Christian Kurz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hi Brian > > On [26/05/03 23:13], Brian Nelson wrote: >> Anselm Lingnau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > [...] >> > * Closes: #159971, #124472, #147059, #70184. > >> Umm, no, the changelog is for listing changes (*change* log, get it?), >> not for just closing bugs without any reason given whatsoever. > >> Why do so many seem to have difficulty with this concept? Is it > > Why do you seem to have a problem with contacting the maintainer in > private instead of this public reprimanding?
For a few reasons: 1. To show others, especially NM's, what not to do. NM's mostly learn by example, and I think it helps to ensure they don't follow bad examples. 2. It's something that should be obvious. Producing poor quality changelogs shows a real neglect for the quality of Debian overall, and they deserve to be publicly reprimanded. 3. It publicly shows which developers are not really involved in the community. If they were involved, they would know how to write a proper changelog. Developers who aren't involved in the community don't belong in Debian, IMO. 4. I'd be willing to guarantee that any maintainer who can't handle something as simple as a changelog is probably making many more critical mistakes in their package. Therefore, I think it's important to point out these maintainers in public so everyone is aware of them. >> worthwhile to Cc this stuff to -devel, or should I just give up and >> let the proliferation of these IMO useless changelogs continue? >> (serious, not rhetorical, questions) > > It's not worthwhile to Cc such e-mails to -devel or use harsh language > like you do, if you want to encourage maintainers to make better usage > of the changelog. With e-Mails that publicly reprimand a maintainer and > point a finger at him, you are generating a feeling of sadness, > annoyance or maybe even humilation, which isn't helpful. If you want to > encourage people to improve their changelog entries, then contact them > in private and point out the problem in a gentle manner, together with > an explanation why the current changelog is a problem and how he can > improve his changelog entries in the future. I don't think that your > current behaviour and attitude to solve the problem is going to solve > it. Change your behaviour and attitude and you will be more helpful and > be able to solve the problem. FWIW, I do privately contact NM's who make such mistakes. They may not know better, and probably don't deserve public humiliation. Of course, their sponsor should be correcting such mistakes... However, I think anyone with developer status *should* know better. I don't particularly care if it hurts their feelings; I'd be perfectly happy to see crappy maintainers quit maintaining their packages. -- Poems... always a sign of pretentious inner turmoil.
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