What do you think about the signal:noise ratio? A survey.
I have created a survey looking at this list's signal:noise ratio at http://pileofstuff.org/ubuntu-survey/ - please take a few minutes to fill it in, so we can better decide how to tackle the issue. Ubuntu developers tend to complain about the ratio of signal to noise on the Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list - that is, the percentage of posts that take up their time without helping them to improve Ubuntu. Many developers have apparently unsubscribed from the list for that reason. This survey assesses the degree to which that actually occurs, why it occurs, and what we can do about it. Thanks to all the people that replied yesterday - the survey should be more usable and informative as a result of your ideas. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 11:19 +, Andrew Sayers wrote: Hi all, Ubuntu developers tend to complain about the ratio of signal to noise on this list - that is, the percentage of posts that take up their time without helping them to improve Ubuntu. Many developers have apparently unsubscribed from the list for that reason. Grumbling developers are never a good thing for a project, so I'd like to see what can be done about it. I think your premise is slightly flawed. You say tend to complain, whereas I have a different impression. I have heard a few complaints from a minority of developers. Yes, not all posts on ubuntu-devel-discuss are that useful. Yes, having good interaction between users and developers is important. However, I feel that this problem may be being elevated above its status. Having asked around on IRC, I get the impression that no-one really knows enough about the issue to suggest a better solution - for example, is it that there's too much noise, or not enough signal? What types of noise do people consider most objectionable? What are the leading causes of noise? Or that most people don't really consider there to be enough of a problem to do something about. Yes, there are posts that are rude or pointless, but we know perfectly well how to deal with each of these cases. I don't think we need to dwell too much on these issues. They won't really go away without strict and full moderation. I'm open to better suggestions, but it seems to me the best way of getting answers to the above questions is with a survey, so I've written one up. Hopefully the answers will let us have a more informed debate about what to do next. Thank you however for trying to gather more information about the issue. That is definitely the way to proceed. I would caution that the feedback may be skewed somewhat towards the opinions of those that see a problem, as they are probably more likely to respond to such a survey. Thanks, James -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
[Please preserve quoting attributions in your replies; it makes things awfully confusing when you remove them. I've restored them here.] On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 10:56:03AM -0500, Martin Owens wrote: Andrew Sayers wrote: Loïc Martin wrote: Andrew Sayers wrote: I'm [somehow confident] that other people would consider these examples of noise. Good point - I've now changed it to ... consider these to be examples of noise. Is that alright? Somehow confident? your confident, but you don't know why? Loïc was indicating that the space filled with [somehow confident] is (in the web survey) a drop-down from which you can select several different options indicating different degrees of confidence. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: [rfc] Jaunty experience and SSDs...
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:04:33AM +, Daniel J Blueman wrote: In order to maximise user experience thus performance, we need to ensure the disk partitions created on SSDs/USB flash drives/RAID arrays are 4KB (perhaps up to 128KB) aligned. There are considerable benefits with the flash/RAID controller opening half as many pages/stripes on small reads. This pays better with slower SSDs in eg netbooks. Patches have entered the upstream kernel to detect when drives are solid-state [1], though the dust hasn't settled on the interface. How acceptable would getting the userspace partitioner changes into Jaunty if proven to be stable and robust? This seems like something that could be added as a libparted constraint without *too* much pain. If and only if the corresponding kernel changes go into the Ubuntu kernel (work with kernel-t...@lists.ubuntu.com, I think), I agree that we should change the partitioner too, and pass the changes to parted upstream, although I would add that the changes need to be reasonably simple and elegant as well as stable and robust; I only like partitioner code that I can understand. :-) The simplest way to do this appears to be: * change libparted/arch/linux.c to detect physical sector size based on information exposed by the kernel (physical sector size is a slightly odd term here, but it seems to produce the alignment results you're asking for) * ensure that this actually works properly in parted, noting that this feature is currently marked as experimental (see the ped_device_get_constraint function) * change parted_server in partman-base to use device constraints, since it doesn't currently * possibly change other libparted clients such as gparted and qtparted to use device constraints if they don't already (I haven't checked) Do you know whether the kernel is likely to tell us the desired alignment? It seems a little strange to infer an alignment simply from the fact that the disk is non-rotational, and in your post you yourself don't seem entirely sure of the desired size. I imagine it will vary from device to device. Are you willing to do this work? If you'd like to work with me or other installer developers on IRC, #ubuntu-installer is open. Thanks, -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: a ubuntu-audio mailing list?
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:28:19AM +0530, shirish wrote: I (and many others for sure) have benefited a lot by the ubuntu-x mailing list. The list has been instrumental (from a user's perspective) to getting know of workarounds, better documentation on the wiki (more importantly timely information) as well as perspective from the ubuntu-x developers POV and road-ahead from time to time. It would be great if something of similar nature could be also put up for the audio experience so we know who the maintainers are for ubuntu-audio and put up our difficulties/issues or workarounds we believe to them and know more. I advise you not to use the build it and they will come approach: don't start out with a separate mailing list. Instead, build relevant discussion here or on ubuntu-devel; if it grows to the point where it crowds out other discussion, it can then be moved to a separate list. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
Olá Emmet e a todos. On Thursday 22 January 2009 16:27:42 Emmet Hikory wrote: * Point of contact for Ubuntu users to reach Ubuntu developers There are lots of reasons that users want to reach developers. For many of them, there are more specific fora. Bugs should be reported to the bug tracker (2). Suggestions for features that would benefit from discussion and voting should be posted to brainstorm (3) (although a post to this list pointing at the brainstorm entry is not entirely bad). Posts specific to a certain area of Ubuntu may be better discussed on more specific mailing lists (see the list (4). Requests for assistance or support most specifically belong on the ubuntu-users@ list. I'm likely missing lots of other specific fora, but in summary, such a general list as ubuntu-devel-discuss@ is probably best used when either it's not clear which forum may be more appropriate, when it's something that isn't specific enough to fit in another forum, or when a specific forum for the topic in question doesn't exist. Well my POV on this is that you may have missed a valid use case: Discussion of problems on a development branch. From my experience, ubuntu-users@ is mainly toward to stable releases, and usually an user like my self (alpha/beta tester) gets really poor support there. At least on this list I expect to get some extra help to either fix my/our problem, or be pointed in the right direction, even if that is simply the case to go to LP and report it. Basicly I expect the same treatment as I get on IRC support channels (ubuntu+1 and ubuntu-bugs). Is that to much to ask? -- Hi, I'm BUGabundo, and I am Ubuntu (whyubuntu.com) (``-_-´´) http://LinuxNoDEI.BUGabundo.net Linux user #443786GPG key 1024D/A1784EBB My new micro-blog @ http://BUGabundo.net ps. My emails tend to sound authority and aggressive. I'm sorry in advance. I'll try to be more assertive as time goes by... signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
Hello Colin, On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 13:40 +, Colin Watson wrote: [Please preserve quoting attributions in your replies; it makes things awfully confusing when you remove them. I've restored them here.] How much should be preserved? Knowing that some quotes can get out of hand, I tend to crop, but tend to include the quote that the test refers to. On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 10:56:03AM -0500, Martin Owens wrote: ... Somehow confident? your confident, but you don't know why? Loïc was indicating that the space filled with [somehow confident] is (in the web survey) a drop-down from which you can select several different options indicating different degrees of confidence. I took the survey, I knew what the context was. But somehow isn't right in this context and I wanted to say so. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 10:16:45AM -0500, Martin Owens wrote: Hello Colin, On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 13:40 +, Colin Watson wrote: [Please preserve quoting attributions in your replies; it makes things awfully confusing when you remove them. I've restored them here.] How much should be preserved? Knowing that some quotes can get out of hand, I tend to crop, but tend to include the quote that the test refers to. Note that I said quoting attributions, not quotes. Of course you should trim quotes appropriately. However, any time you quote some text, you should leave an indication of who wrote it. (Your mail client seems to have inserted one here, so I assume it does so in general.) If you have multiple levels of quoting, preserve the attributions left by other people. On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 10:56:03AM -0500, Martin Owens wrote: ... Somehow confident? your confident, but you don't know why? Loïc was indicating that the space filled with [somehow confident] is (in the web survey) a drop-down from which you can select several different options indicating different degrees of confidence. I took the survey, I knew what the context was. But somehow isn't right in this context and I wanted to say so. OK. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
(``-_-´´) -- BUGabundo wrote: On Thursday 22 January 2009 16:27:42 Emmet Hikory wrote: * Point of contact for Ubuntu users to reach Ubuntu developers There are lots of reasons that users want to reach developers. For many of them, there are more specific fora. Bugs should be reported to the bug tracker (2). Suggestions for features that would benefit from discussion and voting should be posted to brainstorm (3) (although a post to this list pointing at the brainstorm entry is not entirely bad). Posts specific to a certain area of Ubuntu may be better discussed on more specific mailing lists (see the list (4). Requests for assistance or support most specifically belong on the ubuntu-users@ list. I'm likely missing lots of other specific fora, but in summary, such a general list as ubuntu-devel-discuss@ is probably best used when either it's not clear which forum may be more appropriate, when it's something that isn't specific enough to fit in another forum, or when a specific forum for the topic in question doesn't exist. Well my POV on this is that you may have missed a valid use case: Discussion of problems on a development branch. From my experience, ubuntu-users@ is mainly toward to stable releases, and usually an user like my self (alpha/beta tester) gets really poor support there. At least on this list I expect to get some extra help to either fix my/our problem, or be pointed in the right direction, even if that is simply the case to go to LP and report it. Basicly I expect the same treatment as I get on IRC support channels (ubuntu+1 and ubuntu-bugs). I think Discussion of problems on a development branch falls into a few categories, as follows: A) Sharing of experiences with the current development branch B) Technical questions about new features in the development branch C) Bugs in the development branch I believe A and B are in the charter for this list, and I've covered them at length in the email to which you reply. I don't think case C belongs on this list, but rather in the bug tracker. I also don't think this list serves as a useful point of escalation for bugs already filed. My rationale is that those with interest or knowledge in specific packages often are either subscribed to bugs in those packages, or review them periodically (this includes both developers and knowledgeable non-developers). These people are those with whom one is most likely to have a useful discussion regarding any given discovered issue. This list has a much more general audience, and, depending on the bug, it may well be that the majority of subscribers do not experience the bug, are not familiar with the affected component, or have nothing to add to the discussion. Further, creating an environment where bugs are escalated to this mailing list as a means of solution may well result in an increasingly high number of bug reports coming to the mailing list, as there are a large number of fairly important bugs that are discovered during any given development cycle. Lastly, I believe that those of us who choose to use development releases for regular work have accepted the when it breaks, you get to keep both parts guarantee, and so are expected to either be able to solve the problems ourselves, or usefully interact with the bug tracker to ensure that there is sufficient information that they can be solved by others. -- Emmet HIKORY -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
