[Mageia-dev] Improving communications

Sun Dec 2 10:34:18 CET 2012

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+On 02/12/12 07:10, Joseph Wang wrote:
+> I have a few suggestions for improving packaging communications
+> 
+> * https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Pending_packages
+> 
+> where I'll keep updated the status of my packaging, and I'll try
+> to forward notices from the mailing list.  Having something on the
+> wiki makes things a bit more organized.  I've changed the links a
+> bit so to tell people to look on that page first for important
+> notices.
+> 
+> * Mageia-mentors mailing list or backup mentors
+> 
+> It would be good if there was a mageia-mentors mailing list in
+> which private e-mail to and from the mentors could be cc'ed to so
+> that all of the mentors would have an overview of what
+> conversations would happen and there would be a "backup" in case a
+> mentor goes offline. Alternatively, people could get in a the habit
+> of having a backup mentor cc'ed that can respond if something comes
+> up.
+> 
+> It would also be good to change the instruction page with
+> something instructions like "if you don't hear back from X in three
+> days, then do Y"
+> 
+> What happened with me was that I had been packaging a large number
+> of packages and coordinating things offline with my mentor.  I
+> mentioned that I was packaging cinnamon and then when I was done
+> (and it was just a minor project), I mentioned that I was done.  I
+> didn't hear back, but that's happened before, and that's not a
+> problem.  The problem was that when I looked on the dev list for
+> something unrelated, I found out that the cinnamon packages had
+> been bounced. That wasn't a problem since they had been bounced for
+> very good technical reasons, which I've been fixing.
+> Unfortunately, I was reading the e-mail out of context so it looked
+> to me like some tiny cabal had bounced all my packages for no
+> reason at all, and so I went ballistic.  The most annoying problem
+> is that no one mentioned it me that there was a technical issue
+> with cinnamon.
+> 
+> Part of the issue is since I'm new, I don't know the people, and so
+> I can't tell based on limited information if people are being
+> reasonable or not.  Automatically assuming that people are being
+> reasonable won't work, because you'll find a lot of groups on the
+> internet in which people aren't reasonable (i.e. there is a reason
+> why people are dumping Gnome3 for Cinnamon) and people don't have
+> the time and energy to find out what's going on, and there is a lot
+> of "pseudo-reasonableness" out there.  Working with a lot of
+> volunteer groups has made me a little paranoid when someone seems
+> nice.
+> 
+> For people with a CS bent, a lot of issues that you run into with 
+> coordinating people are the same that you run into in coordinating 
+> CPU/GPU's and doing parallel computing.  You can map some of the 
+> issues that I've run into into the "two generals problem".
+
+http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem
+(It was new to me ;) )
+
+Thanks, Joseph, for your effort to improve things :)
+
+As documenter, I'm glad with the wiki page.
+
+Also as documenter, I'm wondering whether a mailing list would cause
+missing or not completely clear or up-to-date packaging pages in our
+wiki to be made or improved faster.
+
+Even if that wouldn't be the case: having packaging questions and
+answers in the mailing list archive, seems a good thing to me.
+
+As a very incidental packaging trainee, I think if there isn't a
+mailing list and my mentor is, e.g., on holiday without internet
+connection, it would be best to go to #mageia-mentoring and ask for
+assistance there.
+
+Cheers,
+marja
+
+
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