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discuss Gentoo without being pushed down into 'user support' channels. |
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г. Active contributors (in particular recruits) can still obtain posting |
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access to the mailing lists, much like they do obtain it to #gentoo-dev |
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right now. However, if they start misbehaving we can just remove that |
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without the risk of evasion. |
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|
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-- |
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Best regards, |
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Michał Górny |