On Sat, 05 May 2007 22:56:58 +0200
Jakub Moc <jakub@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I'm not trying to sabotage anything but total misuse of the feature.
> Would have the same objections wrt whatever other "critical" news
> that'd constitute completely inappropriate usage of GLEP42 features.
> (And I'd expect that you'd show a bit more knowledge of the GLEP you
> are a co-author of, frankly.)

Have you stopped to consider that, as author of the GLEP, I know
exactly what it was intended to do and how it works?

It's a change to a core configuration file requiring explicit user
action from every user. It is not merely a notice about a new feature
or a behaviour change that only affects a small proportion of users.
The former gets a news item, the latter gets an elog.

> The relevant paludis output has been pasted twice already, so let me
> try one last time:
> 
> <snip>
>   ... Use of token '*' is deprecated, use '*/*' instead
> </snip>
> 
> How much more explanation about this 'critical' change do the users
> *need*? If they don't get the above, maybe paludis and Linux just
> isn't for them and they should stick to Windows. Meanwhile there's no
> need to establish a precedent of using critical news for PEBKAC
> issues.

Experience has shown that without a news item, many users will ask for
clarification or confirmation before making any changes, and with a
news item users will be reassured that they're doing the right thing
and that this is a deliberate change. Bear in mind that a large
proportion of users didn't create those files by hand and haven't
edited them themselves.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh