On Saturday, March 7, 2015, Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamil...@acm.org> wrote:
> I am not certain exactly what issue is proposed to be discussed here. > > If you mean the over-use of private@ by the PMC, is there an issue to > discuss? Those of us on the PMC need to be attentive to minimizing private@ > discussions and bring to dev@ every discussion that is not one of the > special cases requiring discreet usage of private@. > > Talking about it here doesn't seem necessary. Who would disagree? Those > of us with PMC accountability need to make it so. It is expected of all > PMCs. Well look at the numbers, I did not publish the numbers for 2014, but you will see a high number of mails on private@ so it seems that not all agree to keep private@ low. > > - Dennis > > More background, since volumes of private@ usage have been presented. > > There are two matters that have been brought here recently although they > had wandered in and out of private@: > > 1. The changes to the PMC FAQ, involving a small comedy of errors (my > synopsis) > 2. The concerns about the openoffice.org/why page on the cost of > compliance > which also involved the Legal list and some private@ chiding by ASF > officials > > The other major sources of recent volume on private@ involved private > matters. Sometimes these are resolved entirely without any public > discussion (e.g., handling a request for or dealing with an issue about > trademark usage, votes to add new committers and/or PMC members). If you say so, I will not comment on the content on private@ but merely say I highly disagree with you...or you have quite a different level of what is private than I have. > > Generally, sometimes there is a privately-raised concern that is discussed > until it is noticed that it has turned into a discussion that belongs on > dev@ and not private@. It would be good to catch those earlier. It is > up to the PMC to be vigilant and execute on those. Exactly, the 2 examples you mention are good examples of something that should have been public....but did it happen not really, look at the number of mails on the 2 issues that alone tell a story. > > Anything that involves policies impacting the project itself clearly must > come to dev@ if there is ever any sort of proposition that involves > conduct of the project and alignment of the community. A variety of > privately-raised concerns simply come and go, however, even if there is a > significant flurry of discussion at first. > > There are some routine items that arise from time to time on private@ but > do not seem to introduce any major spurt in volume. > > With regard to the relative silence of other PMCs, I suggest that Apache > OpenOffice has much greater reach into diverse communities and > corresponding areas of concern compared to many Apache projects. We are > not homogenous and we deal with many levels of participation and direction, > much simply on account of the magnitude of the software, the sites, the > intended users, and the history. We could be not so driven although I > expect that would not resonate on dev@, user@, or the forums. I did not talk about relative silence of PMC, but of committer and contributors. rgds jan i > > -----Original Message----- > From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org <javascript:;>] > Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2015 01:11 > To: jan i > Cc: dev > Subject: community communication versus private PMC communication, WAS: > PMC FAQ update > > Just realized, that many might jump over the old subject. > > This issue is an important issue and should not be hidden behind another > subject. > > rgds > jan i. > > [ ... ] > > You are opening a very important issue here. This moderator subject was, > > but should never have been discussed in private. > > > > During my first round as PMC, and now in my second round, I can see the > > private@ is being wrongly used (in my opinion, with my PMC hat on) to > > have long discussions which could just as well be public. I am convinced > > that the PMC is NOT doing this on purpose, but simply because they > forget. > > > > Without disclosing content here are some interesting numbers: > > private@aoo compared to dev@aoo > > March: 53 on private@, 93 on dev@ > > Feb: 347 on private@, 400 on dev@ > > Jan: 111 on private@, 542 on dev@ > > > > Numbers are taken from the mail archives, and might be off by a couple. > > > > I am a member of several projects and it is fair to say that none of the > > other private lists I follow have a similar relationship. Typically > private@ > > in the projects I follow count for 5-10% of the mails. > > > > I agree with Simon that we have a community issue here (thanks Simon for > > pointing it out, I had not made the connection between moderators and the > > use of private@) > > > > Some of the PMC are trying to stop the mail flood and remind the PMC > group > > to make the thread publicly, but it seems to be something that takes > time. > > I for one will do, as I did in the beginning of this thread (and got > quite > > flamed for it) disclose my own opinion and as much as I can from private@ > > without breaking the rules. > > > > I believe it is high time to discuss this issue openly...and hopefully > not > > only contributors but also comitters will raise their voice. > > > > rgds > > jan I. > > > > > > S. > >> > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org > <javascript:;> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org > <javascript:;> > > -- Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
