Hello Dusty,
I'll keep this brief :D
Dusty Phillips wrote:
I really don't know how to write this message without actively
contributing to the problem I'm denouncing. I logged into my mail
today and read the attack on the newsletter, then logged into the
forum and read about Arch failing at distrowatch, and stopping gits
from selling your work for profit, then read the newsletter. This
after the rather interesting about liking peoples' online
personalities and a lot of political posts concerning AUR design, and
IRC or forum moderation.
I'm involved with all of that :D
I'm wondering where all this political discussion has come from.
Could it be me, could I be the dooming catalyst?
There have always been dissenting opinions on the direction Arch should go,
often accompanied by constructive discussion that eventually improves
Arch. But lately, the debates are over what appear to be very minor
details, and yet everyone joins in the discussion whole-heartedly, as
if deciding this particular issue is going to affect the very future
of our distro!
There have been many vague references to Arch being a 'growing
community' and experiencing 'growing pains'. This explanation makes
perfect sense on the surface. But take a look at any forum or mailing
list thread that has become a hot topic in recent weeks. The majority
of the posts tend to be made by relatively long-standing members of
the community. Members who have contributed a lot and have gotten
along for a long time are now engaging in the silliest arguments. Its
not caused by new members wanting to change everything about Arch --
such posts have always been and still are quickly shot down.
I'm not a sociologist, but after pondering this issue for a while, and
then watching the ant infestation crawling across my floor, I
experienced a flash of insight.
We discuss all these minor issues to death because most of the major
issues have been addressed.
That's right. We're destroying our community with these (often
ridiculous) discussions because we don't have anything better to fix
or complain about!
I think this is absolutely spot on! I'm bored!
An example, documentation: In the old days, people complained about
lack of documentation. When the wiki was created, the community
pitched in and created an amazing number of HOWTOs in a short amount
of time. That issue has been addressed, and with the new mature wiki
design, its a simple matter of maintenance.
Similarly with pacman, the kernels, dibble's kernel PKGBUILD, the
initscripts, our favourite live CD: Archie, and so on. None of these
things is perfect, of course, but all are maturing.
Yet we still look for issues to talk about. We appear to be a
garrulous lot who like to discuss. The problem is, we're discussing
such unimportant issues, and we're murdering them. We're fighting with
our friends over pennies.
I can't offer any resolution to this problem besides the obvious one
where everybody stops posting. How lonely is that? :-D I just wanted
to bring it to people's attention, I guess, so we stop blaming our
hypothetical 'growing community' for our problems (we're falling at
distrowatch, how can we be growing!?). I know this is going to prompt
a lot of discussion in itself, and I almost wish it wouldn't. But I
just couldn't keep shut. ;-) So perhaps I should promise, after all
this verbosity, not to respond to any replies.
I have also been trying to keep my post count down...though it might not
look like it :)
Dusty
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