As a relative newbie I wonder about the format generally of the lists, however "unbroken", I would be concerned about a dated look. Also, IMO anything requiring "manual restructuring" - verses automation - I am a little suspicious of. If dumb stuff is coming through, why cant the good stuff be automatically curated and presented on top of existing lists? ie run a PoC, curated content targeting mobile users. From there drivers may emerge for incorporating updates or come back to suggestions herein.
On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 9:18 AM, Michał Górny <mgo...@gentoo.org> wrote: > Hello, everyone. > > This is something that's been talked about privately a lot lately but it > seems that nobody went forward to put things into motion. SO here's > a proposal that aims to improve the condition of our mailing lists > and solve some of the problems they are facing today. > > > Problems > ======== > > Currently the developer-oriented mailing lists gentoo-dev and gentoo- > project are open to posting by everyone. While this has been generally > beneficial, we seem to be having major problems with some > of the posters for more than a year. Off hand, I can think of three: > > 1. Repeating attacks against Gentoo and/or Gentoo developers (including > pure personal attacks). While it is understandable that some people may > be frustrated and need to vent off, repeating attacks from the same > person are seriously demotivating to everyone. > > 2. Frequent off-topics, often irrelevant to the thread at hand. > I understand that some of those topics are really interesting but it is > really time-consuming to filter through all the off-topic mails > in search of data relevant to the topic at hand. What's worst, sometimes > you don't even get a single on-topic reply. > > 3. Support requests. Some of our 'expert users' have been abusing > the mailing lists to request support (because it's easier to ask > everyone than go through proper channels) and/or complain about bug > resolutions. This is a minor issue but still it is one. > > > All of those issues are slowly rendering the mailing lists impossible to > use. People waste a lot of time trying to gather feedback, and get > demotivated in the process. A steadily growing number of developers > either stop reading the mailing lists altogether, or reduce their > activity. > > For example, eclass reviews usually don't get more than one reply, > and even that is not always on-topic. And after all, getting this kind > of feedback is one of the purposes of the -dev mailing list! > > > Proposal > ======== > > Give the failure of other solutions tried for this, I'd like to > establish the following changes to the mailing lists: > > 1. Posting to gentoo-dev@ and gentoo-project@ mailing lists will be > initially restricted to active Gentoo developers. > > 1a. Subscription (reading) and archives will still be open. > > 1b. Active Gentoo contributors will be able to obtain posting access > upon being vouched for by an active Gentoo developer. > > 2. A new mailing list 'gentoo-expert' will be formed to provide > a discussion medium for expert Gentoo users and developers. > > 2a. gentoo-expert will have open posting access like gentoo-dev has now. > > > Rationale > ========= > > I expect that some of you will find this a drastic measure. However, I > would like to point out that I believe we've already exhausted all other > options to no avail. > > The problems of more abusive behavior from some of the mailing list > members have been reported to ComRel numerous times. After the failure > of initial enforcement, I'm not aware of ComRel doing anything to solve > the problem. The main arguments I've heard from ComRel members were: > > A. Bans can be trivially evaded, and history proves that those evasions > create more noise than leaving the issue as is. > > B. People should be allowed to express their opinion [even if it's pure > hate speech that carries no value to anyone]. > > C. The replies of Gentoo developers were worse [no surprise that people > lose their patience after being attacked for a few months]. > > > The alternative suggested by ComRel pretty much boiled down to 'ignore > the trolls'. While we can see this is actually starting to happen right > now (even the most determined developers stopped replying), this doesn't > really solve the problem because: > > I. Some people are really determined and continue sending mails even if > nobody replies to them. In fact, they are perfectly capable of replying > to themselves. > > II. This practically assumes that every new mailing list subscriber will > be able to recognize the problem. Otherwise, new people will repeatedly > be lured into discussing with them. > > III. In the end, it puts Gentoo in a bad position. Firstly, because it > silently consents to misbehavior on the mailing lists. Secondly, because > the lack of any statement in reply to accusations could be seen > as a sign of shameful silent admittance. > > > Yet another alternative that was proposed was to establish moderation of > the mailing lists. However, Infrastructure has replied already that we > can't deploy effective moderation with the current mailing list software > and I'm not aware of anyone willing to undergo all the necessary work to > change that. > > Even if we were able to overcome that and be able to find a good > moderation team that can effectively and fairly moderate e-mails without > causing huge delays, moderation has a number of own problems: > > α) the delays will make discussions more cumbersome, and render posting > confusing to users, > > β) they will implicitly cause some overlap of replies (e.g. when N > different people answer the same question because they don't see earlier > replies until they're past moderation), > > γ) the problem will be solved only partially -- what if a reply contains > both valuable info and personal attack? > > > Seeing that no other effort so far has succeeded in solving the problem, > splitting the mailing lists seems the best solution so far. Most > notably: > > а. Developer mailing lists are restored to their original purpose. > > б. It is 'fair'. Unlike with disciplinary actions, there is no judgment > problem, just a clear split between 'developers' and 'non-developers'. > > в. 'Expert users' are still provided with a mailing list where they can > discuss Gentoo without being pushed down into 'user support' channels. > > г. Active contributors (in particular recruits) can still obtain posting > access to the mailing lists, much like they do obtain it to #gentoo-dev > right now. However, if they start misbehaving we can just remove that > without the risk of evasion. > > -- > Best regards, > Michał Górny > > >
