I hate to say that being a PAUSE/modules maintainer is becoming a task
of more frustration than satisfaction. But that's the way I feel.
We all know that the current process of user and module registration
is not as perfect as it could be, but for the time being I think it
can work very well if we all try a little bit harder.
The modules mailing list carries the following messages:
a. requests for registration
b. administrative messages
c. garbage
Let's first skip the administrative messages (New user, New module,
Module update, and so on) and the garbage (free cable descramblers).
Requests (message category a) can be divided in the following
categories:
1. a request for a PAUSE id.
2. a request to register one or more modules
3. a request for a PAUSE id + modules
Category 1 is the easiest. Create the user id and mark the request
completed.
Category 2 is harder. Often the requested modules are part of an
existing structure and the entries can be created immedeately.
However, sometimes requests are dubious, or involve new top levels.
These cannot be dealt with immedeately.
Category 3 is the hardest. It has all the problems of category 2, plus
the complication that users often indicate ideas of what they are
going to do (DSLI stage idea or pre-alpha). I'm often in doubt whether
these should be added in this stage.
For the requests that cannot be dealt with immedeately it is necessary
to have some discussion. These discussions should be quick and short.
In general I think a discussion about a new top level, or non-trivial
choice of naming should be concluded within a day. For example, as
soon as there are two more ACKs than NACKs. I wonder if it would help
to have a separate mailing list for this, one that is not clobbered
with all kinds of other messages. In essence, this would mean a split
of the current modules mailing list.
modules: a group of people that actively maintain PAUSE.
modules-discuss: a group of people that volunteer to think about
naming issues and such, and advise the modules
team.
All modules people are part of modules-discuss, but the other way
around is not neccessarily true. I estimate the traffic on
modules-discuss at 3 or 4 discussions per day.
So consider this the first submission to modules-discuss. I'm awaiting
your responses.
-- Johan
