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Author: Jude Nelson
Date:  
To: Jonathan Wilkes
CC: dng, Martijn Dekkers
Subject: Re: [Dng] two lists and developer disconnect (was: Re: dev-list)
Hi Jonathan,

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika@???> wrote:

> Hi Jude,
> I wrote an email about some GUI features I'd like to see in the default DE
> for Devuan. Jaromil wrote a thoughtful response. As a result I'm willing
> to use the first stable release (and possibly beta release) and give
> feedback and/or bug reports.
>
> If that's the kind of thing that belongs on a "tech" list, then what's the
> purpose of this list?
>


You've hit the nail on the head as to why I also recommended "having a few
guidelines on more specialized mailing lists." If Devuan goes towards
multiple mailing lists, the guidelines should make it clear on the signup
page which ML is appropriate for which topic (much like how a forum is
organized by category).


>
> Also-- are the VUAs arguing for more lists actually arguing that more
> abstraction doesn't come with the cost of adding more complexity?
> (Especially given that there's already an invite-only dev list, so
> guaranteeing that any additional dev list would be a misnomer.)
>


Not sure what you mean? I don't know anything more than you do about the
private dev list (I'm not a VUA).


>
> Also-- what is the cost of advocating on _this_ list for more empathy and
> less meanness?
>


Very little :) That's not the problem here, though (excluding trolls).
The problem is that it's getting harder and harder to wade through the
volume of uncategorized email to find only the tiny subset of them you're
interested in reading. It's no one's fault that it's come to this,
really--it's the expected emergent behavior of having a lot of enthusiastic
people on a single mailing list. The conventional way to manage the volume
of emails is to organize groups of conversations by topic somehow, to make
it easier to find what you're looking for.

-Jude


> -Jonathan
>
>
>
> On Thursday, April 9, 2015 2:10 PM, Jude Nelson <judecn@???>
> wrote:
>
>
> It has been suggested several times now that the reason Debian developers
> supposedly suffer a disconnect from Debian users is because there are
> dedicated -dev and -user mailing lists, where -dev is moderated to be
> development topics only. It has been suggested that because developers can
> simply ignore -user, they get disconnected from their needs.
>
> I don't think either of these conclusions are true. First, even if a DD
> isn't subscribed to any public Debian mailing list, (s)he still receives
> bug reports, feature requests, and direct emails from users. Moreover, the
> first two are public record. Wanting to ignore unrelated conversations is
> not a sign of disconnect.
>
> Second, disconnect can happen regardless of the ML structure--anyone can
> whitelist/blacklist email addresses belonging to people they don't want to
> listen to, and anyone can simply ignore an email message.
>
> Third, the biggest sources of toxicity in user/developer relations in
> Debian that I have seen are narcissism and the lack of empathy. I have
> seen prominent developers dismissing valid, constructive criticism with "if
> you don't like it, fork it--it's open source after all" and "Linux is not
> about choice." I have also seen long-time Debian users bad-mouthing
> developers for not going through great lengths to support their pet
> use-case--nevermind the fact that the use-case applies only to them and is
> greatly outside the scope of the program.
>
> The ML structure will neither fix nor prevent bad behavior. However, it
> can mitigate its effect on the project. For this reason, I support
> Hendrik's idea of having a -tech mailing list for technical topics only
> (but that both users and developers can join). I also support having a few
> guidelines on more specialized mailing lists (should they be created) that
> describe what behavior is appropriate on them, as well as having a
> publicly-visible process in place for how to deal with people who abuse
> their list membership.
>
> Thanks,
> -Jude
>
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 12:15 AM, Martijn Dekkers <
> devuan-list1@???> wrote:
>
>
> We do not need another list.
>
>
> That's pretty arrogant. Can you back that up with some actual reasons,
> like others in this discussion are doing? Or is this simply a case of
> "because I said so"
>
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