Re: tb's questions for the candidates

[Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com>]

* Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> [2004-03-09 01:07]:
> I fully agree with you that it's important to follow the documented
> procedure when leaving the project, but I don't think you're going
> to persuade more people to avoid silently "idling out" by
> threatening some sort of denigrated status.  People at risk of doing
> so are only going to brought back from the brink by some sort of
> *postitive* reinforcement, not the threat of punishment.

Just for the record, I don't "threaten" people to "denigrate their
status".  When I notice a package which is not being maintained well,
I get in contact with the maintainer to see what can be done about the
situation.  Sometimes, simply getting in contact gives them the
motivation to put some energy in their packages.  Sometimes they ask
for help and then I ask QA members to temporarily help.  Sometimes
they don't respond and after some more pings I usually orphan the
package - I do this in the best interest of Debian as a whole.  I
don't threaten people saying that if they don't retire properly from
the project they won't be re-admitted or anything like that.

(Anyway, I perform this work with my QA hat and not with my DPL hat,
so it's not really relevant to the discussion; I just wanted to
clarify how the work is being performed.)
-- 
Martin Michlmayr
tbm@cyrius.com