do you know enough about what (other) Bazaar developers are doing?

[Martin Pool]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 6:38 AM, James Westby <jw+debian at jameswestby.net> wrote:
>>  I've heard of people unsubscribing from the ML due to its
>> volume and now we hear from someone declaring "email bankruptcy" and
>> marking all messages "read".

I don't think there is any kind of moral obligation on people to read
every message they receive; skimming at a level varying on how much
time is available is fine.  But if people are put off even subscribing
or posting in the first place then that is bad.


> Yes, that is obviously bad. Would a user list do what these people
> want though? Are they here for support, to provide support, and
> to discuss that sort of thing, or to follow development?
>
> If it's the latter then there is very little we can do, to follow
> it you need to get most of these mails.
>
> If we were to have the split then I would ask for three things:
>
>  1. All developers subscribe to the users list. Helping out is
>     important, but also seeing the issues people are running in
>     to and seeing the things that they would like to be able
>     to do are hugely important.
>
>  2. We ask people who don't contribute code to still try and
>     keep up with the development list to keep an eye on
>     where things are going. I'm sure this will happen to some
>     extent, and hopefully this will be the least important
>     of the three due to the last one.
>
>  3. Comments on new features, UI etc. are requested from the
>     user list. It's important to get this feedback, and doing
>     it during development keeps the implementation honest,
>     and helps engender user engagement with the project.
>     I would say this goes for when these discussions arise
>     from reviews as well, but sometimes it's hard to split
>     these bits from the code comments, and doing so would
>     be more work.

In my view at any time a person is after one of three levels of
interaction: to just get an answer to a question or a bug; to help
other users and give ideas for future development; and to be involved
with code reviews or similar levels.

I think it's hard to segregate them because any one thread or even one
message may pass through all of those levels in any order.  It is
particularly hard to split them a-priori and it may be better just to
help people find the stuff that is relevant to them.  I feel like it
is some kind of accomplishment just to keep the subject line relevant.

If we were going to split them I think I would put merge proposals and
reviews on one list, and keep everything else including discussion of
new features on the main list.  But I think spanning two lists,
therefore generating duplicates in one way or another or breaking
threads, may be annoying.

> A friend just pointed me to this:
>
> http://list.org/mailman-member/node29.html
>
> It's not that different from having separate lists as far as
> I can tell, but it could be help number 3. It would mean that
> discussion mails would go to everyone without much thought,
> and it would be easier to switch from code review to wider
> discussion by just removing MERGE from the subject, rather
> than having to start cross posting things and tracking replies
> in two places.

I think we should do that.  Then we can have the appearance of two
lists for those who want it that way, and of one list for those who
want that.  We can also allow a different word for things that are
too-technical but not actually merges.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>