On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 03:30:18AM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
>Hi,
>
>How much time do you generally have to read Debian-related e-mail?
>How much for the Debian mailing lists?
I normally expect to read most of my Debian-related mail every day. I
read several of the lists directly in my inbox, and on average I
probably spend an hour or two every day. At the moment, things are
significantly raised above that due to the mix of the DPL campaigning
period and Debconf work.
>How many lists do you follow, and which ones do you pay real attention to?
I directly read debian-devel-announce, debian-project, debian-private,
debian-vote, debian-release and debian-cd in my inbox. I normally read
mails to each very soon after they get to me, although some may not
get very much attention (e.g. many of the unblock requests to
debian-release at the moment). Add to that the various debconf lists
and debian-uk.
I'm also subscribed to the vast majority of the debian lists via a
local mail-to-news gateway. I may not pay direct attention to them
every day, but I at least skim through all of the port mailing lists,
debian-devel, debian-user, debian-legal, debian-dpkg, debian-boot,
debian-policy, debian-i18n, debian-bugs-dist reasonably frequently.
I'm also active on IRC on a number of channels, mainly focused on the
things I'm working on (e.g. #debian-cd and #debconf-<foo>). I read the
contents of Planet regularly too.
In general, I can find the time OK to keep up with reading all these
sources. The problem is contributing - it takes much longer to write
mail than read it, and I would often rather spend time to get my views
out correctly than simply rush things.
>Have you stopped following a Debian mailing list in the past, and if so,
>what was the most important/common reason for that?
From time to time in the past I've stopped following various lists for
a while, but I have normally come back to them later. This is normally
just due to traffic levels (debian-user and debian-devel can be *very*
high-traffic at times, for example). Also, large flamewars may cause
me to leave threads for a couple of days and catch up on them later. I
don't tend to drop lists for more than short periods.
>Could you describe an indicative example or two where you formed
>a distinctly positive or a distinctly negative opinion about a person based
>on what they wrote in a non-trivial flamewar^Wdiscussion? (There is no need
>to name anyone, just describe the situation as you feel is appropriate.)
Some people are very good at making their points on mailing lists,
saying what they need to say without falling into the trap of
repetition or (even worse) insults and flames. There are several
people in the project whose mails I will tend to look for and give
more attention because I recognise this quality.
Others are *really* bad at following the topic of a discussion, or
paying attention to what others have to say. They're often to be found
in the core of flamewars and disagreements, lashing out in all
directions. In those cases, I will often skim their first few mails on
a thread, find "oh, <foo> is off again" and pay much less attention to
the rest of their posts.
Unfortunately, there is also quite a lot of off-topic junk on our
lists. :-(
Even in the worst of cases, I have *almost* never resorted to mail
filtering or IRC-ignoring people. In the 10+ years I've been following
Debian development I have only ever had to resort to those methods
twice.
>What's your opinion on what it's like for others to be reading our
>mailing lists? Feel free to be vague here :)
Our lists are high-traffic, active places. In the middle of the vast
amounts of noise, there are some real chunks of brilliance and some
incredibly useful discussions. But finding those can be far too
difficult - it takes a lot of effort.
>In general, what's your opinion about the quality of communication in
>the project? Freely elaborate this last part :)
It could be much improved. I would urge all of us to think more before
we contribute to some of the overheated discussions that have become
all too common recently. More self control and better focus on what
we're trying to achieve as a project would help us work towards our
goals.
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
< sladen> I actually stayed in a hotel and arrived to find a post-it
note stuck to the mini-bar saying "Paul: This fridge and
fittings are the correct way around and do not need altering"
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