Re: New-maintainer proposal
On Sun, Oct 17, 1999 at 07:33:35PM +0000, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > > The logic is quite simple. The more information you put onto lists that
> > > "people need not subscribe to", the more clueless those people become.
> >
> > "People don't need to subscribe to debian-devel list". AFAIR, only
> > -devel-announce is considered highly important to subscribe to, and not even
> > that if you read it through mailing lists archives of any kind.
>
> When I joined the group, there were only 3 lists, -private, -devel, and
> -user. -private was for developers only, and at that time had 0 traffic.
> -devel was for developers, but others could subscribe, although they were
> discouraged from initiating discussions on that list, and were sent to the
> -user list.
>
> I subscribed to all three and learned a lot about user needs by doing so.
> It was only when I started working on "The Debian Linux User's Guide" that
> I found myself without the time needed to keep up with the -user list.
>
> As soon as the group started to grow, the solution to traffic began to be
> the creation of alternative lists. As we have grown, the number of "sub"
> lists has grown as well, and it seems that the confusion and uncertainties
> we are dealing with today grew from those very fracturings of the lists.
Although I have been in Debian for just one year, so far I haven't noticed
*that* many people who are confused about the number of the mailing lists.
I find it quite nice to be able to select what Debian material I want to
read.
> > > > are not interested in 'project politics' can avoid subscribing to
> > > > -project.
> > >
> > > These "people" you refer too are Debian developers, right? Why would a
> > > person expect to be a developer and not need to know about such things as
> > > "project politics"
> >
> > We all know what Jules meant by "project politics" - the usual flamewars
> > about various non-strictly-technical issues regarding Debian. I (and I
> > believe many others) think that those things don't belong to the
> > debian-devel mailing list, but on the debian-project list.
>
> I am constantly surprised by the number of people who see, what I see as a
> good discussion, as a flame war. Several of our developers are unable to
> put two sentances together without an explative, and we all know who they
> are and make allowances for their behavior. (except the new guys, who are
> usually willing to take it personally ;-)
>
> If "project politics" is to be construed as "flame wars", then what _do_
> we call a political discussion?
Don't get me wrong (once again) - I do not think that any discussion on
debian-* lists is a flame war. However, large percentage of threads which
relate to any kind of 'inflamable' material grow into flame wars.
> > Don't get me wrong - flamewars are okay, can even bring some conclusions
> > or results - but only if they don't happen in inappropriate places. Now
> > that we have debian-project mailing list, debian-devel has become an
> > inappropriate place for non-technical flamewars.
> >
> So, to stay away from "flame wars" I should not subscribe to
> debian-project, but my complaint to Wichert was that he was going to move
> the discussion of new-maintainer to that list, eliminating my input, and
> my knowledge of the discussion from something that I think is of utmost
> importance to the group!
>
> Do you consider this thread to be a "flame war"? I don't, and I _do_
> consider it to be a discussion of project politics.
I think that we should be talking about this on debian-project list. :)
> > > > Most (um.. this is a guess, I don't know) maintainers *aren't*
> > > > subscribed to -devel as it is, so you it certainly currently fails its
> > > > goal as a place where important traffic can be discussed.
> > >
> > > The fact that developers can _not_ subscribe to devel is a _large_
> > > mistake.
> >
> > Who said developers can not subscribe to debian-devel list?
>
> Sorry for the poor wording. Replace "can" with "are allowed to", i.e.
> "may".
[1]
So, you wanted to say that a lot of developers indeed are subscribed to
debian-devel list? Well - with this discussion, which doesn't fit in the
charter of that list (IMHO), we just might be causing some of those to
unsubscribe from the list!
> > > > Also note that some people may not consider this important traffic.
> > >
> > > Then they should not have accepted a developer position with the Debian
> > > project.
> >
> > Conclusions, decisions, votings - these are important, sure. Whole ~500-msgs
> > flamewars regarding the subject are rarely important.
>
> So, do what I do when a thread turns into a flame war, just don't read it!
Maybe that's easy for you (and me, for now) to say something like that - but
people who pay by the byte, and pay a lot for it, won't be so joyful about
that...
> I am a fairly contientious developer, and I feel that it is my duty to
> know what decissions are being made in my behest, but it becomes more
> difficult every time a list splitoff occurs. I simply view the high
> traffic loads as a "cost of doing business", which everyone who wants to
> become a developer should be prepaired to shoulder. Obviously, I am in the
> minority opinion on this issue ;-)
Yes :)
> > Anyway, here I am, talking about CC:ing inappropriate lists, and CC:ing
> > a couple of such myself... :< :(
> >
> 'Tis a puzzlement ;-)
>
> I think the main point I would make about the proposal for new-maintainer
> is this: If this is a proposal that developers are going to be expected to
> vote on, then the discussion should be carried on debian-vote, not some
> list who's primary purpose is to provide an adequate venue for flame wars.
Are the developers going to be expected to vote on it? We didn't vote on
anything regarding the old new-maintainer group, IIRC...
--
enJoy -*/\*- don't even try to pronounce my first name
[1] My, oh my... poor wording? We didn't expect *that* from you... :)
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