On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Simon King <simon.k...@uni-jena.de> wrote:
> Hi Francois and all,
>
> On 1 Aug., 05:52, Francois Bissey <francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz>
> wrote:
>> In the case of sage-marketing, no impact what so ever since I had no clue
>> such a list existed.
>
> QED...
>
>> It is a
>> bit of pity. sage-on-gentoo generates a bit of traffic on the gentoo-science
>> mailing list and the occasional thread here.
>
> sage-on-gentoo? Is that yet another list I haven't been aware of?
>
>> I guess there are a number of emails that I had with Burcin about sage-prefix
>> and some other members of sage-on-gentoo that would be material for
>> sage-devel
> !!!
>> but some people may object us discusing it here.
> !!!
>
> That would be more than a shame, IMO! See below.
>
>> Plus some of these people actually favor private email.
>
> I could understand that the technical details of a sub-project are
> discussed in private or on IRC or on a small list. But eventually,
> people must be made aware of the results obtained.
>
> If there were good results then all will benefit, and one must not
> forget that acknowledgement by the community probably is the most
> important reward for voluntary unsalaried contributors.
>
> And if the results are negative ("we didn't solve the problem and
> encountered the following obstacles:..."), there is still the
> possibility that people from the crowd have a good idea or a fresh
> view on the problem, so that progress can finally be made.
>
> There is yet another psychological aspect, in particular for new
> potential developers:
>
> When I started working with Sage and asked a bunch of questions, I was
> very impressed that I got a response typically within a few hours, and
> that a bug that I reported was fixed within one day and the bug fix
> released within a fortnight. I found it very encouraging, and it was
> one major reason for me starting to contribute.
>
> But what could happen today?
>
> A novice has a question. Out of the novice's ignorance of the
> specialised lists, s/he would ask on sage-devel or sage-support. Two
> things could happen.
>
> 1) People are busy with their small lists, and are not reading sage-
> devel or sage-support frequently enough. Thus, the question remains
> unanswered for at least a day - compared with one or two hours when I
> was "young". Or worse, it falls off the first screen, and isn't
> answered at all. Big frustration, novice is leaving.
>
> 2) People object to discuss certain topics on sage-devel or sage-
> support. Say, the novice has a question on coercion. Then, s/he may be
> pointed to sage-algebra. That's the first frustration: S/he is
> required to join yet another list, repeat the question there, and wait
> for an answer. But since not many people read the small list, the
> novice may wait a couple of days. Big frustration, novice is leaving.
>
> That's why I think that the attitude of banning certain subjects and
> interning them into specialised lists is dangerous for Sage.
>
I have never thought that certain subjects should in any way be
"banned" from sage-devel or sage-support. But if a small group of
people are working on something which is only of interest to number
theorists (say) then it's fine for that discussion to take place on
sage-nt. And I know that there are people who read the specialist
lists such as sage-nt frequently but who look at the general list much
less often (out of the now slightly out-dated view that there are
hundreds of postings per day!).
John
> Best regards,
> Simon
>
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