I think requiring the mailing list is counter intuitive. I know what the rules and regulations are, but it's often an advantage when comments and discussion happen where the related code is. Everything else (e.g. copy/pasting URL references in an additional email to satisfy maybe slightly out-dated rules and regulations) is too much work. ;-)
Maybe I can try to help bridging comments to this mailing list if wanted. Till On Friday, March 15, 2013 at 1:24 PM, Noah Slater wrote: > It's a minor point, and probably not worth me sending another email, but I > guess the framing in my original email was wrong. It's not that we > shouldn't be having discussions on PRs, or that activity shouldn't be > happening on Github. That's not the problem, and I retract the parts where > I imply that it is. :) The problem is that activity should be visible on > the dev list. That's what we need to solve. My statements jumped the gun a > little bit about what sort of solution was required. ;) Heh. > > > On 15 March 2013 12:16, Noah Slater <nsla...@apache.org > (mailto:nsla...@apache.org)> wrote: > > > Hey folks, > > > > I'd like to bring two things to your attention: > > > > https://github.com/apache/couchdb/pull/43 > > https://github.com/cloudant-labs/couchdb/pull/18 > > > > These just happen to be two pull requests I looked at today, there are > > more. > > > > On the one hand, this is great. Obviously. Any sort of constructive > > activity happening around CouchDB is great. > > > > But on the other hand, this discussion is core development discussion, and > > should be happening on the dev list where everybody can see it. > > > > (This is foundational stuff for an Apache project. Community building > > should be focused around the mailing lists. I get that Github is useful for > > people, but we're not a Github project, so our activity should not be > > happening there.) > > > > I don't know what to suggest. Obviously, I think pull requests are great. > > And I think the forking model of Github is great, because it allows people > > to contribute more easily, and in a manner that suits them. > > > > But on the other hand, we shouldn't be having important development > > discussions in pull requests. The PR isn't even against the Apache CouchDB > > mirror. It's against a Cloudant fork! (So even less likely that folks are > > going to see it.) > > > > Perhaps one of the policies we could document is that discussion of pull > > requests must be brought to the list. > > > > That is, if a PR comes in to the Apache Github mirror, then we make a > > polite comment on the PR that points them to the mailing list thread and > > asks them to participate in that forum, so the maximum amount of devs can > > see and contribute. > > > > We could also say that if you have a fork of CouchDB, and you're planning > > to contribute the work back to Apache CouchDB (as is the case with the > > Cloudant fork) that you do the same with any PRs that are made to your > > repos. > > > > A sample template comment could be as follows: > > > > == > > > > Thank you for the pull request! > > > > This is a mirror of the Apache CouchDB project, so many of the committers > > do not monitor it for comments. Instead of discussing this pull request > > here, I have started a thread on the [developer mailing list] and I invite > > you to participate! > > > > [LINK TO MAILING LIST THREAD] > > > > == > > > > Additionally, the mailing list thread, or the first reply to it, should CC > > the original author. > > > > One alternative to this (which is a bit of a mess, I know) is to write > > an integration that copies Github comments to the mailing list thread, and > > mailing list posts to the PR. Not sure that would work with forks of the > > main mirror, however. > > > > Thoughts? Flames? > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > NS > > > > > > -- > NS
