I'm trying to think of the best way to put this. When I got into Drupal, it
was because I could dive right in, and get help. I was a new web developer and
the community literally changed my life. The community was smaller then.
We didn't have thousands of contributed modules we had hundreds, and being
acquainted with them all was possible. Also, everyone in IRC and this list
could kick around deep core issues, we all had common ground, and were fairly
well acquainted with the codebase. Then Drupal blew up.
Support requests didn't just double or triple, and the ratio of participators
to 'takers' changed exponentially.
It's my belief that the answer to that problem should have been, "How do we handle the signal
to noise ratio for everyone to get what they need in order to contribute to the project in
turn?", and we treated it as "How do we reduce the signal to keep things as they
were?" The answer to the former isn't easy and takes multiple initiatives, and *can't please
everyone*. The answer to the latter is, you can't - it's impossible.
Things were tough in #drupal for the people on the smaller side of the above
mentioned ratio. I was not and am not against finding more and better support
resources to relieve pressure from *everyone*. By creating #drupal-contribute
we relieved pressure from a select few, and that in my opinion injured the
community. We're all working on a large open source project and these are the
problems that go with the territory of growth. Walling the problems away isn't
solving problems; it's ignoring them.
I hate calling people out, but one statement in this conversation I think cuts
to a major cross-purposes issue in this conversation.
Really, a way to translate what you're saying is that you'd rather *I*
didn't have a place where I can participate, because I don't want to be
inundated with support requests.
This isn't about you. That thinking is part of the problem, in my opinion.
We're having a conversation here about what is best for Drupal, not what is
best for the developers. I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but making the
project worse for the end users, the documenters, the forum posters, and
various other people who bring good things to the table isn't a tenable
solution.
-Sam
Sam Tresler
646-246-8403
On Fri, 18 Mar 2011, Earl Miles wrote:
On 3/18/2011 12:49 PM, Angela Byron wrote:
We've relegated the architects, the builders, the collaborators, the
"doers"—the people who fundamentally make the Drupal project what it is
and are the heart and soul of our culture—to their own "sub" community
in a hidden silo off to the side. We've taught newcomers to the project
that IRC is the place to consume, to get help, to make demands, to
*take*. And we've created both a physical and psychological divide
between "us" and "them," where it used to be all "us". And, most
distressingly, there is no longer a pathway for going between "them" and
"us" because most of "us" have long since stopped going to #drupal due
to the volume of support that happens there now since there is no one
left to enforce the culture of getting involved.
No, we have not. We were each doing this, individually. I had left
#drupal long before #drupal-contribute was a reality, and others had
done the same.
At what point are you going to understand that the amount of information
being processed in the main channels is now significantly beyond the
ability for most people to process?
Really, a way to translate what you're saying is that you'd rather *I*
didn't have a place where I can participate, because I don't want to be
inundated with support requests.
If you want to damage the community, by all means, get rid of
#drupal-contribute and try to lump everyone together at once. I
guarantee you, the bulk of the architects will go somewhere else anyway.
Maybe off of IRC entirely because #drupal had become a fundamentally
unfriendly place to be.
