Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
On 30/03/13 at 10:34 +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: Le Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 03:35:40PM -0700, Don Armstrong a écrit : -private is notified so DDs are aware. How is the state of -private those days ? When I unsubscribed, it was still mixing informations that are really private, like Alice takes holidays in Honolulu, some that may be private by accident, like Bob wants to package libfoo-perl, and some that are irrelevant, like Claudius likes pasta well cooked, Donna does not like discussions about pasta, and Eros thinks that one should not be criticised for discussing about pasta on -private. I found it very tiring to have to permanently remember to never talk about a lot of things that should never have been private in the first place. If this has not changed, is that something that the DPL candidates would like to tackle ? (Bonus question to the DPL candidates: are you subscribed to debian-private ?) Hi, I am subscribed to -private@. On some of our lists, we have a mix of different traffic that could have been more clearly separated. That applies to -private@, but also to -devel@, with the ITP mails. I don't think that there's a widespread perception that this is a serious problem that we should actively work on. Generally, creating another list for the same audience, with the same posting and visibility criterias (e.g. unmoderated; private archives) results in more emails about why is that mail on list A rather than list B than the amount of mail that some people considered unwanted in the first place. As an anecdote, at some point I was marginally involved in a project whose main mailing list was fairly high traffic, due to lots of (mostly interesting) discussions. Some people were complaining about the traffic (on list, of course, so it generated even more traffic), and as a result, another list, named debates@, was created. The idea was that, once a discussion starts to grow too much on the main list, it should be moved to the debates@ list so that people who were OK with high-traffic lists could continue the discussion. Of course, this completely failed: on the main list, there were many mails about maybe it's time to move that discussion to debates@, and some emails about please don't, I find this discussion interesting but I'm not subscribed to debates@. So, creating sub-lists must be handled with care. Even if the case of VAC messages, we have two kinds: - social-only VAC messages (I'll be in $city for 2 days next week, does someone want to meet for a drink?), where the resulting absence is very unlikely to have an impact on the project. - VAC messages that inform of an impact on the project. e.g. core team member informing that s/he will change job and move to a new place, resulting in reduced Debian activity for several months. Lucas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130330071949.ga20...@xanadu.blop.info
Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
On 30-03-13 02:49, Russ Allbery wrote: I have no objections to the vacation messages (personally, I find them interesting), Same here. but we could certainly make a separate list with the same nondisclosure requirements as -private devoted specifically to those messages and any followups around keysignings, etc. (and, probably more broadly, for any other life events that Debian Developers want to share internal to the project, such as marriages, new children, etc.), sort of a DD-internal version of -curiosa, and keep -private as more a DD-internal version of -project. I'm not sure we need that. There's an expectation that vacation messages have a [vac] prefix in the subject, which is mostly followed (although sometimes people do forget it). That makes it fairly easy to filter them out for those who're not interested in them. Personally, I've filtered them into a separate folder for years. While there are occasional false negatives, I can't remember the last time I had a false positive -- if that's ever occurred, which I'm not sure of. I think the current rules are fine. -- Copyshops should do vouchers. So that next time some bureaucracy requires you to mail a form in triplicate, you can mail it just once, add a voucher, and save on postage. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/51569b6b.1030...@uter.be
Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
On 2013-03-29 19:34, Charles Plessy wrote: How is the state of -private those days ? When I unsubscribed, it was still mixing informations that are really private, like Alice takes holidays in Honolulu, some that may be private by accident, like Bob wants to package libfoo-perl, and some that are irrelevant, like Claudius likes pasta well cooked, Donna does not like discussions about pasta, and Eros thinks that one should not be criticised for discussing about pasta on -private. I found it very tiring to have to permanently remember to never talk about a lot of things that should never have been private in the first place. If this has not changed, is that something that the DPL candidates would like to tackle ? (Bonus question to the DPL candidates: are you subscribed to debian-private ?) Yes, I am subscribed. I find it surprising that others are concentrating on whether the volume and mix of topics on debian-private are convenient for readers. For those questions, I would worry far more about debian-devel. [1] For debian-private, my worry is about messages that have no reason to be private. I don't find the volume that high, and VAC messages are easily filtered out by people who don't want to see them. But any discussion thread there tends to quickly move to include things that have no reason to be private -- and it takes some effort to move a discussion to a more appropriate public list without leaking any clues about the original private topic or including quoted text that people may want to keep private, so people don't bother, but just continue to reply about the topic on -private. I see this problem happen almost every time a thread on debian-private develops past a couple of messages. And I think it's bad, not only because our Social Contract says that we will not hide problems, but for practical reasons. Where discussions don't have a genuine reason to be private, they will lead to more useful results for Debian if they are on a public list where we can benefit from the input of many more of Debian's contributors, and where they are easy to find later and can be cited in subsequent discussions. Even if someone tries to move or restart discussion of a non-private topic that has been discussed on -private, people tend to lack enthusiasm for re-posting to a public list the same kind of ideas they have already written about on -private. Part of the problem is that we automatically subscribe new project members to -private, but not any other list. It seems that there are a significant number of people who read debian-private without reading debian-project, which is where many -private threads would be more appropriate, or even debian-devel-announce, which we claim is mandatory. I liked Steve Langasek's previous suggestion of a one-off fix by unsubscribing everyone and posting resubscription instructions on -devel-announce [2] Moray [1] We presumably want to encourage new project contributors to read -devel, but it remains rather high-volume, and with a wide mix including significant bursts of traffic from ITP messages and general bugs that would logically make more sense on different lists. I understand that the intention is effectively to get more eyes to look at these by putting them on -devel, but for individual senders Where will most people read this? has never been an acceptable reason to choose a list to post to, but rather Where will this be on topic *and the readers want to read it*? With the combination of high-volume and non-discussion mails, I worry that new readers of -devel are likely to quickly get a build-up of messages that are uninteresting to them, then lose enthusiasm for trying to keep up-to-date with it. [2] Maybe putting the resubscription instructions as a footnote to a message about release management would be appropriate. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1afba77fb723f47e6eec220c46134...@www.morayallan.com
Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 08:59:39AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: I'm not sure we need that. There's an expectation that vacation messages have a [vac] prefix in the subject, which is mostly followed (although sometimes people do forget it). That makes it fairly easy to filter them out for those who're not interested in them. Yes, and even a simple filter (mine is currently [.*vac\s*] or similar) works 99% of the time. I like replies to VACs to go to my -private folder. I use a similar scheme for ITPs on -devel. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130330163435.GA6722@debian
Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: If this has not changed, is that something that the DPL candidates would like to tackle ? (Bonus question to the DPL candidates: are you subscribed to debian-private ?) Private is like it always was (I am subscribed, and have been for every day of my DDship). Fortunately, modern mail clients can mark a whole thread read, so if the subject is not interesting, it's just a button away, and the whole thread disappears. And if I don't read it, it's not hard to keep that information private, whether it belonged to -private in the first place, or not. As such, whatever goes on on -private, it doesn't really bother me. The traffic is low enough to handle. (But then, I'm subscribed to -bugs-dist@ AND lkml, so my definition of low may not be shared by most.) Nevertheless, I have no intention of trying to change how -private@ is used. I could imagine ways to make it more useful, but I don't see the effort being worth the trouble. -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8762087fi6@galadriel.madhouse-project.org
Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:34:08AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: Le Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 03:35:40PM -0700, Don Armstrong a écrit : -private is notified so DDs are aware. How is the state of -private those days ? When I unsubscribed, it was still mixing informations that are really private, like Alice takes holidays in Honolulu, some that may be private by accident, like Bob wants to package libfoo-perl, and some that are irrelevant, like Claudius likes pasta well cooked, Donna does not like discussions about pasta, and Eros thinks that one should not be criticised for discussing about pasta on -private. I found it very tiring to have to permanently remember to never talk about a lot of things that should never have been private in the first place. If this has not changed, is that something that the DPL candidates would like to tackle ? (Bonus question to the DPL candidates: are you subscribed to debian-private ?) This will result in a discussion without being grounded in factual data, since talking about such data in public would be leaking said information. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [all candidates] What to do with debian-private ?
Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes: On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:34:08AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: How is the state of -private those days ? When I unsubscribed, it was still mixing informations that are really private, like Alice takes holidays in Honolulu, some that may be private by accident, like Bob wants to package libfoo-perl, and some that are irrelevant, like Claudius likes pasta well cooked, Donna does not like discussions about pasta, and Eros thinks that one should not be criticised for discussing about pasta on -private. I found it very tiring to have to permanently remember to never talk about a lot of things that should never have been private in the first place. If this has not changed, is that something that the DPL candidates would like to tackle ? (Bonus question to the DPL candidates: are you subscribed to debian-private ?) This will result in a discussion without being grounded in factual data, since talking about such data in public would be leaking said information. I think one thing we *could* talk about in public, although I'm not sure if it's really a DPL question, is whether we could just separate out the vacation messages from the rest of -private traffic. There are occasional quite important threads on -private that should legitimately be on -private and belong there, and quite a lot of vacation messages that people are supposed to send there. My impression is that the S/N complaints of most people about -private are about the vacation messages. I have no objections to the vacation messages (personally, I find them interesting), but we could certainly make a separate list with the same nondisclosure requirements as -private devoted specifically to those messages and any followups around keysignings, etc. (and, probably more broadly, for any other life events that Debian Developers want to share internal to the project, such as marriages, new children, etc.), sort of a DD-internal version of -curiosa, and keep -private as more a DD-internal version of -project. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8738vd7j23@windlord.stanford.edu
