Re: Proposal: Moving d-d-l to moderated until after GNOME 3 release

[Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl>]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2011 at 11:16:18AM +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> Olav, as list maintainer, what do you think? Do you need moderator
> volunteers to share the load, or is the current moderator team sufficient?

I'll follow whatever is best according to the intended audience of the
list. This including all the silent lurkers.

I don't believe in setting up an additional list or anything similar. We
had gnome-hackers (which I killed a while ago). Further, this is not a
new situation. From what I've gathered, GNOME has gone through a few
'devel' mailing list in the past; gnome-hackers being one of them.

Though experienced developers like Owen and Miguel have enough of a
thick skin to deal with public mailing lists, the intention of
desktop-devel-list is:
 "This is a development mailing list and, therefore, discussions relating
  to the development of the Desktop and Developer Platform are the only
  discussions on topic."
Emails which make developers feel worn down and result in loads of
chatter in #gnome-hackers are emails which I consider not beneficial
towards the goal of the mailing list.

My aim has been to only step in when really needed and use it as a last
resort. Meaning: I'd prefer people to just not respond to
'nonconstructive' emails.
Though often when emailing with someone privately, you can change their
tone. Just try to stay friendly and assume they mean well, even if their
tone might be very aggressive. Immediately alienating someone forever
just because of their initial tone seems to me as a too harsh treatment.

That said, I have no problems being stricter, but only if there is a
need for this (beneficial to the intended audience). And I don't mean
deciding this by voting and needing a majority.

I haven't seen anyone responding positively to your full moderation
suggestion. However, I do feel that there is a need for something less
invasive. Perhaps fast 'guidance' when needed.
I've tried to do this in the last thread (try to change the tone of the
conversation and warn when I think it is out of line). But it is pretty
difficult (need to respond quickly to a 'nonconstructive' email before
one of the 1208 other subscribers will). Plus I don't want emails
discussing whether one email is yes/no acceptable on the mailing list.

If nobody more says either publicly or privately to me that more change
is needed, I'll assume that what I currently do is enough. Then I
suggest that if someone feels things are out of line (or just heated)
and they haven't seen me responding to send me an email
(desktop-devel-list or any other list on gnome.org).

Other suggestions/feedback obviously welcome (though cannot make
everyone happy). But please don't refer to specific emails publicly
(will result in yes/no discussion).

PS: 'nonconstructive' I see as having different intensities. Some emails
are well intended, but just very strongly worded. It does not often
happen that the email is outright 'bad'.
-- 
Regards,
Olav