Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 11:10 PM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen wrote:
>
>>              Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when
>> redirecting people with "user questions" away from this list, or
>> inspire them to write better bug reports.
>
> This won't come as a surprise given what I said at Git Merge: I'd
> rather we don't redirect people with user questions away from this
> list.  The current volume has been pleasant and manageable.
>

I see your point. And I do see this working out well for freshly
created open-source projects with low traffic mailing lists.

However, this is a high traffic list, and that has the disadvantage of
blending user questions into a majority of patch- and expert
discussion.

This makes it (a) harder for the user needing help to recognise
existing contexts, and (b) harder for "amateurs" like myself to spot
other users that I can easily help out.

And then there is the whole Majordomo blocking emails for various
reasons issue, HTML being one of several, ref
<http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html>. Here are some examples
of when we tried helping people on the Google Groups user list with
sending mail to this list:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/iiNBWq3_uUs/ke2eDiumPEsJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/eT_UDv7TpjY/CfYE8jHQ_vYJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/qibnKchBf6I/UPtv1_Ctxm4J
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/4KXBwBXNd5Q/4yuBELlc8lUJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Tl141kCJ45Q/-ToWHYfdmXEJ

And then there is the mental hurdle: I mean, I still consider it
intimidating to send mails to this list. A new user could in some
cases be terrified.

My personal reference are Apache projects: they always have one
dev-list, and a separate user-list. The key there is that the
user-list is adjacent to the dev-list, and all the devs (who are
interested) monitor the user-list closely.

So I'm historically/personally biased towards the dev/user split.
Perhaps you see this differently, and it is up to you (the consensus)
to choose what kind of traffic you want, or which behaviour you want
to discourage/encourage.

I'll also note the trend of how modern users are becoming less and
less users of email, turning to web-based forums instead for
assistance, and I enjoy the fact that Google Groups is an alternative
that offers seamless web- and email-based interaction.

To summarize: I think that usability problems of Majordomo have lead
you into a situation where you could consider embracing a user-list
like the one found at Google Groups.

Unless, of course, you believe that the users that make it through
here are a good representation of your user-base, and they provide
just enough input for you to steer the project forward. The rest of
the users in need of help, and I think that is a vast majority, will
find another outlet.

My own motivation is that I want all Git users to figure out their
problems as soon and as efficient as possible, and directing them to
the Google Group seems to be the best way IMHO.

> I especially disagree with
>
>         Generally speaking, Git has very few bugs, and if you're not
>         sure what you are doing, it's probably a user-issue, and not
>         an issue for the Git developers.
>
> User issues are an issue for git developers.  The hardest part of
> making git work well is getting it to match how humans work, not
> getting it to be technically correct or theoretically bug free.
>
> So if I were writing it, I'd drop everything up to "If you believe
> you've found a bug in Git for Windows".

I've removed that sentence, and reformulated the part below. I'll keep
the link to the Groups list and StackOverflow for reasons mentioned
earlier.

> Another alternate forum to point people to is #git on freenode.  It is
> reachable from https://webchat.freenode.net, so a person seeking quick
> help doesn't even have to set up an IRC client.

Thanks, I've added this.

> It might be nice to add a note to the "If you can find no existing
> discussions" paragraph: if there's been a previous discussion, it's
> fine to raise the subject again.  A good practice is to link to and
> summarize the previous discussion so people can learn from what has
> happened before.

OK, added.
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html




[Index of Archives]     [Linux Kernel Development]     [Gcc Help]     [IETF Annouce]     [DCCP]     [Netdev]     [Networking]     [Security]     [V4L]     [Bugtraq]     [Yosemite]     [MIPS Linux]     [ARM Linux]     [Linux Security]     [Linux RAID]     [Linux SCSI]     [Fedora Users]