Note on the data: dev@ is much higher volume than user@ right now (maybe 2x?). [1] [2]
I think https://beam.apache.org/community/contact-us/ has an OK description. I guess we could make it more clear about "Developer and contributor discussions" / "Developer mailing list" to mean that it is about developing Beam itself. But personally, I think it is OK to be ambiguous. For Beam, any user request might be a PTransform we want to add, after all, etc. Of course, my opinion should not be taken too seriously, since I am subscribed to both so they both hit my inbox. Another practice I have: When something on user@ makes me think of a feature request or a complex issue, I send the thread also to dev@. I think it is OK for users to also make this decision for themselves, at least for now. Maybe we should have this deal: feel free to send your issues to dev@ if you are willing to become a Beam contributor to improve it aka "mail dev@ if you are interested in developing Beam" :-) Kenn [1] https://lists.apache.org/trends.html?u...@beam.apache.org [2] https://lists.apache.org/trends.html?dev@beam.apache.org On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 2:04 PM Alexey Romanenko <aromanenko....@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 10 Mar 2021, at 22:13, Onur Ozer <sametoze...@gmail.com> wrote: > > One of the sample mails belongs to me, sorry for that. I thought the dev > list was a better place. Will ask similar to the other list as well. > > > Onur, > Well, I just picked up a random example of one of the latest emails, that, > I believe, should be addressed to user@. > So no worries on this =) and thank you for a good question! > > > On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 12:13 PM Steve Niemitz <sniem...@apache.org> > wrote: > >> As a frequent emailer of dev@, I'll admit that it's often very difficult >> to figure out if I should be emailing user@ or dev@, and typically just >> chose dev@ because it seems more likely to get an answer there. Having >> clearer guidelines around what is a "dev" topic would be very useful to >> better guide people towards the correct list. >> >> An example here was my recent email about schemas. [1] Should this have >> gone to users@? I count myself as a "developer" so I feel like it fits >> into "developer and contributor discussions", but I can certainly also see >> how it would fit into "general discussions" for users@ as well. >> >> [1] >> https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r881ab4d0ccbc7dc2e8c478f9b68b18b313f3740b419fdf7e91a17a83%40%3Cdev.beam.apache.org%3E >> <https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r881ab4d0ccbc7dc2e8c478f9b68b18b313f3740b419fdf7e91a17a83@%3Cdev.beam.apache.org%3E> >> > > Steve, > I think your question is somewhere between these 2 lists =) Since, on the > one hand, it’s more about some specific user’s problem, but, on the other > hand, it probably requires some internal dev knowledge to answer it. > Personally, I’d send it to user@, but it’s a tricky example - so any is > fine, imho . > > I agree, that we don’t have strict borders and rules to decide where a > question should go and sometimes, as an example above, it’s not so obvious, > but I think we can improve the description of both lists on web site to > make it more clear for new users. > > > >> On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 2:52 PM Ahmet Altay <al...@google.com> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 11:16 AM Alexey Romanenko < >>> aromanenko....@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> What do you think should be the right behaviour for managing such >>>>> emails? Forward this email to user@ (and remove dev@ address from >>>>> copy) and ask politely to continue a discussion there? I tried it several >>>>> times but sometimes it happened that discussion was "forked” and continued >>>>> in two different lists which is even worse, imho. >>>> >>>> >>>> I like your proposal but I do share the same concern of forked threads. >>>> One suggestion, instead of forking the thread we can ask users to ask on >>>> user@ list next time and still answer the question in the original >>>> thread. Hopefully that can reinforce good habits over time. >>>> >>>> >>>> Agree with asking and not to fork, since it usually won’t help. >>>> >>>> Anything else? What do you believe should work better in such cases >>>>> (maybe some experience for other projects)? >>>> >>>> >>>> I wonder if there is a reason for people to ask on dev@ instead of >>>> user@? Web site instructions look pretty clear to me. There is a good >>>> amount of activity and engagement on user@ list as well. I am not sure >>>> about why users pick one list over another. >>>> >>>> >>>> Maybe we need to make it even more clear on web page that dev@ list is >>>> _only_ for dev-related questions, that are supposed to have any >>>> relationship with project development in any sense (new features/ >>>> infrastructure/ bugs/ testing/ documentation/ etc) and provide some >>>> examples for both of the lists? >>>> >>> >>> +1 this makes sense to me. And reading the website again "review >>> proposed design ideas on dev@" might imply that you can bring your >>> design ideas about your own use cases/issues to the dev list. >>> >>> >> >
