mailing-list reorganisation, round 3 on this list

[Warren Togami]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> 
> == Shut down ==
> 
> Meaning: Send a EOL message with some informations to the list and
> disallow further postings. Achieves remain accessible.
> 
> === fedora-packaging-list ===
> 
> Packaging is important to all package maintainers. Everyone should get
> involved and see the discussions and at least see the topics being
> discussed, thus do it directly on fedora-devel (e.g. in the public where
> everybody can post). Use a special tag like "[packaging]" to mark the
> mails if there really is a need to differentiate.

How was the signal to noise ratio on this list?  If it remained on-topic 
without noise, then it may be effective to keep it.  Mixing it into 
fedora-devel-list might make discussion on this topic more difficult due 
to all the noise.

> 
> === fedora-extras-list ===
> 
> Well, the "Core packages gets merged into the Extras framework" is
> official -- thus discuss the stuff that was on fedora-extras-list until
> now on fedora-devel in the future, as there won#t be a "Extras" anymore
> soon.

fedora-extras-list historically had a pretty good signal to noise ratio. 
  It will be heavily diluted if merged.  But yes, logically it makes no 
sense to keep it separate anymore given Fedora 7.

Design of the policy and enforcement of "development discussion only" 
will need to be the top priority if fedora-devel-list and 
fedora-extras-list are merged.

> 
> === fedora-test-list ===
> 
> A lot of people don't get the difference between fedora-devel and
> fedora-test list. And testing is a crucial part of the devel process,
> thus lets drop the test-list.

However... we don't want to redirect all of the end-users test 
discussion to fedora-devel-list.  fedora-devel-list + fedora-extras-list 
would be pretty heavy even if it stuck to only development related 
discussions.

I advise strongly against doing this.  Please leave this one alone for now.

> 
> === fedora-maintainers-announce ===
> 
> Created already, but not uses until now. This is not a real mailing list
> for discussion, it's rather meant as a way to get really important
> information out to all maintainers -- e.g. low traffic, normally less
> then 3 mails a months. The plan is to subscribe users semi-automatically
> from the accounts system.
> 
> Some people question the use of this list; they want people subscribed
> to fedora-maintainers instead. But important informations can get lost
> there in the noise easily, and that would be bad. And some of our
> maintainers (e.g. upstream maintainers that co-maintain the fedora
> package) are not interested in all those discussions that happened on
> fedora-maintainers in the past.
> 
> Reply-to of this list will be set to fedora-maintainers. No monthly
> mailinglist-reminder. fedora-maintainers gets subscribed to
> fedora-maintainers-announce

FESCO made a decision to use it.  Just do it.  Allow people a way to 
opt-out if they follow fedora-maintainers, or make sure there aren't 
duplicates (parent/child list), and things should be fine.

> 
> === fedora-desktop-list ===
> 
> 
> Now traffic. Do we really need it?

Attitudes about how it is run and where leadership & direction must come 
up need to change in order for this list to become useful.

> 
> === fedora-games-list ===
> 
> Does it really make sense to have a mailing list for this particular
> group of packages?

Is it active?  Are they doing useful work?  If so, let them do it. 
Otherwise ask them if they think it should be shut down.

> 
> === fedora-maintainers ===
> 
> Open fedora-maintainers to all project contributors -- e.g. those from
> other projects like arts, docs, infrastructure, ambassadors, ...? Or
> will fedora-project serve this purpose?
> 
> Some people requested a way to have a mailing list where only packagers
> discuss stuff. But is it really a big help? It leads to fragmentation
> again as it might easily happen that we discuss stuff on
> fedora-maintainers in a semi-official way that would be more suitable
> for fedora-devel *because* everyone can participate there. Comments?

If fedora-devel-list managed to keep 100% on-topic without end-user 
complaints, it might be manageable to use exclusively that list.  But 
the signal/noise ratio there is now very bad even without 
fedora-extras-list.

> 
> === fedora-list ===
> 
> This is mostly a list where users help he other. fedora-users-list or
> fedora-help-list would thus be a proper name that would make its use
> obvious.
> 
> But renaming this list is probably not worth the trouble.

This list has long ago been so heavy and full of crap that its 
usefulness is poor to end-users.  A new user learning Linux can be 
easily scared by the huge deluge of mail.

We would be better off redirecting people to a better end-user mutual 
support site like fedoraforum.org.  The web board medium is much better 
suited to most end users.

> 
> === fedora-devel-help ===
> 
> A lot of developers get annoyed if users ask on the devel list for help
> (even if the questions are specific to the devel-tree. Most users of the
> devel tree on the other hand probably are not much interested in the
> discussions on fedora-list and won#t find help there.
> 
> Maybe try to separate those questions to their own list? We would need
> to enforce that (e.g. never answer those question on fedora-devel).

Will developers pay attention?

> 
> === fedora-cvs-commits ===
> 
> Could we use that for all commits and seperate the stuff (web, docs, F6,
> devel, ...) with channels? Similar to how it is done for
> fedora-packaging-announce?

This should be easy.

> == Suggestions from the discussions ==
> 
>  * rsc wants to get the daily developments reports, but does not what to
> subscribe to fedora-devel; can we create another channel in
> fedora-package-announce that mails the reports in addition to fedora-devel?

Daily development reports should be mailed to individuals if it requires 
their personal attention.  Otherwise it should be something individuals 
can subscribe to separately if they don't want to follow the big & noisy 
list.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com