Brian Harring wrote:
Guess I'll be the killjoy, and throw in the -1 on it.
Reasons are pretty straightforward (at least to me):
1) Creating such channels is just attempting to shift the problem out
of sight.
Not out of sight, just to an arena where it is more suitable. When I joined
Gentoo long ago, I was told that there were two required mailing lists that we
had to be on: gentoo-core, for private, developer-only discussion whose contents
are (normally) kept from the prying eyes of our endearing public, and
gentoo-dev, a developer/user mailing list for development-related questions
regarding all things Gentoo.
When -dev evolved/de-evolved (your pick) into being technical && non-technical
in nature, I'm not sure. I was either asleep, or entertaining myself with other
things. If I had to haphazard a guess, I think it simply "Just Happened"
because all devs are automatically subscribed, therefore, when someone has
something to say, they stand a high probability of it getting heard by a lot of
people. No point in tootin' off your horn if no one's around to hear, ja ne?
2) Shifting said problem into a concentrated arena means the incidence
of idiot conflicts/trolling/needling/whatever is likely to increase
This is possible, but I'll point out that one can also have non-technical talk
about all things Gentoo without everyone de-evolving into little charmanders
about it. Quipping an example from the debian-project ML, a discussion on the
validity of Condorcet voting would be a non-technical topic of discussion that
can be discussed (hopefully without igniting). And that is a topic I know we've
broached before.
If people just act like adults for once, we can actually keep the flames
controlled. Note that I'm not saying it'll stop the flames, only that they can
be controlled.
3) said increase means proctors/devrel have more work (meaning more
random outbursts at the proctors/devrel when folks realize that they
*are* going to enforce the behaviour rules, and that the outburstes
can be punished too).
Not many people like authoritative figures, no matter the uniform or creed. I
guess it's just how we're wired. Free Will and all that jazz. Frankly, no
matter what an authority-empowered group does, whether it is for good intentions
or not, someone out there will cry foul about it, and raise a whole lot of
ruckus over it. devrel's not perfect, but they're not inherently evil or
anything either. They're given a task to do, and why people make such a fuss
over it baffles me. I guess that's why I tend to not pay attention to those cases.
4) look through -dev history; the issue isn't OT discussion, it's
people needling/harassing/trolling/(chose your verb) kicking off yet
another "mine is bigger" last word battle on the ml.
It's competition, at the core. No one likes draws, ties, or even photo
finishes, let alone losing. They like to win, and win by a large margin. If
someone tries to slip the last word in to get them over that virtual finish
line, rest assured someone else is gonna fire off an even more last word just to
one up them, and when we're talking mere microts from the finish line, sometimes
the gloves come off.
Besides, it's not like a +2 Great Darkwood Crossbow of Acid is all _that_
expensive. Probably a pain in the neck to load (and the kickback has to hurt),
but well it just means you need to level up some more :)
Basically, what does this solve? If the intention is to create an OTW
equivalent for the forums, sure, go nuts, but I strongly doubt it'll
improve things on -dev.
So what is the explicit purpose of this? Honestly assumed it was just
a joke at debians expense initially, but folks seem to be serious
about it...
I didn't intend it as a joke. Yes, I interspersed some sarcasm in my original
response (As I often do in many of my responses), but that doesn't detract from
the seriousness of it. Put honestly, I don't really read -dev any more. I
barely even glance at -core. I've missed stuff like new USE flags, interesting
GLEPs, new devs coming in, old devs going out, etc. Why?, because the signal to
noise ratio was worse than my cable connection on a bad day, and at some point,
I just got turned off by it all. Probably much in the same way why I don't pay
much attention to the wars going on the world. Right now, I find news reports
on changes in traffic patterns to be more exciting.
And I looked to debian for inspiration on this because they've had problems like
this before. A few of their developers sit in the linux-mips channel, and while
I don't know what lists they're all on, one of their devs told me debian-project
is one he stays away from. I guess I'm a bit like them; I like the technical
discussions more than the expertly-crafted responses tossed back and forth in
the many flame wars that pop up on here. And so, I decided to do something
about it for once.
--Kumba
--
Gentoo/MIPS Team Lead
"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands
do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond
--
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