From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 79BFF138334 for ; Wed, 12 Jun 2019 09:42:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 05C4CE090A; Wed, 12 Jun 2019 09:42:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-it1-x141.google.com (mail-it1-x141.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::141]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D21EEE08D9 for ; Wed, 12 Jun 2019 09:42:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-it1-x141.google.com with SMTP id x22so9553499itl.2 for ; Wed, 12 Jun 2019 02:42:23 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gentoo-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com; s=20150623; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to; bh=7Xe4e6Io8sMWvHRdd53GAXanvU9rZcfHEOnjvK5PLFc=; b=Jy4mDfhFa2DU8W6GhQgJ9UaDNMjpOwHqmKagJ2QDQr0LJnVmagsMoKAera+/QqiPnC SiaayQpNVTizwmDaB3E3zBaqkz01ic5kkQzW5xmEWBX+Kl0sIQN0w1TLNFKigmny5en0 nyxoEtnnz5lGm8THD+JVMLs6qztj/KNRVtlzf35k1I/77c+SWZXyV6e9hqSAuyH/rOr+ 4t52RsRDPCQLn1herAa3D23X10L+9OG+AACJnDdCXEL8aEhIgvwvn7BBLzKfw4phPbdU hTs9BlSiZ4owGVC0d/4t/giZXOTxDlr6m5p4vCKOmHnbsvwAcRuZE59sMCN4/BDwSGgV KfRA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to; bh=7Xe4e6Io8sMWvHRdd53GAXanvU9rZcfHEOnjvK5PLFc=; b=s7Llgo3DXs5o8K+2M5pGDvY2KFG7Oan/WS0d1oNB9tNwfyoRmV6Eco6LcbTctc8P5b /z/jC4S7dcHWqZvEngkIe/OfA3xjJwVebc5imGrv4GsQz21ASwLwgqjN3A6qYIIQBnz4 SBZdb3O6NN1vvec43IN6a/cIqe+D3lAxnKzU8oSBb+UAnTuFVmmhK47Wzk5j72Iaxij7 CzH8XKZ1+wx9mlWG4DJOxOdxFd8a4nj6fn/uV6TtxevG6J2Zz8Ou52KBbs2qazu8zzog r6A6G4ER8Yx4rNG9w7LIFPWKTg4/fuoGzk6E3cWmyhZvQOpCjEhVWFcUN9/wTRpATMwi S+zw== X-Gm-Message-State: APjAAAXwwCYgZlJTMMkXr0gCStrsJZE6gA3ewG1IebhyUXxNz+V3w3P2 k5tnfqXxmHEWA0Gf9OLEsDP4riQFWta0DjISpTaFTiQq X-Google-Smtp-Source: APXvYqzthe98H/T/RDCa3WmJcCQLeHIrBpBTM3lP0vd3Jfvw6CTx6DfKiShZhn3wQhT5idW0pXFK4P9oSL25kbM+yzg= X-Received: by 2002:a02:234b:: with SMTP id u72mr54000291jau.4.1560332542464; Wed, 12 Jun 2019 02:42:22 -0700 (PDT) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org X-Auto-Response-Suppress: DR, RN, NRN, OOF, AutoReply MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Alec Warner Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2019 02:42:11 -0700 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Deferred decision: Forums (specifically OTW) To: gentoo-project Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000ece811058b1d3af8" X-Archives-Salt: 16914c31-654c-431b-843c-094c5232f887 X-Archives-Hash: b6a82d3c6a83a7d1630942a62b0e362d --000000000000ece811058b1d3af8 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 8:38 PM Micha=C5=82 G=C3=B3rny = wrote: > On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 15:05 +0200, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote: > > The agenda item "Forums (specifically OTW)" was deferred to further > > discussion in the mailing lists during the 2019-02-10 council meeting. > > The agenda for that meeting can be found at [Agenda] and the tracking > > bug is [Bug 677824]. > > > > This email aims to re-opens the discussion [which was started in a > > previous thread] as per the council decision. > > > > I ask that the discussion remains civil and respectful, while also > > allowing for a high bar for the actual discussion. > > > > I don't think OTW is a major problem. The real problem are *technical* > forums, and those cause two problems. The first of them is that > developers rarely hear of the problems with their packages. The second > of them is that Forums tend to breed very bad 'solutions'. > I'm curious how this is different from other support forums. Are there no bad solutions proposed on the wiki? in #gentoo? In other channels? -A > > I don't mind providing multiple support channels as long as problems > actually reach developers. However, I don't think it's news to most of > the developers who don't actively participate in Forums (read: look > for new threads everywhere) that some problems never leave them. > > During my years in Gentoo I've been pinged a few times over expansive > Forum threads on problems with my packages which never made it to > Bugzilla or anything else that I actually could've noticed. It all > relies on courtesy of accidental developers (who are not Forum > moderators, I should add). I can only imagine how many problems were > never addressed properly because the maintainer never learned of them, > and cheap hacks proposed on Forums were sufficient for the users. > > And no, I don't think that requiring every developer to directly follow > all Forum feeds is a solution. > > A side effect of the former problem is that Forums are home to many > horrible 'solutions'. Sadly, those solutions sometimes involve making > things *much worse* than they were before. This is problem both for > users who end up victims of having their systems broken, and developers > who end up having to help fix the resulting breakage. > > Breakage resulting from use of dev-python/pip is the most prominent > example I know of. Multiple Forum victims ended up using it to 'fix' > problems. As a result, they ended up with obsolete directly installed > packages overriding Gentoo packages and breaking stuff. The scale of > this was so great that I had to actually patch dev-python/pip to block > installing packages system-wide. Which is a technical hack to a social > problem. > > I'm not saying Forums is the only source of the problem, people can > figure out how to break systems themselves. However, Forums is > frequently a source of bad information that is mistakenly trusted > and is not properly verified and rejected. > > To summarize, I think the two major problems with the Forums are: > 1) not passing information properly to package maintainers, > and 2) lack of proper Q/A. If you can solve them, I don't have any > problem with the Forums. > -- > Best regards, > Micha=C5=82 G=C3=B3rny > > --000000000000ece811058b1d3af8 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


=
On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 8:38 PM Micha= =C5=82 G=C3=B3rny <mgorny@gentoo.or= g> wrote:
On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 15:05 +0200, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> The agenda item "Forums (specifically OTW)" was deferred to = further
> discussion in the mailing lists during the 2019-02-10 council meeting.=
> The agenda for that meeting can be found at [Agenda] and the tracking<= br> > bug is [Bug 677824].
>
> This email aims to re-opens the discussion [which was started in a
> previous thread] as per the council decision.
>
> I ask that the discussion remains civil and respectful, while also
> allowing for a high bar for the actual discussion.
>

I don't think OTW is a major problem.=C2=A0 The real problem are *techn= ical*
forums, and those cause two problems.=C2=A0 The first of them is that
developers rarely hear of the problems with their packages.=C2=A0 The secon= d
of them is that Forums tend to breed very bad 'solutions'.

I'm curious how this is different from othe= r support forums. Are there no bad solutions proposed on the wiki? in #gent= oo? In other channels?

-A
=C2=A0

I don't mind providing multiple support channels as long as problems actually reach developers.=C2=A0 However, I don't think it's news t= o most of
the developers who don't actively participate in Forums (read: look
for new threads everywhere) that some problems never leave them.

During my years in Gentoo I've been pinged a few times over expansive Forum threads on problems with my packages which never made it to
Bugzilla or anything else that I actually could've noticed.=C2=A0 It al= l
relies on courtesy of accidental developers (who are not Forum
moderators, I should add).=C2=A0 I can only imagine how many problems were<= br> never addressed properly because the maintainer never learned of them,
and cheap hacks proposed on Forums were sufficient for the users.

And no, I don't think that requiring every developer to directly follow=
all Forum feeds is a solution.

A side effect of the former problem is that Forums are home to many
horrible 'solutions'.=C2=A0 Sadly, those solutions sometimes involv= e making
things *much worse* than they were before.=C2=A0 This is problem both for users who end up victims of having their systems broken, and developers
who end up having to help fix the resulting breakage.

Breakage resulting from use of dev-python/pip is the most prominent
example I know of.=C2=A0 Multiple Forum victims ended up using it to 'f= ix'
problems.=C2=A0 As a result, they ended up with obsolete directly installed=
packages overriding Gentoo packages and breaking stuff.=C2=A0 The scale of<= br> this was so great that I had to actually patch dev-python/pip to block
installing packages system-wide.=C2=A0 Which is a technical hack to a socia= l
problem.

I'm not saying Forums is the only source of the problem, people can
figure out how to break systems themselves.=C2=A0 However, Forums is
frequently a source of bad information that is mistakenly trusted
and is not properly verified and rejected.

To summarize, I think the two major problems with the Forums are:
1) not passing information properly to package maintainers,
and 2) lack of proper Q/A.=C2=A0 If you can solve them, I don't have an= y
problem with the Forums.=C2=A0

--
Best regards,
Micha=C5=82 G=C3=B3rny

--000000000000ece811058b1d3af8--