Re: Revitalizing the Urban Center of GNOME

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org>]

Hi Mark,

On Thu, 2005-02-17 at 14:46 +0000, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Hi Christian,
> 
> On Thu, 2005-02-17 at 13:56 +0100, Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller wrote:
> > What would help the problem a lot is if debates go more into specific
> > sublists instead of going onto desktop-devel. One of the main reasons
> > for this is that for many sub-projects the relevant maintainers are not
> > on the relevant lists. I find it kinda pathetic for instance that
> > someone who proclaims himself Lord of the Theme is either not subscribed
> > to or at least have never posted to the gnome-themes list, and through
> > that is forcing theme discussions onto desktop-devel. Similar problems
> > for other sub-projects, which together collate into desktop-devel
> > getting flooded.
> 
> 	That's a given, but I do find it understandable that when a list
> becomes as dead as gnome-themes-list is, people naturally move away from
> using it. Part of fixing the desktop-devel-list problem should involve
> re-vitalising those other lists, but ...
Why is this understandable? The volume on librsvg-devel is about maybe 2 mails a month.
That doesn't mean that Caleb and Dom either not stay subscribed or
ignore messages on it.

> > Maintainers actually being part of the subproject they pretend to
> > maintain instead of screaming murder on 'global' lists would do more 
> > for this problem I think than lots of 'shut up' messages sent to
> > desktop-devel or gnome-hackers.
> 
> 	... lets not kid ourselves - we don't want to just split up the volume
> of mail amongst many lists, we want to solve the social problems that
> make it difficult for hackers to have clear lines of communication.
Splitting the volume would mostly solve the problem as each of us would not get 
all messages on all topics. Just the messages relating to the topics we
are subscribed too. Maybe some subtopic's still needs people showing
mailing restraint, but that it not so easy to judge before the mails
actually go to relevant lists.


> 	To give an analogy - if this was a BOF at GUADEC, we started talking
> about themes and everyone started shouting their opinion, it wouldn't be
> long before someone stood up an shut the thing down. That person
> wouldn't tell everyone who wanted to talk about themes to go to another
> room. He'd either gather the stakeholders together in the hallway and
> have the discussion or make it very clear that people need to restrain
> themselves.
Can't see how this analogy is analogical of anything related to this
discussion. The problem is not the themes BOF discussing themes, its
about discussing themes (and other topics) in the BOF meant for
discussing cross-module cooperation. If we look at the separate topics
being discussed on desktop-devel, I think that if we look at the issue
over a year there is no topic that is 'overdiscussed', the problem is
that they tend to 'all' get discussed on desktop-devel undermining the
real purpose of desktop devel.   

> 	(Also, its not hard to see that its really Seth's "I am Lord of the
> Theme" mail that you have a problem with here - better to just sort that
> issue out than clouding this one.)
No, its more Seth providing me with a perfect example of why we have
these problems through his actions.

Anyway I have stated my opinion on this subject and will leave it at
this. Think I have made my point, and if I haven't I probably will
continue failing to do so by further mails.

Christian