Hello everyone,
I just wanted to finally weigh in on this topic. For now I am
partially siding with Ben Shum in that we do not create a new list
because "silo'ing" concerns, but I always though that it was never
clear if I should use the dev or the general lists for my sysadmin
questions.
For example, see below for how the two lists are currently described
on the site
http://evergreen-ils.org/listserv.php
---------------
A) Evergreen General Discussion List
This is the general-topic, (usually) non-technical list for the
Evergreen community -- Evergreen users, librarians, library workers,
library users, developers, fellow travelers, or people just plain
curious about Evergreen. As of October, 2008, this list had over 500
members. Its traffic is moderate.
General means general. Posts range from discussions about possible new
features to quick questions about implementation. There is no such
thing as a "dumb" question or comment for the Evergreen general list.
If you're thinking the question, chances are, you're in good company.
Ask, and you give other members of the Evergreen community an
opportunity to share their growing knowledge.
B) Evergreen Technical Discussion List
This list is for patches and technical discussions about Evergreen and
OpenSRF development. Messages and responses are often in the shorthand
common to this culture.
----------------
So which ever way we go with this, I think we should make small
updates to the description of which ever lists that we end up with to
make it more clear where sysadmin questions should be send to.
Finally, thanks to Chris for setting up a meeting to talk about this.
Yamil
On May 1, 2012, at 12:14 PM, Ben Shum wrote:
I'm -1 to this proposal.
For many years, I've mused with other Evergreen system
administrators on the issues facing our particular role and areas
for discussion. The idea of making our own mailing list seemed like
a good idea at many points in those discussions, and if you asked me
a few years ago, I would have said yes.
But here are some potential concerns I have now:
While our role within our organizations may be to find the best
practices for implementing/running an Evergreen system (and all the
related areas of interest noted), we can also have a key role to
play in Evergreen's overall development. As system administrators,
we are often at the cutting edge of testing, bug reporting, and
troubleshooting how Evergreen performs in the field. We can provide
invaluable feedback to the Evergreen developers when we discuss our
sys-admin issues in the existing lists / IRC.
Creating a separate list introduces the possibility that more
information can become lost between groups if people do not
subscribe to every list. While of course, many of us would likely
be signed up to these multiple lists and potentially act as
representatives between groups, I do not like to see the burden of
communication between various lists/groups to become a necessary
conscious act on behalf of those subscribed to several lists.
Like say for example:
John Smith has an installation problem and mentions it only on the
sys admin list. But it turns out to be an actual issue with the
Evergreen code itself and we have to involve developers to get it
fixed for everyone in the community. Do we then have to take the
originally reported issue from the sys admin list and forward it to
the dev list and discuss solutions? The extra time and potential
for lost information/facts gives me concerns that having that extra
layer of communication may prove unwieldy.
Alternatively, what if someone posted a question to both mailing
lists (sys admin and dev) and different people respond on each
thread (based on whichever list they were subscribed) and the
conversation becomes fractured between two lists? How does
everything get put back together in a nice ordered way for the next
generation of users searching for information / learning.
To summarize, in my opinion, the system administrators while
definitely having their own set of issues and topics of discussion
are still a core part of the overall Evergreen development community
and we should participate using the same areas for discussion such
as the dev mailing list and IRC so that we don't miss anything or
leave anything out of the mainstream Evergreen community. The main
thing I would want to change at this point in time is perhaps the
wording used to describe the dev mailing list to expand beyond just
technical code/patches, but to be a broader description and
reinforce the "technical discussion list" title. Unless of course,
the developers tell us that they'd prefer to keep that list to
talking only about real development only... ;)
-- Ben
On 4/30/2012 8:11 PM, Justin Hopkins wrote:
We just wrapped up the post-conference systems administrator
training,
which was awesome. Afterwards we were talking about the utility of a
new discussion list focused on Evergreen systems administration.
I think the topic is deep enough to warrant a list, and if this group
is any indication there is also sufficient interest. Systems
administration (troubleshooting server config issues,
installing/setting up Evergreen, using git, performance tuning,
network issues, cluster configuration, security, etc) seems to be an
area that deserves it's own forum. I've received plenty of great help
on those topics in IRC, which I'm very appreciative of, but let's
face
it - IRC is and probably always will be the domain of developers.
I'm hoping that if enough people on this list express an interest
that
someone (Chris Sharp?) could create such a list. So let's hear it
sysads - should we create the "missing list"?
Regards,
Justin Hopkins
Coordinator, IT& Web Services
MOBIUS Consortium Office
c: 573-808-2309
--sent from a mobile device--
--
Benjamin Shum
Open Source Software Coordinator
Bibliomation, Inc.
32 Crest Road
Middlebury, CT 06762
203-577-4070, ext. 113
