jkeating ([info]jkeating) wrote,
@ 2009-05-14 20:22:00
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Fixing the fail that is fedora-devel-list
If you're on the fedora-devel-list mailing list, you've likely noticed how hostile it has become as of late. Ever since we closed down fedora-maintainers-list and migrated everybody over to fedora-devel-list there has been a clash of cultures. This isn't so bad itself, but over the past couple releases the tone and demeanor on this list has gone downhill quite sharply. Active maintainers are running away on horror of what goes on, and questioning the Fedora leadership for allowing it to continue. New contributors are scared away from the project when such rampant abuse is allowed to continue unchecked. It has to stop.

As sad as it is, the Board took on this issue in our last meeting. After a lot of heated discussion, a proposal was banged out that would empower one or more list monitors. These monitors would keep an eye on the list and if any power happens to step out of "line" the poster would be put on a one day moderation. This is the "warning shot". Our hopes is that folks will start to figure out what is and is not allowed to happen on the list and things will tone down a bit, and our developers will start to come back and we can have actual technical development discussion. Those individuals whom don't "get it" will face more severe action from the board, potentially as far as removal from the project. It's our sincere hope that we never have to take anything that far, that as a community we'll get our act together and think twice about what we say in a public list.

The board didn't quite have the guts to enact this proposal immediately, so it's been posted to the fedora advisory board list so that community at large have a chance to provide feedback, as well as be warned. The board's intention is to calm down the list and drive it back in the direction of useful, relevant, on topic, technical discussion of the development of our distribution and the software within. If you think you have a better idea at how to fix the problem, please do post to the advisory board, or comment here, or just email me.

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Guts or chutzpah?
[info]pfrields.id.fedoraproject.org
2009-05-15 04:51 am UTC (link)
I think posting what we're going to enact was a good idea -- springing things on communities is decidedly bad, as I think we've learned often enough. Just because we post in advance doesn't mean we have any less intention of carrying it through. I'm fairly in agreement with everything else you said, though. My hope is that we go through this for nothing, and people will become a little more civil to each other. And yes, it does spring eternal.

(Reply to this)


[info]peter_lemenkov [lj.rossia.org]
2009-05-15 05:21 am UTC (link)
Censorship of that kind is (possibly) the most stupid idea from Fedora heads of this year. I personally don't see no evil in recent discussions. If someone is so vulnerable of rude texts, them maybe he'd better to disconnect from our internets, rather than we'll create censorship for ourselves?

And one more thing - the idea to sign off people from Fedora Project because of their posts to fedora-devel is so scared me, that I even don't believe that you're speaking seriously.

I don't like to see the Fedora GULAG instead of Fedora Community.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]jkeating
2009-05-15 05:46 am UTC (link)
In the Fedora Project we're trying to create a friendly environment where downstream and upstream developers can meet and cooperate to produce great software. Hostile environments such as fedora-devel-list certainly are not helping this cause. If you feel that you cannot participate in a project where the leaders of the project will step in and ensure that the environment stays a welcoming and friendly environment, then I suggest you find a different project to participate in.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Fully agree
[info]brej.org
2009-05-15 09:10 am UTC (link)
I haven't seen the wars on the list, but I have been involved with several projects where I just walked away rather than experience the stress of these kinds of situations. At the end of the day, most contributors get involved in these projects voluntarily, in their spare time, in the assumption that their effort will be met with a pleasant appreciative audience. If they wanted to experience hatred and stress then they would just spend more time at work.

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Moderation policies won't solve the f-d-l problems
[info]berrange
2009-05-15 09:23 am UTC (link)
IMHO, the problems with f-d-l are about more than just the tone of discussion. If anything the deteriorating tone is just an result of the other problems.

First, with the Fedora community so large & package set so diverse, f-d-l inevitably has a really bad signal-to-noise ratios for most maintainers. As a virtualization package maintainer, 80-90% of my interest is on subjects relating to virtualization, the remaining interest is just keeping updated on packaging/review guideline changes. The vast majority of discussions on f-d-l are nothing todo with virtualization, and very rarely related to packaging. Ergo, it is mostly pointless my paying any attention to f-d-l. Anyone interested in virtualization has moved over to the fedora-virt mailing list where we have a extremely good signal-to-noise ratio. No changes to f-d-l can ever make it useful to degree that it was in the past, before the growth in size of Fedora community & package set.

The second problem with f-d-l is that too many people appear to think it is a forum for discussing & deciding upon major functionality changes to packages. In reality Fedora is a community for packaging & distro integration. All useful discussions & decisions about functionality take place on the mailing lists for the upstream projects where the subject matter experts are all present. Attempting to have such discussions in f-d-l is doomed to failure. Package maintainers can & should take feedback from Fedora users upstream, but they can't be expected to agree with & represent every users' wishes. If a user feels strongly about something and disagrees with the package maintainer, they need to be prepared to take their point upstream themselves for discussion with the subject matter experts. Nothing productive can come from arguing about this on f-d-l, and I don't see any changes to f-d-l policies that will be able to address this.

IMHO, this last point is a major reason why the tone of conversations in f-d-l has deteriorated. Users are starting discussions about major functional changes, expecting them to be resolved on f-d-l, instead of upstream developer lists, and getting pissed off / annoyed when they don't get results they want. We need to try and figure out how to get a more effective bridge between Fedora and upstream, for people beyond the individual package maintainers.

I also wish there was just a mailing list I could join where the topic was solely packaging / review guideline discussions - eg like the old fedora-maintainers-list that was taken away from us :-(

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Moderation policies won't solve the f-d-l problems
[info]jkeating
2009-05-15 03:14 pm UTC (link)
The fedora-packaging list is where guideline proposals get discussed prior to packaging committee meetings, perhaps that's more your flavour? fedora-devel-announce would be a good substitute as well, we announce important things there (which does echo to fedora-devel-list) so that you could just get the announcements and only pick up on the discussion on fedora-devel-list if it is something interesting to you.

I agree that moderation alone won't solve the problem of being too big as far as interesting subjects. Our hope though is that it will at least quell the open hostility.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Moderation policies won't solve the f-d-l problems
[info]dbn3
2009-05-16 05:39 pm UTC (link)
I would have to agree that the signal-to-noise ratio hurts just as bad as the open hostility. I started contributing to fedora about six months ago, got a package in and subscribed to f-d-l as the new packager guidelines said. I was somewhat excited about it since so many of the upstream projects I'm interested are developed by fedora people (e.g. X with ajax/krh/whot). Instead, my inbox just gets filled with endless garbage and I find myself disabling my f-d-l subscription often.

I really hope you guys figure something out. These kinds of problems are really tough to tackle.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Moderation policies won't solve the f-d-l problems
[info]fuhchee
2009-05-16 02:29 am UTC (link)
> The second problem with f-d-l is that too many people appear to think
> it is a forum for discussing & deciding upon major functionality changes
> to packages.

Some of them appear to be requests to insulate Fedora from (perceived)
capricious changes upstream, as if they had already tried to reason
with upstream but it didn't listen.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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