We’ve discussed several times upgrading our communication tools, as far back as 2014 and maybe even before that too. The bottom line is that we can’t due to ASF rules requiring the use of ASF-managed mailing lists.
For some history, see this discussion: - https://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/spark-user/201412.mbox/%3CCAOhmDzfL2COdysV8r5hZN8f=NqXM=f=oy5no2dhwj_kveop...@mail.gmail.com%3E - https://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/spark-user/201501.mbox/%3CCAOhmDzec1JdsXQq3dDwAv7eLnzRidSkrsKKG0xKw=tktxy_...@mail.gmail.com%3E (It’s ironic that it’s difficult to follow the past discussion on why we can’t change our official communication tools due to those very tools…) Nick On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 12:24 PM Ricardo Almeida < ricardo.alme...@actnowib.com> wrote: > I fell Assaf point is quite relevant if we want to move this project > forward from the Spark user perspective (as I do). In fact, we're still > using 20th century tools (mailing lists) with some add-ons (like Stack > Overflow). > > As usually, Sean and Cody's contributions are very to the point. > I fell it is indeed a matter of of culture (hard to enforce) and tools > (much easier). Isn't it? > > On 2 November 2016 at 16:36, Cody Koeninger <c...@koeninger.org> wrote: > > So concrete things people could do > > - users could tag subject lines appropriately to the component they're > asking about > > - contributors could monitor user@ for tags relating to components > they've worked on. > I'd be surprised if my miss rate for any mailing list questions > well-labeled as Kafka was higher than 5% > > - committers could be more aggressive about soliciting and merging PRs > to improve documentation. > It's a lot easier to answer even poorly-asked questions with a link to > relevant docs. > > On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Sean Owen <so...@cloudera.com> wrote: > > There's already reviews@ and issues@. dev@ is for project development > itself > > and I think is OK. You're suggesting splitting up user@ and I sympathize > > with the motivation. Experience tells me that we'll have a beginner@ > that's > > then totally ignored, and people will quickly learn to post to advanced@ > to > > get attention, and we'll be back where we started. Putting it in JIRA > > doesn't help. I don't think this a problem that is merely down to lack of > > process. It actually requires cultivating a culture change on the > community > > list. > > > > On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 12:11 PM Mendelson, Assaf < > assaf.mendel...@rsa.com> > > wrote: > >> > >> What I am suggesting is basically to fix that. > >> > >> For example, we might say that mailing list A is only for voting, > mailing > >> list B is only for PR and have something like stack overflow for > developer > >> questions (I would even go as far as to have beginner, intermediate and > >> advanced mailing list for users and beginner/advanced for dev). > >> > >> > >> > >> This can easily be done using stack overflow tags, however, that would > >> probably be harder to manage. > >> > >> Maybe using special jira tags and manage it in jira? > >> > >> > >> > >> Anyway as I said, the main issue is not user questions (except maybe > >> advanced ones) but more for dev questions. It is so easy to get lost in > the > >> chatter that it makes it very hard for people to learn spark internals… > >> > >> Assaf. > >> > >> > >> > >> From: Sean Owen [mailto:so...@cloudera.com] > >> Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2016 2:07 PM > >> To: Mendelson, Assaf; dev@spark.apache.org > >> Subject: Re: Handling questions in the mailing lists > >> > >> > >> > >> I think that unfortunately mailing lists don't scale well. This one has > >> thousands of subscribers with different interests and levels of > experience. > >> For any given person, most messages will be irrelevant. I also find > that a > >> lot of questions on user@ are not well-asked, aren't an SSCCE > >> (http://sscce.org/), not something most people are going to bother > replying > >> to even if they could answer. I almost entirely ignore user@ because > there > >> are higher-priority channels like PRs to deal with, that already have > >> hundreds of messages per day. This is why little of it gets an answer > -- too > >> noisy. > >> > >> > >> > >> We have to have official mailing lists, in any event, to have some > >> official channel for things like votes and announcements. It's not > wrong to > >> ask questions on user@ of course, but a lot of the questions I see > could > >> have been answered with research of existing docs or looking at the > code. I > >> think that given the scale of the list, it's not wrong to assert that > this > >> is sort of a prerequisite for asking thousands of people to answer one's > >> question. But we can't enforce that. > >> > >> > >> > >> The situation will get better to the extent people ask better questions, > >> help other people ask better questions, and answer good questions. I'd > >> encourage anyone feeling this way to try to help along those dimensions. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 11:32 AM assaf.mendelson < > assaf.mendel...@rsa.com> > >> wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> I know this is a little off topic but I wanted to raise an issue about > >> handling questions in the mailing list (this is true both for the user > >> mailing list and the dev but since there are other options such as stack > >> overflow for user questions, this is more problematic in dev). > >> > >> Let’s say I ask a question (as I recently did). Unfortunately this was > >> during spark summit in Europe so probably people were busy. In any case > no > >> one answered. > >> > >> The problem is, that if no one answers very soon, the question will > almost > >> certainly remain unanswered because new messages will simply drown it. > >> > >> > >> > >> This is a common issue not just for questions but for any comment or > idea > >> which is not immediately picked up. > >> > >> > >> > >> I believe we should have a method of handling this. > >> > >> Generally, I would say these types of things belong in stack overflow, > >> after all, the way it is built is perfect for this. More seasoned spark > >> contributors and committers can periodically check out unanswered > questions > >> and answer them. > >> > >> The problem is that stack overflow (as well as other targets such as the > >> databricks forums) tend to have a more user based orientation. This > means > >> that any spark internal question will almost certainly remain > unanswered. > >> > >> > >> > >> I was wondering if we could come up with a solution for this. > >> > >> > >> > >> Assaf. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> > >> View this message in context: Handling questions in the mailing lists > >> Sent from the Apache Spark Developers List mailing list archive at > >> Nabble.com. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@spark.apache.org > > >
