On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 16:06 +0900, Jim Grisanzio wrote: > Garrett D'Amore wrote: > > I wonder what value opensolaris-discuss has? > > > Back when we were a pilot program three years ago, it was our main > discussion list. We had about 300 people on the list pre-launch, but > only a small handful were actually talking. People complained back then, > too, by the way. Then, within the pilot, we got up to about 10 lists for > specific technologies, and then we opened and now we are over 200 lists. > > opensolaris-discuss has always been this way. Nothing has changed. It's > just gotten bigger, that's all. It's the one place /anyone/ can go, and, > yes, it's messy. We can't have such a wide range of discussions on > project-specific lists or even on community-specific lists. I agree that > we should do a better job of persuading people to move conversations to > specific lists, but many conversations belong right on opensolaris-discuss. > This is true, many conversations do belong on opensolaris-discuss, it just so happens, that these conversations (90% arguments) are not really the community people should see on first impression. I think the list does have a use, but it's for everything potentially useless.
At least take a look at this point. Let's say I am a newbie. I type opensolaris.org in my web browser, right? Alright, now I want to see what people are talking about. I click the "discussions" button at the top of the page. I start scrolling down to the lists, and the first thing I see is "OpenSolaris: discuss" with a caption "OpenSolaris General Discussion. All topics involving OpenSolaris are for discussion." Now, as a newbie, that looks awfully inviting, it is perceived to me that "This list will be the source of my information". Is this a true statement? If you thought about that for a minute, and answer "yes", maybe I should go play in the street. If you thought about that and answered "no", maybe I am getting somewhere. At the very LEAST, let us have the website team move that 'cell' down into the alphabetical order it should be in. (between opengrok-discuss and rm-discuss) PLEASE and THANK YOU. > > > I've never bothered to > > read it, except occasionally when searching for a specific post that was > > not cross posted. > > > This is another practice we can do a better job managing: cross-posting. I don't know if this is a "we can" job, it seems a lot of the cross-posting originates from people who feel that they can get more attention on something (which usually doesn't need it) by cc'ing everything in sight. As a few have said, shouldn't the mailing list be capable of weeding out some of these problems? I think Alan, and Keith made a good point about this topic. I think asking the 'moderation' members to chase after these little things, is a waste of time. > > > > I've always assumed that the signal/noise ratio there > > was so high as to make it untenable as a useful resource. > > > > I remember long ago, when Linux finally gave up the mailing lists and > > moved to USENIX. I'm not sure everyone around here remembers what > > USENIX is anymore (its been ages since I've bothered with it), but maybe > > comp.os.opensolaris (or a hierarchy) needs to be created. > > The other question is, if no real productive conversations are happening > > there, then what is the point of having it at all? I imagine that some > > folks are looking for support with their problems, but perhaps a > > -support list would be better suited to _that_ need? > > > > -- Garrett > > > > Christopher Frost wrote: > > > >> It's been brought to my attention both from others within the community, > >> as well as those who are outside our community, and of course myself, > >> that a few changes should be made. > > > Just a few? > Well, I am just getting warmed up here still.. you don't want me to have cold feet, do you? > > >> These changes reflect the > >> opensolaris-discuss mailing list, and it's position within our > >> community. > > > >> 1) The opensolaris-discuss should have a warning label placed on it, > >> regarding to the ill-natured conversations which very frequently occur > >> there. Something to the nature of "The text within this list will very > >> possibly waste your time, and what you will read here is by no means a > >> reflection of our community, or the members here." In red, if I may add. > >> Some effort should be given to push users to proper lists to ask their > >> questions, or get an introduction of what they are getting into. Perhaps > >> even use a feature of jive to introduce a minimal post count before > >> entering this list, perhaps have it not visible from pipermail as well. > > > If you don't find value in it, you should unsubscribe and find a more > appropriate list that is specific to your needs. I don't support the > warning label idea, and I don't agree that the conversations are > "ill-natured" either. I'm on many /internal/ Sun lists that are > absolutely no different from opensolaris-discuss. General, free-for-all > lists have that characteristic. That's why we have project lists and > community lists and user group lists. > Am I supposed to tell every "visitor" of opensolaris to "come back, don't read that list, we should have told you that in the beginning, but we didn't want to warn people in the first place". Please, at the very least, let's drop this list where it belongs on the website cue as I said above. If we need something on the top, how about we just leave the rest up there? or bring "OpenSolaris: help" to the top of the list? Structure and Order means EVERYTHING to people. I use community lists, I use project lists, but we can't expect everyone to have the same knowledge as us, when they are new. > > >> -This list is usually one of the lists MOST frequently approached by our > >> newcomers, and 9 times out of 10 lays on a very bad impression of our > >> community and it's members. > > > I'm not sure you can substantiate those numbers, but I get the point and > largely agree with it. We as a community need to be more open and a less > judgmental, no question about it. But I think very, very few would > agree. Or let me say it another way: very few would agree enough to > change. But opensolaris-discuss is not the only list that turns people > off. There have been hot conversations in many lists. Including this one. "We as a community", and that's just it, some of us are hot headed, some of us live for discussion that might be off-topic, some of us live to make 'someone' from another belief (in this case perhaps an OS) feel bad for their past ways, or decisions, and honestly.... some of "us" can't or won't take that kind of abuse. So we should know "some of us" well enough to not serve our "free-for-all" dish as a first meal. > > > >> -I had dinner with some software developers last Friday, and this is > >> exactly what had happened to them, this had to have been the 4th or 5th > >> time I've heard the exact same thing from potential developers. Is this > >> the kind of welcoming we are trying to give? > >> > >> 2) To further stress the importance of limiting this list, I think it > >> should be scripted into the mailing-list that if opensolaris-discuss > >> exists, no other forum can be addressed. To keep the filth from seeping > >> out over the borders. > > > So, you are saying that we should limit the cross-posting? I agree. Yes. Thank You. > > > >> 3) The community opensolaris-discuss may not, and should not be involved > >> in any community related processes, > > > It shouldn't necessarily have influence, but I'd argue strongly against > limited someone's ability to speak. What's the harm of someone > expressing their opinion on opensolaris-discuss? We are taking this all > way too seriously. opensolaris-discuss need not have much influence in > decisions, but it could be a valuable part of the community's promise of > openness. I don't want to limit anybodies ability to speak. I don't want to limit them, I just don't want that persons unlimited power of speech to have a deciding factor on another persons first day in school. It's a place for people to talk, vent, and become hot-headed if they want to, I won't argue that. I just don't think it should have any decision making capabilities such as sponsoring a project, and I don't think it's the place to introduce a project, or community. The Sponsoring community should be the place it is introduced or discussed. Are we on the same page? At least am I clear? > > Now that we have formal governance, Community Groups are empowered to > create their own leaders and this is an excellent development. Many > people are missing this really critical point. Community Groups can be > powerful entities. Also, as Community Groups evolve, I think the > attention on opensolaris-discuss will diminish greatly. And the fact > that we have a Contributors and Core Contributors list decreases the > influence of opensolaris-discuss even further. We are not necessarily > using some of these mechanisms effectively but they are in place. So, in > other words, perhaps the next time a GPL flame war spins up, we let it > burn out. But if a serious licensing proposal (or whatever) is put on > the table than it's discussed among the Contributors and Core > Contributors on their list and then at some point that discussion is > joined by the OGB. That's a very small group of people. Members, basically. I understand this, as I have before, I agree and wouldn't argue any of it. > > > >>to push the issue even further that > >> we do not want constructive processes being squeezed in with the other > >> topics. I've seen it time and time again, "opensolaris-discuss really > >> isn't the place for constructive conversation", and it's true. > > > No one ever said that opensolaris-discuss is a place to get work done. > You join a community or project or user group for that. > Yes, for this I meant the point I just expressed above, about not proposing project creation, or community creation within opensolaris-discuss. > > >> opensolaris-discuss is not a community group, it shouldn't be able to > >> sponsor projects, and none should be proposed within it. Announcements > >> should not be made within opensolaris-discuss, and community support > >> should NOT be sought within it either. > > > We can certainly do a better job of encouraging people do make their > announcements on opensolaris-announce. More people have to sign up, > tough. Announce only has about 600 or so people on it. Sign up: > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/opensolaris-announce > I have my browser's home is the announce archive of each month, I can view it daily without a subscription, and to add to it, I probably read every single person's blog from Sun, as well as a few other blogging corporations. > > > >> > >> If these three concerns are dealt with, there may be a chance for our > >> community after all. > > > There's more than just a chance for us. We are doing great. These are > just growing pains. And, actually, they are /good/ problems to have. > Remember ... we were supposed to have died /years/ ago. I'd like to boost those odds, and at minimum, have something done with these issues.. > > > >> But, until something is done about the spread of > >> negative energy, and the unwelcoming .. welcome our visitors and > > > The only way to address this is to add positive energy. Isn't my opinion for a positive goal? :-) Regards, Christopher
