Hello all,
It seems that Fedora-list have replaced Fedora-devel as the prime staging place for useless, 100-post-long political debates. As far as I could count, there are at-least 4 different political threads current running in -users: (All by the same individuals, BTW) - "Misunderstanding GPL's terms and conditions as restrictions" - "That old GNU/Linux argument" - "A long rebuttal to the Linux-is-the-engine fallacy" - "Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?"
Now I am aware that I could setup a toll filter, deleting all messages that are being posted by said individuals (I already do), but never-the-less, filling my Internet pipe with 100's of useless messages is -very- annoying.
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
Thanks, - Gilboa
Gilboa Davara wrote:
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
I suggested a code of conduct such as the ones other projects have adopted, long back in Fedora advisory board list and that idea got rejected.
For reference
http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct http://en.opensuse.org/Code_of_Conduct
Now we are going about addressing the issue with specific policies such as the one recently enacted for IRC conversations. Note that there are mailing list guidelines at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Enforcing it is different matter though. I don't think moderators are even reading the list in the first place.
Rahul
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 10:14 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
Now we are going about addressing the issue with specific policies such as the one recently enacted for IRC conversations. Note that there are mailing list guidelines at
That IRC policy was scoped to the people doing the helping on #fedora, and not project wide.
josh
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
Basically you want a mailinglist for all the discussions that experienced users and contributors are tired of seeing repeated?
-jef
* Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 06:47]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
Basically you want a mailinglist for all the discussions that experienced users and contributors are tired of seeing repeated?
Jeff,
comp.os.linux.advocacy - something along those lines. If you call it "fedora-advocacy", "fedora-politics" or "fedora-welcome-to-where-idiots-roam", I don't really mind.
The threads that Gilboa mentions is the sole reason I implemented Sieve in my mailserver at home. fedora-devel and fedora-list became interesting and useful about as soon as those threads were filtered out.
Read in to it what you want.
/Anders
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Anders Karlsson anders@trudheim.co.uk wrote:
The threads that Gilboa mentions is the sole reason I implemented Sieve in my mailserver at home. fedora-devel and fedora-list became interesting and useful about as soon as those threads were filtered out.
Read in to it what you want.
You miss my point. Are these discussions valuable or not. If they are not... then we shouldn't make a place for them.... period. I don't see anyone who actually standing up and saying these things are valued and thus worth preparing a special place for in our resource pool. If we are only considering making more channels so some of us can ignore others among us because they are talking about things we don't care about... I'm not prepared to support that.
I'll consider supporting additional dedicated communications channel for things when the people who find value in the discussion in question ask for a dedicated list. They must be able to make the case that such dedicated communication will actually be useful in helping a team of people work together towards some identified task or goal which helps moves the project forward.
-jef"I never read what I write, my spam filter it smart enough to flag my own posts as trash"spaleta
* Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 08:39]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Anders Karlsson anders@trudheim.co.uk wrote:
The threads that Gilboa mentions is the sole reason I implemented Sieve in my mailserver at home. fedora-devel and fedora-list became interesting and useful about as soon as those threads were filtered out.
Read in to it what you want.
You miss my point. Are these discussions valuable or not. If they are not... then we shouldn't make a place for them.... period. I don't see anyone who actually standing up and saying these things are valued and thus worth preparing a special place for in our resource pool. If we are only considering making more channels so some of us can ignore others among us because they are talking about things we don't care about... I'm not prepared to support that.
I see what you mean.
Are the discussions in question valuable? No, they are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I'll consider supporting additional dedicated communications channel for things when the people who find value in the discussion in question ask for a dedicated list. They must be able to make the case that such dedicated communication will actually be useful in helping a team of people work together towards some identified task or goal which helps moves the project forward.
Cool, I'll carry on with the kill-lists then. If any of the participants would ever consider contributing anything remotely valuable in future, I'll remain in blissful ignorance. Despite me participating in one or two of the threads, I consider them to be ultimately harmful to the Fedora Project, and to Red Hat, a point I have stated.
It's a shame there is no facility to block at source though, on the list server. That would be a useful addition, as that would cut down on the amount of bandwidth used.
-jef"I never read what I write, my spam filter it smart enough to flag my own posts as trash"spaleta
*lol*
I better disable Amavis on outgoing mail then. I think I'm in the same boat. ;-)
/Anders
Anders Karlsson wrote:
- Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 08:39]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Anders Karlsson anders@trudheim.co.uk wrote:
The threads that Gilboa mentions is the sole reason I implemented Sieve in my mailserver at home. fedora-devel and fedora-list became interesting and useful about as soon as those threads were filtered out.
Read in to it what you want.
You miss my point. Are these discussions valuable or not. If they are not... then we shouldn't make a place for them.... period. I don't see anyone who actually standing up and saying these things are valued and thus worth preparing a special place for in our resource pool. If we are only considering making more channels so some of us can ignore others among us because they are talking about things we don't care about... I'm not prepared to support that.
I see what you mean.
Are the discussions in question valuable? No, they are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
Speak for yourself.
I'll consider supporting additional dedicated communications channel for things when the people who find value in the discussion in question ask for a dedicated list. They must be able to make the case that such dedicated communication will actually be useful in helping a team of people work together towards some identified task or goal which helps moves the project forward.
Cool, I'll carry on with the kill-lists then. If any of the participants would ever consider contributing anything remotely valuable in future, I'll remain in blissful ignorance. Despite me participating in one or two of the threads, I consider them to be ultimately harmful to the Fedora Project, and to Red Hat, a point I have stated.
How can a discussion of open source and the GPL be harmful to Fedora or Red Hat? In what bizarro universe does that even begin to make sense. People that don't find the conversation useful should ignore it, that is after all what mail filters were created to do. People that understand and respect freedom don't advocate censorship in any form. If you don't have the discipline to ignore the conversation then that's your problem.
I am willing to accept that perhaps I have missed the point of the Fedora Project entirely. So maybe one of you generous souls could enlighten me.
-Max
max wrote:
Anders Karlsson wrote:
- Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 08:39]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Anders Karlsson anders@trudheim.co.uk wrote:
The threads that Gilboa mentions is the sole reason I implemented Sieve in my mailserver at home. fedora-devel and fedora-list became interesting and useful about as soon as those threads were filtered out.
Read in to it what you want.
You miss my point. Are these discussions valuable or not. If they are not... then we shouldn't make a place for them.... period. I don't see anyone who actually standing up and saying these things are valued and thus worth preparing a special place for in our resource pool. If we are only considering making more channels so some of us can ignore others among us because they are talking about things we don't care about... I'm not prepared to support that.
I see what you mean.
Are the discussions in question valuable? No, they are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
Speak for yourself.
I'll consider supporting additional dedicated communications channel for things when the people who find value in the discussion in question ask for a dedicated list. They must be able to make the case that such dedicated communication will actually be useful in helping a team of people work together towards some identified task or goal which helps moves the project forward.
Cool, I'll carry on with the kill-lists then. If any of the participants would ever consider contributing anything remotely valuable in future, I'll remain in blissful ignorance. Despite me participating in one or two of the threads, I consider them to be ultimately harmful to the Fedora Project, and to Red Hat, a point I have stated.
How can a discussion of open source and the GPL be harmful to Fedora or Red Hat? In what bizarro universe does that even begin to make sense. People that don't find the conversation useful should ignore it, that is after all what mail filters were created to do.
Sure let's create new filter for each thread that I can not read because - I do not have the time to follow - I do not have the knowledge to understand
hm... I gonna like it !
Pierre
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 09:46 -0400, max wrote:
How can a discussion of open source and the GPL be harmful to Fedora or Red Hat? In what bizarro universe does that even begin to make sense.
When the "discussion" is driven by the misinformed and willfully ignorant, spreading FUD and beating old horses so rotten and dead that those with any clue are driven from the argument by the overwhelming stench. Creating a pungent cesspool of stupid that draws in more raving lunatics from every dark corner of the internet, building momentum and spreading like a cancer that threatens to destroy the entire project.
Short answer: Not every "discussion" is productive.
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 10:38:27PM -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
You miss my point. Are these discussions valuable or not. If they are not... then we shouldn't make a place for them.... period. I
Wrong. Very wrong.
If there is a mountain of turd flowing through your house do you
- decide it isn't valuable and leave it to flow
- provide somewhere else for it to go so that you can use your house again
Alan
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:27 AM, Alan Cox alan@redhat.com wrote:
Wrong. Very wrong.
If there is a mountain of turd flowing through your house do you
- decide it isn't valuable and leave it to flow
I never said that i was going to specifically condone it. I said I'm not going to support making a specific space for it. If its not constructive then perhaps it shouldn't be happening in the controlled space of this project. There is no direct mandate or requirement that we allow or condone all speech. If someone wants to propose a reasonable and fair moderation scheme and the manpower to sustain it.. they are free to do that.
- provide somewhere else for it to go so that you can use your house again
It has the whole internet to go to. I certainly do not have to provide that somewhere else if I do not value the discussion.
-jef"Like my local bartender says: you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here"spaleta
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 07:40:52AM +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
- Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 06:47]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
Basically you want a mailinglist for all the discussions that experienced users and contributors are tired of seeing repeated?
Jeff,
comp.os.linux.advocacy - something along those lines. If you call it "fedora-advocacy", "fedora-politics" or "fedora-welcome-to-where-idiots-roam", I don't really mind.
Seconded. I've given up on the fedora-list for the most part, and its driving users way from the Fedora project. I don't care if its fedora-ranting, or just fedora-without-alexanfre-and-les we set up but soemthing needs doing before it has a debian-legal like toxic effect on the whole userbase
That or the fedora board could actually tell them to shut up and kick them off if they don't
* Alan Cox alan@redhat.com [20080728 12:26]:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 07:40:52AM +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
- Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 06:47]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
Basically you want a mailinglist for all the discussions that experienced users and contributors are tired of seeing repeated?
Jeff,
comp.os.linux.advocacy - something along those lines. If you call it "fedora-advocacy", "fedora-politics" or "fedora-welcome-to-where-idiots-roam", I don't really mind.
Seconded. I've given up on the fedora-list for the most part, and its driving users way from the Fedora project. I don't care if its fedora-ranting, or just fedora-without-alexanfre-and-les we set up but soemthing needs doing before it has a debian-legal like toxic effect on the whole userbase
Considering the length, and amount, of threads that topic spawned, there seems to be excessive willingness and energy to debate that topic.
Splitting out the advocacy / hairsplitting / holy-war / I'm-more-right-than-you-are type debates to a separate list ought to be a "Project Self Preservation" action. Bit like the -sounder list in Ubuntu (like someone else mentioned) where I even think you're warned that topics will be inflammatory.
fedora-list, do correct me if I am off base, intention was for users to be able to turn to with queries or requests for help, or just to get advise on how to go about doing things with Fedora. Not to get sunk in a veritable swamp of irrelevant, rehashed religious style diatrabe.
If users first interaction with Fedora is fedora-list, "the August 2008 archives", I'll understand if they punt the Fedora ISO's into the trash and hop off elsewhere. No, really.
That or the fedora board could actually tell them to shut up and kick them off if they don't
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
/Anders
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:54 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
I've got no problem with a separate list. I have A LOT of problems with a code of conduct for fedora.
-sv
seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:54 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
I've got no problem with a separate list. I have A LOT of problems with a code of conduct for fedora.
-sv
I agree with Seth. Most of the "flame-fest" threads mentioned, while mostly boring, idiotic, and several other adjectives I can think of... they do, on occaision, produce *something* of value, albeit rarely.
Shall we ban idiots, simply because they're moronic? How about we just shoot 90% of the world and be done with it?
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
You miss my point. Are these discussions valuable or not. If they are not... then we shouldn't make a place for them.... period. I don't see anyone who actually standing up and saying these things are valued and thus worth preparing a special place for in our resource pool. If we are only considering making more channels so some of us can ignore others among us because they are talking about things we don't care about... I'm not prepared to support that.
I'll consider supporting additional dedicated communications channel for things when the people who find value in the discussion in question ask for a dedicated list. They must be able to make the case that such dedicated communication will actually be useful in helping a team of people work together towards some identified task or goal which helps moves the project forward.
-jef"I never read what I write, my spam filter it smart enough to flag my own posts as trash"spaleta
They are *sometimes* valuable... in the sense of a room full of monkeys on a typewriter will eventually produce the works of Shakespear. I'd seriously consider supporting it... if for no other reason than the rare pearl it'll produce.
max wrote:
How can a discussion of open source and the GPL be harmful to Fedora or Red Hat? In what bizarro universe does that even begin to make sense. People that don't find the conversation useful should ignore it, that is after all what mail filters were created to do. People that understand and respect freedom don't advocate censorship in any form. If you don't have the discipline to ignore the conversation then that's your problem.
I am willing to accept that perhaps I have missed the point of the Fedora Project entirely. So maybe one of you generous souls could enlighten me.
-Max
I could not have stated that better myself. If ya'll are going to insist on censorship and bureaucracy... please let me know... I've got a lot of other distros to look at if that's the case.
I've been around Fedora/Redhat since ~1998/9... mostly because I'm stubborn... and I'd really hate to have to kick it to the curb.
No Censorship in *ANY* form... period. Lyos Gemini Norezel
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:
seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:54 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
It did?
http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/blog/archives/2008/07/21/have-you-noticed-a-f...
-Mike
On Mon, July 28, 2008 12:11 pm, Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:
seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:54 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
I've got no problem with a separate list. I have A LOT of problems with a code of conduct for fedora.
-sv
I agree with Seth. Most of the "flame-fest" threads mentioned, while mostly boring, idiotic, and several other adjectives I can think of... they do, on occaision, produce *something* of value, albeit rarely.
Shall we ban idiots, simply because they're moronic? How about we just shoot 90% of the world and be done with it?
The real question becomes, is who is an idiot?
There are certainly people who are trouble, but how long until a policy such as this just turns into a witch hunt?
You don't like someone? Great, just bait them into breaking the policy and get them kicked out!
If you don't like a thread, just ignore it. That's a lot less work than creating an overly elaborate code of conduct nobody is really going to follow anyway.
I compare this to talking to a boring person at a party. Are you going to stand there and complain how boring they are, or go find someone more interesting to talk to?
The real question becomes, is who is an idiot?
There are certainly people who are trouble, but how long until a policy such as this just turns into a witch hunt?
You don't like someone? Great, just bait them into breaking the policy and get them kicked out!
If you don't like a thread, just ignore it. That's a lot less work than creating an overly elaborate code of conduct nobody is really going to follow anyway.
Agreed. The noise can be annoying, but it's pretty subjective from person to person as to what is and what isn't. I think this is why a "topical" approach would be more appropriate vs trying set up some code of ethics.
It's a lot easier to argue in favor of a new list because a certain topic or group of topics continue to come up (otherwise we'd just have one big list for everything and "filter" as needed). So, fedora-advocacy or fedora-argue makes a lot of sense framed like that IMO; less so on a "we need to regulate this" basis.
I compare this to talking to a boring person at a party. Are you going to stand there and complain how boring they are, or go find someone more interesting to talk to?
Ray
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 01:57:43PM -0400, Josh Bressers wrote:
I compare this to talking to a boring person at a party. Are you going to stand there and complain how boring they are, or go find someone more interesting to talk to?
What do you do when they follow you around continually talking ?
You leave the party, just like Fedora
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 03:39:03PM -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 01:57:43PM -0400, Josh Bressers wrote:
I compare this to talking to a boring person at a party. Are you going to stand there and complain how boring they are, or go find someone more interesting to talk to?
What do you do when they follow you around continually talking ?
You leave the party, just like Fedora
Punch them in the face depending on what kind of party it is. :-)
I think a better analogy is being at a party where 80 or so people are all around you hollering and arguing about politics when you're there to just have a good time. Then you'd leave for sure :)
Ray
2008/7/28 Lyos Gemini Norezel lyos.gemininorezel@gmail.com:
seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:54 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
I've got no problem with a separate list. I have A LOT of problems with a code of conduct for fedora.
-sv
I agree with Seth. Most of the "flame-fest" threads mentioned, while mostly boring, idiotic, and several other adjectives I can think of... they do, on occaision, produce *something* of value, albeit rarely.
Shall we ban idiots, simply because they're moronic? How about we just shoot 90% of the world and be done with it?
Can we? Please?
-Yaakov
Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
2008/7/28 Lyos Gemini Norezel lyos.gemininorezel@gmail.com:
I agree with Seth. Most of the "flame-fest" threads mentioned, while mostly boring, idiotic, and several other adjectives I can think of... they do, on occaision, produce *something* of value, albeit rarely.
Shall we ban idiots, simply because they're moronic? How about we just shoot 90% of the world and be done with it?
Can we? Please?
-Yaakov
Yes.
Lyos Gemini Norezel
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 08:24 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:54 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
Something equivalent to the Code Of Conduct that Canonical implemented. It worked on the ubuntu lists. No reason it would not work here.
I've got no problem with a separate list.
ACK.
May-be we should have a fedora-support list which is restricted to addressing technical questions only?
Though some people don't seem to like these discussions or the sizes they have evolved to, I consider a _general_ list like fedora-list to be an appropriate place for them.
I have A LOT of problems with a code of conduct for fedora.
ACK.
Ralf
On Mon July 28 2008 11:26:15 Alan Cox wrote:
Seconded. I've given up on the fedora-list for the most part, and its driving users way from the Fedora project. I don't care if its fedora-ranting, or just fedora-without-alexanfre-and-les we set up but soemthing needs doing before it has a debian-legal like toxic effect on the whole userbase
I like the lawless-ness of the fedora-list (it reminds me of just outside my window :-) ). Generally its self policing and its always worked upto now, but Alexandre Oliva was told on this list to STFU and he obliged that aint quite worked on the fedora-list.
That or the fedora board could actually tell them to shut up and kick them off if they don't
I also like the fact this is one list in fedora the board fears to tread. :-) I've seen codes of conduct mentioned in this thread but this requires offical list police, who's up for that?
...dex
p.s this is on topic (subj. changed)
dexter wrote:
On Mon July 28 2008 11:26:15 Alan Cox wrote:
Seconded. I've given up on the fedora-list for the most part, and its driving users way from the Fedora project. I don't care if its fedora-ranting, or just fedora-without-alexanfre-and-les we set up but soemthing needs doing before it has a debian-legal like toxic effect on the whole userbase
I like the lawless-ness of the fedora-list (it reminds me of just outside my window :-) ). Generally its self policing and its always worked upto now, but Alexandre Oliva was told on this list to STFU and he obliged that aint quite worked on the fedora-list.
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Andrew.
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 02:10:14PM +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
I think it was. But the million message circular arguments about GPL interpretation were most definitely not, and the result of that was that everyone put the participants, subject or even the entire list on kill
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Do you really want everyone to unsubscribe and run something else. I know many people who left Debian for exactly this reason.
Alan Cox wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 02:10:14PM +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
I think it was. But the million message circular arguments about GPL interpretation were most definitely not, and the result of that was that everyone put the participants, subject or even the entire list on kill
Sure, that's true, and perhaps we need a little more taste and restraint. However, there were some untruths about the GPL that needed to be corrected on the list.
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Do you really want everyone to unsubscribe and run something else.
Their call. I'm not sure I really understand the problem; a thread gets boring and repetitive, so can it.
Andrew.
* Andrew Haley aph@redhat.com [20080728 15:10]: [snip]
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
About the technical implementation, sure. How do you 'devel'op the mechanism to separate out the firmware and still be able to deliver it.
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Then migrate the subsequent flame-fest and inflamatory statements to fedora-political, fedora-flames or fedora-legal ? Let it rot in peace in obscurity, where such quasi-religious discussions belong.
The .advocacy groups on usenet is well known for being the playground to hone your argumentation skills. Do we want fedora-list (where users ask for help) or fedora-devel (where serious development discussions are supposed to take place) to be this playground?
I'd be somewhat surprised if anyone answered yes to that question.
/Anders
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 14:10 +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
dexter wrote:
On Mon July 28 2008 11:26:15 Alan Cox wrote:
Seconded. I've given up on the fedora-list for the most part, and its driving users way from the Fedora project. I don't care if its fedora-ranting, or just fedora-without-alexanfre-and-les we set up but soemthing needs doing before it has a debian-legal like toxic effect on the whole userbase
I like the lawless-ness of the fedora-list (it reminds me of just outside my window :-) ). Generally its self policing and its always worked upto now, but Alexandre Oliva was told on this list to STFU and he obliged that aint quite worked on the fedora-list.
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
Sure. But not in -devel and not -users.
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Again, ethical/political/etc questions have no place in an ML that -should- be dedicated to users who seek help. I doubt that they even have place in -testing and/or -devel.
I've been subscribed to fedora-* more-or-less since FC2. For the first time in years I'm thinking about unsubscribing.
- Gilboa
On 7/28/2008 10:04 AM, Gilboa Davara wrote:
Again, ethical/political/etc questions have no place in an ML that -should- be dedicated to users who seek help. I doubt that they even have place in -testing and/or -devel.
I've been subscribed to fedora-* more-or-less since FC2. For the first time in years I'm thinking about unsubscribing
I've been on these lists from the early days as well. I've seen some interesting discussions, however I was never under the impression that this was as big of a problem as some people seem to portray it. Does anyone have any metrics on how many of these "inappropriate" threads there truly are in relation to how many are "appropriate"? I think it would help make this issue much more clear. For example, if we are talking about less than 1% of all posts are "inappropriate", then that is a heck of a lot different than if it is 35%. Similarly, if there are say 10,000 posts in a month, 1% is a bigger problem than if there are only 100 posts per month.
So, do we have some actual numbers or is it just a "gut feel"?
Tom
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 10:29 -0400, Tom Rivers wrote:
On 7/28/2008 10:04 AM, Gilboa Davara wrote:
Again, ethical/political/etc questions have no place in an ML that -should- be dedicated to users who seek help. I doubt that they even have place in -testing and/or -devel.
I've been subscribed to fedora-* more-or-less since FC2. For the first time in years I'm thinking about unsubscribing
I've been on these lists from the early days as well. I've seen some interesting discussions, however I was never under the impression that this was as big of a problem as some people seem to portray it. Does anyone have any metrics on how many of these "inappropriate" threads there truly are in relation to how many are "appropriate"? I think it would help make this issue much more clear. For example, if we are talking about less than 1% of all posts are "inappropriate", then that is a heck of a lot different than if it is 35%. Similarly, if there are say 10,000 posts in a month, 1% is a bigger problem than if there are only 100 posts per month.
So, do we have some actual numbers or is it just a "gut feel"?
Tom
I don't have solid numbers, but at least according to my gmail trash contents, around ~1/4-1/5 of the posts that were sent to -users between, say, Tuesday and Saturday belonged to one of the 4 "GPL" threads.
... And even if I'm wrong by an order of magnitude, and we are only talking about 10% of all the -users traffic, given the fact that these threads are off-topic to being with, this is way-too-much.
- Gilboa
On 7/28/2008 12:06 PM, Gilboa Davara wrote:
I don't have solid numbers, but at least according to my gmail trash contents, around ~1/4-1/5 of the posts that were sent to -users between, say, Tuesday and Saturday belonged to one of the 4 "GPL" threads.
The reason I wanted to get some metrics is to make it is easier to understand the true nature of the problem and its impact on everyone Using your date range of 7/22/2008 - 7/26/2008, I went back and counted the total number of messages that were sent to both lists:
List: 763 Devel: 275
Here are the number of total threads in both lists for the same period:
List: 72 Devel: 58
You said that there are 4 threads that are the problem. That means that for the time period in question, 4 of 72 threads are what you would consider inappropriate. That doesn't sound like a lot of threads to me. In fact, it's about 5.5% of all the threads. Still, that's not the whole picture because we need to look at the total number of posts these threads contain:
3 - Misunderstanding GPL... 25 - That old... 7 - A long rebuttal... 7 - Why is Fedora not free..
Total: 42 posts
That means that approximately 5.5% of the posts made in this period are what you consider inappropriate. Personally, I don't think this is a lot of posts considering that the gripe is merely that they are Off-Topic and even that point is arguable. Since they are in only 4 distinct threads which are labeled quite conspicuously and accurately, I would imagine that you can avoid reading those posts quite readily. I find it's a lot easier to simply not read what doesn't interest me - it requires a lot less effort than trying to get others to agree with my personal tastes in posts.
... And even if I'm wrong by an order of magnitude, and we are only talking about 10% of all the -users traffic, given the fact that these threads are off-topic to being with, this is way-too-much.
While I understand that some have an aversion to Off-Topic posts, I (and I hope many others do as well) have more of a problem with the 26 posts in the thread that complains about this very topic entitled "SHUT THE F*CK UP ALREADY...". I think if there's any general agreement on what is inappropriate, that's the kind of post that cries out for administrative attention.
I liken this whole situation to commercial television. Most of the time, not much interests me. When I do find something I like, I have to put up with a far greater percentage of commercials cutting into my program than OT posts cutting into my email management time of these Fedora lists. However, that's OK because I have learned to use my DVR appropriately so I can skip the stuff I don't want and watch the parts I do want. Is it perfect? Nope. Is it reasonable? Maybe. Is it asking too much? I really don't think so.
If people are being rude, that's one thing - they should be disciplined and/or removed. If the content of the posts doesn't violate the terms of the list, then I'm afraid you'll be stuck ignoring them just like I do. I wish there was a better answer, but taking a look at the big picture, it really isn't that hard of a problem to deal with if you just relax and read only what interests you. There is no horrific waste of bandwidth, nor is it difficult to delete or simply ignore those posts that lack the requisite appeal.
Besides, I don't really like discussions like this one any more than you seem to like Off-Topic posts. Already today, we have had 35 posts on the thread you started which is considerable when looking at the numbers of the posts you don't like over the entire 5 day period you mentioned. If I used your logic, then I am certainly justified to tell you to stop posting off-topic.
Get them to move to another list if you want to try, but please don't try to make a case for censoring conversations that are about Fedora and don't violate the terms of the lists on which they take place. Regardless of what your personal opinions are, it's really not fair to stop others from being able to read the content that appeals to them.
Tom
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 6:04 AM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. But not in -devel and not -users.
Just a point of fact... fedora-list is not spelled fedora-users-list. Perhaps the people are asking for the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Perhaps fedora-list is meant to be widely scoped, and perhaps people want a narrow list focused just on users. I wonder what such a list would end up being named?
I'll drop my hint just one more time. I'm perfectly happy to support the creation of lists for specific constructive purposes. If you feel fedora-list isn't servicing a specific purpose well, perhaps you and others can manage the creation of a new list, specific in scope, to the user issues that you actually care about, instead of attempting to muscle noisy discussions to a new place.
-jef
* Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 19:47]:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 6:04 AM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. But not in -devel and not -users.
Just a point of fact... fedora-list is not spelled fedora-users-list. Perhaps the people are asking for the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Perhaps fedora-list is meant to be widely scoped, and perhaps people want a narrow list focused just on users. I wonder what such a list would end up being named?
I'll drop my hint just one more time. I'm perfectly happy to support the creation of lists for specific constructive purposes. If you feel fedora-list isn't servicing a specific purpose well, perhaps you and others can manage the creation of a new list, specific in scope, to the user issues that you actually care about, instead of attempting to muscle noisy discussions to a new place.
Jeff,
Do you have a link to the documentation for how to do the creation request, the criteria and supporting docs required for it to be granted and what would be required to point new users at this new list for the location to go for technical help from users of Fedora, i.e. changing the wiki/website to point at the new list?
The way I read your response - you are stating that fedora-list is the "everything and the kitchen sink" list, and I believe that is a bit broad to point users at that need help or support.
Many thanks for your assistance.
/Anders "If Mohammed won't leave the mountain, the mountain will leave Mohammed"
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Anders Karlsson anders@trudheim.co.uk wrote:
Do you have a link to the documentation for how to do the creation request, the criteria and supporting docs required for it to be granted and what would be required to point new users at this new list for the location to go for technical help from users of Fedora, i.e. changing the wiki/website to point at the new list?
No I have no specific link, because I have never needed to create a list. Surely its not different than creating a SIG list.
The way I read your response - you are stating that fedora-list is the "everything and the kitchen sink" list, and I believe that is a bit broad to point users at that need help or support.
I am saying, that I require that people asking for new lists care about the subject matter of the new list and are going to be active participants and can be counted on to craft a productive list culture in the new list. The people currently having the noisy discussion in fedora-list could make a request for a fedora-policy-debate-list and I'd have a much easier time following up on that request, because it would be coming from the people who want to use the list. If the people currently in the discussion are having it in fedora-list because its the most subscribed list and are doing it there specifically to increase the changes of having a lot of people see their opinions... creating a separate list won't solve the trolling problem.
The issue of it being on-topic or off-topic for fedora-list is orthogonal to whether we should create separate list for the discussion. Someone who actually wants to use the dedicated list should be making the request.
-jef
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:27:38AM -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
The issue of it being on-topic or off-topic for fedora-list is orthogonal to whether we should create separate list for the discussion. Someone who actually wants to use the dedicated list should be making the request.
Good I'd like to request a list
fedora-useful
which is everything fedora-list is except the stupid politics
Alan
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:40 PM, Alan Cox alan@redhat.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:27:38AM -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
The issue of it being on-topic or off-topic for fedora-list is orthogonal to whether we should create separate list for the discussion. Someone who actually wants to use the dedicated list should be making the request.
Good I'd like to request a list
fedora-useful
which is everything fedora-list is except the stupid politics
Alan
/+65536
- Gilboa
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:50:16 +0300 gilboad@gmail.com ("Gilboa Davara") wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:40 PM, Alan Cox alan@redhat.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:27:38AM -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
The issue of it being on-topic or off-topic for fedora-list is orthogonal to whether we should create separate list for the discussion. Someone who actually wants to use the dedicated list should be making the request.
Just to throw in my 2 cents here:
I've been trying to help improve IRC support using the #fedora channel of late. I think we have made some progress. One of the things that I think has helped is to point folks who are not people with fedora related questions (Or those willing to assist them) to other venues.
I think this could be useful for the mailing list as well.
I would note that currently the fedora lists says:
"fedora-list -- For users of Fedora"
Which is a pretty wide open topic list.
Good I'd like to request a list
fedora-useful
which is everything fedora-list is except the stupid politics
Alan
/+65536
- Gilboa
I would suggest one of:
fedora-support or fedora-users-help or fedora-community-help
or something like those. Alternately, we could look at reusing the fedora-list, but then make a 'fedora-offtopic' or 'fedora-defocus' or 'fedora-advocacy' list for the non support lists.
Also, it would be good to narrow down the topic such as:
"Peer support for currently supported Fedora Releases"
I would love to see this setup and added into a Support SIG with the IRC helpers so both groups could share info and try to improve support in both places.
Any takers? I would be happy to help some, but my time is pretty streched already.
kevin
* Kevin Fenzi kevin@scrye.com [20080728 22:07]: [snip]
I would suggest one of:
fedora-support or fedora-users-help or fedora-community-help
or something like those. Alternately, we could look at reusing the fedora-list, but then make a 'fedora-offtopic' or 'fedora-defocus' or 'fedora-advocacy' list for the non support lists.
It's easier to move the support to a new dedicated list, than dislodge the advocacy group.
Also, it would be good to narrow down the topic such as:
"Peer support for currently supported Fedora Releases"
+1
I would love to see this setup and added into a Support SIG with the IRC helpers so both groups could share info and try to improve support in both places.
+1
Any takers? I would be happy to help some, but my time is pretty streched already.
I'll chip in and help. Workload is dropping *a little* at work, so I can spare some private time to help out. I'll make an effort to attend IRC as well, but the ML will probably be where I'll focus.
/Anders
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 8:46 PM, Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 6:04 AM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. But not in -devel and not -users.
Just a point of fact... fedora-list is not spelled fedora-users-list. Perhaps the people are asking for the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Perhaps fedora-list is meant to be widely scoped, and perhaps people want a narrow list focused just on users. I wonder what such a list would end up being named?
I'll drop my hint just one more time. I'm perfectly happy to support the creation of lists for specific constructive purposes. If you feel fedora-list isn't servicing a specific purpose well, perhaps you and others can manage the creation of a new list, specific in scope, to the user issues that you actually care about, instead of attempting to muscle noisy discussions to a new place.
-jef
Jef,
If it was up to me, people who misbehave, abuse or spam the ML would have been banned from fedora-* and forced to pay for the wasted bandwidth they consumed.... But that's me. However, I understand that we are living in an imperfect world that is being governed by a set of imperfect rules. As such, we are left with one of two choice: Continue being hammered by 100's of OT messages per day or get these discussions off-main-list. (Unless you're willing to give -me- the keys to the ML's - the peace loving dove that I am... :))
- Gilboa "One more GPL message and I'm switching to Windows 3.11 WFW" Davara.
On Jul 28, 2008, Andrew Haley aph@redhat.com wrote:
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
+1
I wonder why nobody's complaining about all this traffic on this non-technical thread on a list that people complained was supposed to be restricted to technical content. Heck, why was the discussion even started here? Double standards, as usual?
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Seems like that's the general feeling of those who demand silence about it. Perhaps a separate list named "fedora-truth" or "fedora-ethics", for this kind of discussion, would make it clear enough that truth and ethics are not welcome on other lists.
Or maybe the support list should be named fedora-immoralist ;-P :-D
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
Or maybe the support list should be named fedora-immoralist ;-P :-D
Or perhaps you could see that posting 200+ messages to a single thread (debating the nuances of the GPL and whether GNU/Linux is the proper name for the OS) on fedora-list over the past several weeks is just a little bit excessive?
If you'd been a long-time contributor on fedora-list it would be one thing (though still annoying). But as far as I can tell you haven't posted anything on fedora-list other than a religious-style holy crusade to convince everyone of the righteousness of your cause.
Perhaps if you continue to say it over and over and over no one will be left listening to argue with you? Hooray for your awesome powers of persuasion.
I feel sorry for the poor folks just learning linux that come to fedora-list for some help installing or using Fedora and have their mailboxes overrun with your philosophical debate.
Ok since I've talked about you Its right I should talk to you. (but just this once, I am a man of very few emails :-) )
On Tue July 29 2008 22:09:02 Alexandre Oliva wrote:
I wonder why nobody's complaining about all this traffic on this non-technical thread on a list that people complained was supposed to be restricted to technical content. Heck, why was the discussion even started here? Double standards, as usual?
Keep replying in this thread and see what happens. No double standards at all, the 'technical content' card is shown when discussion breaks down or has little or no relevance/benefit to day to day fedora or the un-stoppable force meets the un-movable object :-)
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Seems like that's the general feeling of those who demand silence about it. Perhaps a separate list named "fedora-truth" or "fedora-ethics", for this kind of discussion, would make it clear enough that truth and ethics are not welcome on other lists.
Or maybe the support list should be named fedora-immoralist ;-P :-D
I plan not to respond further in this thread and refer you back to the excellent post by Mr T Zullinger.
...dex
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Jul 28, 2008, Andrew Haley aph@redhat.com wrote:
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
+1
I wonder why nobody's complaining about all this traffic on this non-technical thread on a list that people complained was supposed to be restricted to technical content. Heck, why was the discussion even started here? Double standards, as usual?
Someone probably will...
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
Seems like that's the general feeling of those who demand silence about it.
Some people really don't want to see any discussion of the political/ ethical issues around free software, I suppose, and what it banished to a list they don't have to read.
More likely, however, is that people are using Thunderbird. Thunderbird doesn't by default have a "Delete Thread" button, so people are forced to select all the messages of a huge thread and delete them. Now you might argue that any mailer without a "Delete Thread" button simply isn't fit for purpose, and I would find it hard to argue with you, but that's the fact.
Andrew.
On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 10:16 +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Jul 28, 2008, Andrew Haley aph@redhat.com wrote:
It surely was on-topic here to talk about whether unfree binary blobs should be included in Fedora.
+1
Some people really don't want to see any discussion of the political/ ethical issues around free software, I suppose, and what it banished to a list they don't have to read.
These people should learn that much about using Linux, GNU, Fedora and more general, OSS and Free/Libre-SW is inevitably political.
Ralf
On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 10:16 +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
Some people really don't want to see any discussion of the political/ ethical issues around free software, I suppose, and what it banished to a list they don't have to read.
Nice straw man.
Some of us have have been involved in the FLOSS community for some time. Some of us settled our ideological positions decades ago, and have more productive things to do than suffer through the same old Frequently Waged Flamewars over and over again every time someone new comes along.
It's not that we don't care. Its that your radical ideas about the ethics of Free Software have already occurred to other people.
(...Who are much more eloquent, diplomatic and productive than you are.)
Callum Lerwick wrote:
On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 10:16 +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
Some people really don't want to see any discussion of the political/ ethical issues around free software, I suppose, and what it banished to a list they don't have to read.
Nice straw man.
It's not so much a straw man as a guess: I genuinely don't understand the problem, so I can only speculate.
Some of us have have been involved in the FLOSS community for some time. Some of us settled our ideological positions decades ago, and have more productive things to do than suffer through the same old Frequently Waged Flamewars over and over again every time someone new comes along.
It's not that we don't care. Its that your radical ideas about the ethics of Free Software have already occurred to other people.
*My* radical ideas? Now there's a straw man!
(...Who are much more eloquent, diplomatic and productive than you are.)
Huh?
Baffled, Andrew.
On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 09:35 +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
It's not that we don't care. Its that your radical ideas about the ethics of Free Software have already occurred to other people.
*My* radical ideas? Now there's a straw man!
Its a collective "you" to everyone who participates in such threads. A bit confusing, I guess.
(...Who are much more eloquent, diplomatic and productive than you are.)
Huh?
Well I sure ain't talking about myself... :)
* Alexandre Oliva [30/07/2008 00:24] :
I wonder why nobody's complaining about all this traffic on this non-technical thread on a list that people complained was supposed to be restricted to technical content. Heck, why was the discussion even started here? Double standards, as usual?
Common sense. The list moderators read this list but not fedora-list.
Do we really want to say that if any ethical question arises during discussion on Fedora lists, people may not address it?
To be honest, I lost intrest in the debate that went on in this list not because it was asking ethical question but because it devolved into a group of non-lawyers posting theirs opinions on a legal matter, all the while comparing writing Free Software to stabbing and shooting people.
Seems like that's the general feeling of those who demand silence about it. Perhaps a separate list named "fedora-truth" or "fedora-ethics", for this kind of discussion, would make it clear enough that truth and ethics are not welcome on other lists.
Since fedora-list is a general list, I think it makes perfect sense that topics that make up a significant amount of its trafic should get promoted to its own list. I'm sorry you feel otherwise.
Emmanuel
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 06:26 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 07:40:52AM +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
- Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com [20080728 06:47]:
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Gilboa Davara gilboad@gmail.com wrote:
Would it be possible to create a Fedora-policy ML and get people to stop spamming (either willingly or by using blacklists) the main MLs?
Basically you want a mailinglist for all the discussions that experienced users and contributors are tired of seeing repeated?
Jeff,
comp.os.linux.advocacy - something along those lines. If you call it "fedora-advocacy", "fedora-politics" or "fedora-welcome-to-where-idiots-roam", I don't really mind.
Seconded. I've given up on the fedora-list for the most part, and its driving users way from the Fedora project.
If there's anything driving people off it's the closed mindedness of the GNU-Stallman cult. That's why Ubuntu is kicking your a.
I don't care if its fedora-ranting, or just fedora-without-alexanfre-and-les we set up but soemthing needs doing before it has a debian-legal like toxic effect on the whole userbase
The "toxic effect" on the userbase is coming from the GNU fanatics. Again, that's why you're losing.
That or the fedora board could actually tell them to shut up and kick them off if they don't
But yet it's the realm of ideas and open discussion, is it not? Oh, sorry, as long as it's what the AC god wants to hear.
--LX