From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1ICHPw-000850-G5 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:02:52 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with SMTP id l6LG2l4n029930; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:02:47 GMT Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l6LG2jMA029925 for ; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:02:46 GMT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6D1976521D for ; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:02:45 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: 0.309 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.309 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=0.308, BAYES_50=0.001] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id H8vMzbJnMAsX for ; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:02:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1BF66520E for ; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:02:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1ICHPc-0001Ud-0s for gentoo-project@gentoo.org; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:02:32 +0200 Received: from spc2-ashf2-0-0-cust179.asfd.broadband.ntl.com ([81.109.172.180]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:02:32 +0200 Received: from gmane by spc2-ashf2-0-0-cust179.asfd.broadband.ntl.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:02:32 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org From: Allen Brooker Subject: [gentoo-project] Re: Improving developer/user communication Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:02:19 +0100 Message-ID: References: <469FF6E3.70308@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: spc2-ashf2-0-0-cust179.asfd.broadband.ntl.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070507 Thunderbird/2.0.0.0 Mnenhy/0.7.5.666 In-Reply-To: <469FF6E3.70308@gmail.com> Sender: news X-Archives-Salt: bacdf0b6-89e8-4abb-afd3-134378949b56 X-Archives-Hash: 531886fff851c6f59a5d15c103679d04 George Prowse wrote: > Well, i'm not sure if this list is working because I have not yet > recieved any emails from it but... > > What ideas do people have for improving relations? (Resend, apologies if this appears twice) What about making more use of the announce list? At the moment it's only ever used for GLSA's, which from talking to a few people at Gentoo UK and on IRC, most seem to use the utilities for anyway. Could we create a very-low-traffic, developer-posts-only list that is used for announcing important package changes? The list could also be used for other announcements (not sure exactly what - events where Gentoo devs will be, regional meets, other things). If people feel that using the same list for other announcements too would create too much traffic, consider creating multiple lists, which would allow people to subscribe to only the types of messages that they want to see. These lists could be heavily advertised on the forums and in the Gentoo Handbook. To remark on this "we'll only get atypical users responding so we shouldn't ask at all" view, that's just silly. In my view, open source is about community, and if people don't speak up then that's just their choice. Why should everyone suffer just because some people don't want to interact? Surely developers can weigh up the feedback they get and decide for themselves what might be atypical and what might be useful? And I think that if you do it right, word will spread and more people will respond over time. Sure, you'll never get everyone, but that's life. Have you considered that many users may currently believe that there aren't any ways they can communicate with developers generally? Or even if they do know about IRC and mailing lists, believe that the developers don't want to hear what they have to say? On that note, an idea to get more users involved: What about scheduled developer chats with specific projects where users can openly ask questions and developers can perhaps give updates on what they've been up to recently? They don't have to be particularly frequent - once a month rotating round different projects or something. Another idea could be to create a specific "developer Q&A" forum where developers can pose questions to the users and perhaps vice-versa too (some sort of moderation system for questions from users might be required, and yes it would require work, but doesn't anything that involves interacting with users?) AllenJB -- gentoo-project@gentoo.org mailing list