Re: FTP Team -- call for volunteers
On March 14, 2020 9:18:48 PM UTC, Neil McGovern wrote: >Hi debian-project and ftpmaster folks, > >On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 01:37:59PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote: >> - cope well with flames in response to your decisions > >> - after training, comfortable with being on the other end of the >> ftpmaster@ alias, which receives a huge volume of >> not-always-pleasant messages daily. > >I hope I am not the only one to be deeply concerned that this should be >a requirement on volunteers. For me, it is absolutely unacceptable that >people should put up with unplesentness or flames that come from doing >a >difficult job. Putting this in the requirements is, for me, a failure >of >the project. As long as there are people involved, a certain amount of it is inevitable. Putting it in the requirements is bowing to reality. The FTP Team sometimes has to make unpopular decisions and it's inevitable that people won't always react well. If Sean hadn't mentioned it, I think it would have been a disservice to potential volunteers. People should know what they are signing up for. Honestly it's not a lot of the feedback, most of what we get back is positive, but it's enough that it's worth mentioning. Scott K
Re: FTP Team -- call for volunteers
Hello Neil, On Sat 14 Mar 2020 at 09:18PM +00, Neil McGovern wrote: > Hi debian-project and ftpmaster folks, CCing ftpmaster@. > On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 01:37:59PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote: >> - cope well with flames in response to your decisions > >> - after training, comfortable with being on the other end of the >> ftpmaster@ alias, which receives a huge volume of >> not-always-pleasant messages daily. > > I hope I am not the only one to be deeply concerned that this should be > a requirement on volunteers. For me, it is absolutely unacceptable that > people should put up with unplesentness or flames that come from doing a > difficult job. Putting this in the requirements is, for me, a failure of > the project. > > Sean: do you have any ideas on how we can reduce this aspect of the > valuable work that ftpmasters do? Do you have some (anonymised) examples > of the areas of abuse that you receive perhaps? The FTP Team has a robust understanding of (a) what the DFSG requires, and (b) what is required to ensure we're complying with the terms of common free licenses. A good example of (a) is ensuring that *all* preferred forms for modification are included in source packages, and a good example of (b) is [1]. Not everyone in the project agrees with the FTP Team on these sorts of issues. Further, there are not enough people processing NEW, so packages sometimes stay there for a long time. Put these two things together, and you can see why people might be more likely to respond in a way that's less than ideal when their uploads are rejected from NEW. Thus, one way to improve things would be to have more people processing NEW, such that there is less frustration all round -- which is what I'm trying to achieve by supervising a batch of new trainees :) [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2018/10/msg4.html -- Sean Whitton signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: FTP Team -- call for volunteers
On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 09:18:48PM +, Neil McGovern wrote: > Hi debian-project and ftpmaster folks, > > On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 01:37:59PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote: > > - cope well with flames in response to your decisions > > > - after training, comfortable with being on the other end of the > > ftpmaster@ alias, which receives a huge volume of > > not-always-pleasant messages daily. > > I hope I am not the only one to be deeply concerned that this should be > a requirement on volunteers. For me, it is absolutely unacceptable that > people should put up with unplesentness or flames that come from doing a > difficult job. Putting this in the requirements is, for me, a failure of > the project. > > Sean: do you have any ideas on how we can reduce this aspect of the > valuable work that ftpmasters do? Do you have some (anonymised) examples > of the areas of abuse that you receive perhaps? > The fact is that given the length of time packages can wait for NEW processing and the amount of effort package maintainers put into packaging, it is understandable that they would be frustrated at the rejection of a package. That said, it does not make flaming the FTP an acceptable response and is certainly not going to produce any positive result. But it is not clear that it would be possible to prevent such a thing. It seems like if NEW processing only took a short time (perhaps 1 or 2 weeks), then a rejection would be less frustrating. However, a rejection after waiting 11 or 12 months (or longer) and no response to requests for additional guidance when something is unclear are difficult to deal with from the package maintainer side. The delays may be unavoidable, but any measures to minimize them would go a long way to reducing the likelihood of flame responses to rejection mails. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sánchez
Re: FTP Team -- call for volunteers
Hi debian-project and ftpmaster folks, On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 01:37:59PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote: > - cope well with flames in response to your decisions > - after training, comfortable with being on the other end of the > ftpmaster@ alias, which receives a huge volume of > not-always-pleasant messages daily. I hope I am not the only one to be deeply concerned that this should be a requirement on volunteers. For me, it is absolutely unacceptable that people should put up with unplesentness or flames that come from doing a difficult job. Putting this in the requirements is, for me, a failure of the project. Sean: do you have any ideas on how we can reduce this aspect of the valuable work that ftpmasters do? Do you have some (anonymised) examples of the areas of abuse that you receive perhaps? Thanks, Neil -- signature.asc Description: PGP signature
