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Re: Long descriptions in RFS emails.



On Sun, 2008-02-10 at 23:25 -0500, Andres Mejia wrote:
> On Sunday 10 February 2008 10:13:50 am Neil Williams wrote:
> > Just a note for everyone - I will now ignore any RFS that does not
> > include the long description for the package.
> >
> > It doesn't matter how many times you "ping", without a long description
> > posted to *this* list, I will no longer waste time either asking for one
> > or reviewing your package and your RFS is likely to be deleted without
> > any further action.
> >
> > http://people.debian.org/~codehelp/#sponsor
> 
> I actually thought anything that's not part of the template would be 
> considered cruft, thus I avoided adding anything extra to any RFS I sent.

This is from my own sponsoring page and directly quotes the FAQ:

> Note, this section from the Debian Mentors FAQ:
> 
>     Your message to -mentors is like an ad for your package. It's likely 
> to be the only thing that prospective sponsors will judge your package on. 
> You can have all the extra URLs you like in there where sponsors can get more 
> information, but unless your initial message piques their interest, they'll 
> never look at them.
> 
>     So, tell us what exactly your package does, and why it should be in Debian. 
> If there is already a program that does a similar thing, say why your one is 
> better. Put a little "hot spice" in there to hold people's interest. in other 
> words, think like an advertising executive. Just remember to wash the 
> slime off afterward. " 

I don't see why anyone would read that and think that an *advert* would
be deemed appealing if it contained nothing but the location, price and
name of the product.

Ad agencies spend billions on background, context and other information
to make the raw data more appealing.

Are you an automaton or a potential maintainer?

Can you be more than just a "join-the-dots" script bot???

Recent RFS emails could easily have been created with a trivial shell
script and I find that insulting.

The FAQ tells maintainers to add to the template - why is it the fault
of the template when the maintainer ignores that instruction?

> Perhaps it's best to include where the description and other information 
> should go. I'm thinking something like: 

No. It simply means that potential maintainers must show evidence that
they can think for themselves and do more than just slavishly follow a
template.

I'd hate to think what kind of bug reports would result from the
attitude that templates are sufficient without any comment.


-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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