[Mageia-dev] Improving communications

[Marja van Waes]

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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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