mailing-list reorganisation, round 4 on this list

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Hi!

Me again with the next round!

Thorsten Leemhuis schrieb:
> Thorsten Leemhuis schrieb:
>> second round in the process to solve the "we have to many mailinglists"
>> problem (first round starts at
>> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-December/msg00104.html
>> ; diff against first proposal:
>> http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThorstenLeemhuis/MailingListReorganization?action=diff&rev2=2&rev1=1
>> ).
> http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThorstenLeemhuis/MailingListReorganization
> Diff to previous:
> http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThorstenLeemhuis/MailingListReorganization?action=diff&rev2=5&rev1=2

And the next round -- I got a bit more audacious with this one and
propose to get rid of fedora-maintainers again. I know some people won't
like that, but I think it's the best.

Diff to last round:
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThorstenLeemhuis/MailingListReorganization?action=diff&rev2=6&rev1=5

Some replies to the mails from warren, jason and axel can be found at
the end.

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[[TableOfContents]]

= Mailing list reorganization =

A lot of people yelled "there are to many mailing lists; that is
contra-productive and leads to a lot of confusion" (this is the short
explanation without all the boring details). Thus the idea came up to
revisit the Fedora mailing lists that got created after Fedora was born
(that's years ago now!) and do some adjustments -- shut some down or
adjust there usage model mainly. That's needed in parts for the Core and
Extras merge in any case.

Site note: this is a complex task and we can't make everybody happy --
but we nevertheless need to adjust at least something with the new Core
and Extras merged world. The Fedora Board asked me, ThorstenLeemhuis
(thl), to drive this task.  You can find my proposal below, comments
appreciated. Feel free to write a counter proposal if you think I did
stuff wrong or if you think I ignored your comments ( I read them all,
but as I wrote: we can't make everyone happy -- but I'm trying my best
to find a compromise thats better than what we have today and is
acceptable for most of us).

----

== Shut down ==

Meaning: Send a EOL message with some informations to the list and
disallow further postings. Achieves remain accessible.

=== fedora-extras-list ===

Well, the "Core packages gets merged into the Extras framework" is
official -- thus discuss most of the stuff that was on
fedora-extras-list until now on fedora-packaging in the future, as there
won't be a "Extras" anymore soon. Some stuff might be suitable for
fedora-devel-list, too

=== fedora-test-list ===

A lot of people don't get the difference between fedora-devel and
fedora-test list and ask users support questions on fedora-devel. One of
the reasons for this is that it's not obvious what "testing" means.
Another reasons: we answered those users question on fedora-devel, even
if they were not on topic (and thus users asked again and again). And
the topics for -devel and -test are to similar; sometimes the same
things get discussed in parallel on both lists.

=== fedora-triage-list ===

Not used much anymore;  fedora-qa-list will take over the job (see below)

=== fedora-extras-commits ===

No extras anymore; send the stuff to fedora-cvs-commits in the future.
(see below)

----

== Create ==

We need some new lists, too.

=== fedora-qa-list ===

Rename fedora-triage-list to fedora-qa-list and use it for wwoods
efforts and his recruits. Will be created quite soon, probably before
this discussion is finished, because its badly needed.

=== fedora-project-list ===

We until now have no real list where Ambassadors, packagers,
programmers, art-people and other contributors can talk to each other
about general stuff that's important to the project as a whole without
getting lost in the noise or scared away with "this is off topic on this
list" calls. fedora-advisory-board somehow was this list until now in
parts, but it's moderated and thus even some project contributors that
were not subscribed feel excluded (bad).

Summaries from the project meetings (Ambassadors, Infrastructure, FESCo
successor) shall get send to the list so people know what's going on in
the project as a whole.

=== 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 (policy changes, announcements for mass rebuilds, ...) out
to all maintainers -- e.g. low traffic, normally less then 3-5 mails a
months. The plan is to subscribe users semi-automatically from the
accounts system to make sure we reach everyone.

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-devel; that list will also
get subscribed to fedora-maintainers-announce. Users can't unsubscribe
manually from fedora-maintainers-announce list -- being on it is
mandatory for all package contributors.

== Change policy ==

=== fedora-advisory-board ===

The list remains for now, but we want to move most of the discussion
into the border public. fedora-project should thus be used for most of
the stuff that got discussed on fedora-advisory-board in the past. But
the list will remain for the purpose it was created for: a communication
channel between important project contributors. We'll close it later if
we notice that this is not needed anymore (that what some people hope)

=== fedora-packaging-list ===

Until it was used for the Packaging Committee discussions mainly. But at
the same time the packaging committee sometimes missed things that were
brought up on fedora-extras-list; and cross-posting was sometimes
necessary, too, and created confusion. Thus with the dropping of
fedora-extras-list let's move its discussions here, to cover both
packaging in practice and the guidelines for it on one list.

=== fedora-cvs-commits ===

All commits should go here, but separated into channels  (web, docs, F7,
devel, ...), similar how we do it for how we do for
fedora-packaging-announce

----

== Rename ==

=== fedora-devel-list ===

Rename to fedora-devel-users. It shall to a major part replace
fedora-test-list.  Users can help each other here (and developers should
keep any eye on there, too) if they have problems with running
development or testing-channels. They can also discuss Fedora
development there freely.

=== fedora-maintainers ===

Rename to fedora-devel. Free to post for all fedora contributors (being
in ambassadors, mentors, packagers, ...). Moderated for the rest of the
world (we need a whole team of moderators for it). Be liberal and allow
good-guys to post without being moderated, even if they are no
fedora-contributors; that includes:

 * people that are well know and active in open-source land somehow

 * people who work on upstream apps we package

 * people that have shown to be constructive after their posts got
moderated for a while

Enforce the devel topics and never ever answer support questions on that
list -> those shall are on topic for fedora-devel-users.

----

== Not sure ==

There are some list where I'm not sure if we still need them and/or need
to adjust their policy.

=== fedora-games-list ===

Does it really make sense to have a mailing list for this particular
group of packages? The group itself shall please question that. IMHO
their stuff should be discussed on fedora-packaging; they can use a
[games] tag if they want to mark their stuff.

=== fedora-list ===

This is mostly a list where users help he other. fedora-users would thus
be a proper name that would make its use obvious.

=== fedora-desktop-list ===

Not much traffic. Either close or rename to fedora-devel-desktop, to
make its usage obvious.

=== fedora-r-devel-list ===

Not much traffic. Do we still need it? The group itself shall please
question the need for this list.

----

== Suggestions from the discussions ==


== Miscellaneous ==

=== Mailman guidelines ===

While at it let's define a standard look-and-feel for mailing lists,
too. (FIXME: some mailman experts around? Is this sane?). Mailing list
admins are strongly encouraged to follow this guidelines, but they don't
have to if there are good reason for it (no, "I don't like it" is not a
good reason!). Suggested setting (can all be found on the first mailman
settings page)

 * the reply-to should not be modified by mailman (first_strip_reply_to
= no)
 * the reply-to should point to the list (reply_goes_to_list = this list)
 * no explicit Reply-to-Address (reply_to_address = <empty> )
 * no tagging (subject_prefix = <empty> )

=== Legacy ===

Jesse will close fedora-legacy and fedora-legacy-announce in the near
future.

=== To -list or not to list ===

Some of our mailing lists have the "-list" postfix, other not. I think
all new lists should be created without it.

=== rawhide reports ===

We create another channel in fedora-package-announce where those kind of
reports get mailed to. Don't send them to any other lists.

Side note: A channel for the important packages might be helpful,
because the reports will get quite long in the future after the extras
and core merge. How about a channel that lists only changes in packages
that are part of our most important spins Gnome, KDE and Server?

== Notes ==

Ubuntu has similar problems; they splitted ubuntu-devel into
ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-devel-discuss:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-December/023022.html .
########################################################################



Warren Togami wrote:
> Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> > === 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.

And I think the -devel-list and test-list confusion really needs to be
sorted out. I'd IMHO one of the biggest problem we have. Maybe my new
model with fedora-devel-users matches your expectations better.

>> > === 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.

Agreed, I adjusted the text slightly. This is low priority IMHO.

>> > === 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.

Text adjusted as well. Members of the list should comment.

>> > === 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.

Agreed, because I think it's otherwise hightly confusing what gets
discussed on what list.

>  But 
> the signal/noise ratio there is now very bad even without 
> fedora-extras-list.

See proposal.

>> > === 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.

Well, nevertheless it seems there are still a lot of people active there :)

> 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.

There are people that want to use a mailing-list -- I for example hate
web-forums and would strongly prefer a list.

>> > === 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?

We can't force that in any case. Some will, and a lot of users will
probably help each other. That should suffice IMHO

[...]

Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 01:53:22PM -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
>>>>>>> > >>>>> "WT" == Warren Togami <wtogami at redhat.com> writes:
>> > [Regarding fedora-packaging]
>> > WT> How was the signal to noise ratio on this list?
>> > 
>> > fedora-packaging has always had a very high signal to noise ratio,
>> > since it's used primarily for Packaging Committee discussions.  If we
>> > lose it and it becomes difficult to perform committee business due to
>> > additional discussion on fedora-devel, there's a good chance that
>> > someone will just set up a private list elsewhere.  Many PC members
>> > are short on time as it is.
>> > 
>> > I believe that if you need a tag like "[packaging]" to differentiate
>> > traffic that the packaging committee needs to follow, then you've
>> > crammed too much stuff onto one list.
> I'd second keeping fedora-packaging as is. The charter is discussing
> about packaging, not (specific) packages.
> But Thorsten has a point: All packagers need to know what happens over
> there - same is true for some other lists, too.

Axel, tibbs, does the new idea (fedora-extras traffic mostly goes to
fedora-packaging to cover both packaging in practice and the guidelines
on one list) suite your needs better?

> So I suggest to have a developer/packager "announce" list, where
> various boards, sigs and so on can *tersly* communicate *results*,
> e.g.  important board/fesco decisions, packaging guidelines changes,
> infrastructure/buildsystem changes etc., but keep the discussions in
> separate lists as happens now. fedora-devel-news?

packaging guidelines changes -> fedora-maintainers-annouce

All the other stuff IMHO should be okay for fedora-devel.

> But before continuing on thinking about mailing lists structure,
> perhaps one should wait to see what the upcoming organisational
> structures will look like [...]

Yeah, might be a good idea.

CU
thl