I'm a bit confused by some of the last few messages in this thread. I haven't heard anyone suggesting that anyone be excluded from anything.
Dave and Rob are right to point out that projects go through phases. What's more, the kind of communication appropriate to one phase may not be as useful at another. I have no reason to suppose that Jena's community is growing wildly (great though that would be!) but I'm confident that it is growing. From my experience with open source work, the kinds of communication that are useful for a project that involves (say) a few researchers at one or two universities is not appropriate for a project in production at hundreds of sites, and all along the spectrum in between styles and means of communication need to adapt. That's what I think is being pointed out here: far from pushing people away, we need to be developing new ways to be welcoming. In that wise, Stian's ideas are really on-point, I think. I have been involved with a few communities that have set up (with varying success) "beginner in the community" email lists. Those are lists wherein it is explicitly understood that no question is bad and no assumptions should be made about questioner's backgrounds. It's a good way to "factor out work" and a way to encourage folks who may not feel that they have enough deep knowledge to answer difficult questions to still participate answering simpler questions and thereby grow their own skills. That might or might not be appropriate for Jena, but it's meant as an example of communications that might only become appropriate as a community grows. --- A. Soroka The University of Virginia Library > On Oct 24, 2016, at 5:29 AM, Rob Vesse <[email protected]> wrote: > > Totally agree with Dave here > > We always get phases of this kind of traffic. And whatever project you are > talking about there will always be users who try to run before they can walk. > This problem is not unique to our community, nor to the Apache foundation as > a whole. You will encounter this whether you are running a small open source > project or maintaining a large commercial project. > > Yes we can probably be a little more robust in reminding people about how to > ask the questions. Note that we already have guidelines on asking good > questions on our website: > > http://jena.apache.org/help_and_support/index.html > > Some people are never going to read these, some people will never read the > manual either however much you refer them to it. That is unfortunately life. > > This is supposed to be an inclusive community, we shouldn’t be excluding > people just because they don’t have years of experience of a software > engineer and the concept of MVCE drilled into them yet such that they know > how to ask a good question first time every time. Yes we should encourage > them to seek help in more appropriate ways and direct them to resources that > help them to ask better questions. But we shouldn’t turn them away because > they don’t meet some ideal about the level of discourse. > > When you were a student would you have asked any better questions? > > Please bear in mind that many of us benefited from western education systems > with relatively small class sizes and good access to one-to-one > tuition/assistance. Often these kinds of questions are coming from students > in education systems with huge class sizes and very little access to > one-to-one tuition/assistance. Nobody learns to ask good questions without > first asking bad questions, and some people take longer than others to get > how to ask good questions. > > No one is forcing any others to read through these kinds of questions yet > many others continue to do so because we care about this project and > encouraging the community around it. People are free to filter and consume > this list as they want, if there are particular uses whose questions > frustrates you no one is stopping you from filtering those emails in your > chosen email client. > > Rob > > On 24/10/2016 09:10, "Dave Reynolds" <[email protected]> wrote: > > There have been student questions on the jena users list since long > before Jena moved into Apache. While there's a burst at the moment I > don't see it as particularly worse than historic levels. > > In the past sometimes teachers have stepped in and stopped it, sometimes > not. > > I'm not convinced that the number of such questions at the moment is so > great as to be a problem for other subscribers. > > It is fine for the list to simply ignore the really poor/off-topic > questions, especially from serial offenders. I would not be keen any > more active steps such as "publishing rules" unless the problem were > more acute than it seems to be. > > Dave > > On 23/10/16 23:06, Stian Soiland-Reyes wrote: >> OK, I think that is a good idea to get in touch with the teachers; perhaps >> so they can give us an advance notice and we can understand what their >> course is meant to teach. So a more friendly request for the teachers to >> get in touch (or we ask directly the name/email of their teacher), but >> without the "so you stop irritating us" bit :-). Presumably the teachers >> dont want us to do the assignment for their students! >> >> There could even be opportunities to do like a webinar or video with a >> short Jena intro, there are is probably some material from Elixir's Bring >> Your Own Data training events and similar that we could link to; if the >> teachers have better background materials and tutorials it can hopefully >> reduce our email load. >> >> On 23 Oct 2016 10:43 pm, "A. Soroka" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>>> Then there are the obvious school examples, which seem to ask us the >>> actual assignment rather than Jena questions. It is fair for us to dodge >>> those, but perhaps in a less hostile way. >>> >>> It seems to me that this is the entire question: there aren't really the >>> kinds of problems Colin Maudry raised _except_ with these examples. And the >>> messages that worry me are not the initial questions that amount to "please >>> do my assignment" but the fact that helpful voices on the list give in >>> response to such questions good advice and next steps which are repeatedly >>> ignored. >>> >>>> I think we are friendly (perhaps sometimes too helpful!), but I wouldn't >>> go to a "go away and talk to your teacher" route, but rather in general >>> respond with what is expected of a good question and what the poster should >>> try first. >>> >>> I'm not sure if this particular remark is in response to my suggestion, >>> but just in case, I will clarify: I don't want to tell the students to go >>> away, I want to tell them to ask their teacher(s) to contact Jena directly >>> (instead of inadvertently and indirectly by giving assignments that show up >>> immediately as questions on the user list), hopefully to help create a more >>> appropriate kind of engagement for their students with the Jena community. >>> >>> --- >>> A. Soroka >>> The University of Virginia Library >>> >>>> On Oct 23, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Stian Soiland-Reyes <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Agree to not go too aggressive in general, it could also strike down >>> users >>>> who like Jena as a tool (remember we have command lines and servers!) or >>>> have been recommended Jena, but who have not before used Java as >>>> programming language before. Here, tutorials and examples is what we >>> should >>>> point to. >>>> >>>> Then there are the obvious school examples, which seem to ask us the >>> actual >>>> assignment rather than Jena questions. It is fair for us to dodge those, >>>> but perhaps in a less hostile way. Many students and researchers I have >>>> interviewed in the Big Data community say they struggle to post their >>>> questions on mailing lists for the tools they use, as they get hammered >>>> down for basically not being geeky enough. Consequently they don't come >>>> back when their skill sets have improved and they could potentially have >>>> contributed back. >>>> >>>> Also remember that students have perhaps never before used a public >>> mailing >>>> list and already struggle to separate what is RDF, what is OWL, what is >>>> Java, what is Jena, what is just a bug in their own code. >>>> >>>> I think we are friendly (perhaps sometimes too helpful!), but I wouldn't >>> go >>>> to a "go away and talk to your teacher" route, but rather in general >>>> respond with what is expected of a good question and what the poster >>> should >>>> try first. Point to gist.github.com or similar as a way to paste code >>>> rather than getting it in the abstract ("I tried setting the literal") >>>> helps a lot. >>>> >>>> Also I think we can reply shorter (but friendly) as a bounce, rather >>> than a >>>> complete reply to help them with the more obvious assignment side. We can >>>> point to tutorials for coding as well; Software Carpentry has many great >>>> starting points. >>>> >>>> On 23 Oct 2016 7:43 pm, "Paul Houle" <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I find this thread disturbing. Many people in the RDF community have >>>>> worked a long time and it's just recently that the uptake has broadened >>>>> (people are looking at JSON-LD and starting to understand what it means, >>>>> not what any particular authority says that it means, but what it >>>>> actually means.) >>>>> >>>>> I do believe that problems should be made reproducable and as a group we >>>>> could industrialize that. For instance, a test project that can be >>>>> forked in github would be a great place to put in a query, put in a >>>>> graph, and then put in some rules at which point they could ask good >>>>> questions. >>>>> >>>>> I carefully read the answers to the bad questions because I am intensely >>>>> curious about strange details in Jena that trip people up. >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Paul Houle >>>>> [email protected] >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Oct 23, 2016, at 06:07 AM, Colin Maudry wrote: >>>>>> Dear Jena developers, >>>>>> >>>>>> Upon Andy Seaborne’s suggestion, I would like to share with you a >>>>>> concern we have with certain posts shared on [email protected]. >>>>>> In the last couple months, we have seen certain users repeatedly >>> sending >>>>>> questions that are either: >>>>>> >>>>>> * hardly related to Jena and Fuseki >>>>>> * very basic questions about RDF or SPARQL >>>>>> * betraying the lack of common knowledge in Java programming and >>>>>> coding good practice in general >>>>>> >>>>>> What’s worse, these users, in spite of repeated remarks, keep on being >>>>>> very vague in their questions, requiring the most patient subscribers >>> to >>>>>> ask many questions just to obtain a decent understanding of the >>> problem. >>>>>> A problem that is, again, often not much related to Jena or Fuseki. >>>>>> >>>>>> As a subscriber, I’m tired of their consistent failure to propose clear >>>>>> and concise questions and I wish the patient people who answer them >>>>>> spend their mailing time on more interesting threads. I also fear it >>>>>> makes certain subscribers silently go away because of this “noise”. >>>>>> >>>>>> I first thought of publicly complaining to these users, but I thought >>>>>> that the managers of the Jena lists should discuss it and take the >>>>>> appropriate measures. >>>>>> >>>>>> My suggestion is to: >>>>>> >>>>>> * inform the subscribers of an upcoming enforcement of the publishing >>>>>> rules (relevance, clearness, completeness, etc.) >>>>>> * stop answering the vague/off-topic/badly presented questions >>>>>> * if they insist, remind them the topic of the list and good practices >>>>>> in problem reporting, and warn them of a possible ban. >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for your attention, >>>>>> >>>>>> Colin Maudry >>>>>> https://twitter.com/CMaudry >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> >> > > > > >
