I did not see it so I think it must be in moderation. I'll try to figure out who are moderators on the list.
Rich On Wed, May 6, 2026, 19:59 Philippe Cloutier <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Rich, > > I sent the following to [email protected] a few days ago, but can't > see it in the archives yet, and I didn't receive any kind of reply. Yet, > multiple much newer emails show. > I don't see that this is tracked. This could correspond to > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-23353 but this is hard to > tell without some understanding of the problem's nature. > I am sorry to bother you, but did you receive my email? In case you did > not, please Cc the list when replying, I would like to see if your mail > displays and whether that could be specific to my account/provider (I am > not sure I ever wrote to an Apache mailing list before). > > -------- Forwarded Message -------- > Subject: Confessions, excuses and [pretend] recruitment advice from a > serial bugger > Date: Sun, 3 May 2026 20:59:33 -0400 > From: Philippe Cloutier <[email protected]> <[email protected]> > Reply-To: Philippe Cloutier <[email protected]> <[email protected]>, > Apache httpd documentation <[email protected]> <[email protected]> > To: Apache httpd documentation <[email protected]> > <[email protected]> > > Greetings―ahem―everyone―ahem―, > > I have been administering various httpd websites for a couple decades. As > you may know, it's quite difficult to configure httpd without documentation > unless you master it, so I consulted documentation many times over the > years and thank you for your involvement. > > I have contributed to httpd during that time as I stumbled upon various > issues, but all my contributions have been via issue tracking, which is not > always so efficient. Someone pretty well known to this project suggested I > join this mailing list, which I chose not to do. And reiterated after I > filed more tickets. > > httpd and the Apache project in general have been fundamental in my life > (as for many others) and it is an honor to contribute and to receive such > an invitation. I think we can agree that the situation is not ideal: > > - The rewriting documentation had/has a lot of issues. > - There have been very few people contributing to httpd documentation. > - Filing 1 ticket per (few) problem(s) is inefficient, both for me and > committers. > - Reviewing changes is complicated without an account/checkout (but > see https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=60377#c12) > > I am sorry if filing that many tickets is annoying. But as I explained, > most of the httpd issues I reported so far came from various mandates where > I administered httpd. Changes in my roles and in the landscape mean I am > much less likely to be in charge of major services/applications based on > httpd, and I expect both my interest in and my mastery of httpd to keep > declining. I do not intend to abandon my rewriting crusade until I (and > hopefully everyone) understand reasonably well how it works, but I am less > likely to start new crusades, and I cannot win this one alone. > > It is not realistic for me to jump in and do all I can to advance this. In > many cases, I am able to point out incorrect or confusing parts, but I lack > the knowledge to do more than suggesting solutions. I also do not speak > English natively; I could fix a few mistranslations in French, but these do > not abound. I also never worked with the manualpages document type. > > I am already subscribed to too many mailing lists, some I should have > unsubscribed from years/months ago, so I cannot afford to subscribe to this > one; please Cc me in case you think this deserves a reply. > Recruitment advice > > Of course, making proposals cheaper would help, but it is surely late to > move rewriting documentation to the wiki, even if that was a good idea. > > The documentation index already has a clear call: > > We'd love to have your help to improve the docs. > > > What else could be done so that more people with more experience and > resources/interest than I do join, and are motivated to keep contributing? > > 1. Commenting on commits à la GitHub/GitLab would of course help, but > requires a huge effort. > 2. Possibly reworking the "Report a bug" link? Just labelling "Report > an issue or propose an improvement" might be a start. > 3. My perception is that the rewriting documentation is particularly > complicated. Perhaps adding a call for direct contribution specifically on > rewriting pages could help recruiting. > Thinking about this further, rewriting is probably one of the topics > which are themselves complicated, but one issue I *suspect* with its > *documentation* which may multiply this is that it was never fully reviewed > by a second person. Somehow conveying that to the reader could entice such > a person to get involved. I can think of 2 options: > 1. Adding some warning on unreviewed pages > 2. or just adding a list of authors and reviewers of each page. > When there are no reviewers, this could show display some “Be the > first.”-ish invitation. This option would have the benefit of crediting > those involved (yes, there is already a global page for that, but I only > saw it for the first time yesterday, and it is not complete). > 4. The previous point got me thinking about credit. It was 2 decades > ago that 4 keystrokes/clicks from Firefox would allow one to see my name, > and I still remember the pride which the young adult I was felt from that. > Now, I fully agree that maintaining credits which gives everyone their due > share manually takes time, and automating is tricky. Something like what > displays at the top of > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/HTTPD/RewriteRule is a > good start, without being too distracting. > Yes, I do realize this is likely to be brushed off as “would have been > great if today's (tomorrow's?🙄) CMSs had been available ~3 decades ago.😒 > > > Sorry for not being more helpful, and thank you for your involvement > > -- > 🅭🄍: https://www.philippecloutier.com/Common+infrastructure+licensing#list > > Philippe Cloutier > >
