More likely your post was too long... :-( On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 7:00 PM, Kevin Ollivier < kevin-li...@theolliviers.com> wrote:
> Hi Guido, > > From: <gvanros...@gmail.com> on behalf of Guido van Rossum < > gu...@python.org> > Reply-To: <gu...@python.org> > Date: Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 5:27 PM > To: Kevin Ollivier <kevin-li...@theolliviers.com> > Cc: Python Dev <python-dev@python.org> > Subject: Re: [Python-Dev] Discussion overload > > Hi Kevin, > > I often feel the same way. Are you using GMail? It combines related > messages in threads and lets you mute threads. I often use this feature so > I can manage my inbox. (I presume other mailers have the same features, but > I don't know if all of them do.) There are also many people who read the > list on a website, e.g. gmane. (Though I think that sometimes the delays > incurred there add to the noise -- e.g. when a decision is reached on the > list sometimes people keep responding to earlier threads.) > > > I fear I did quite a poor job of making my point. :( I've been on open > source mailing lists since the late 90s, so I've learned strategies for > dealing with mailing list overload. I've got my mail folders, my mail > rules, etc. Having been on many mailing lists over the years, I've seen > many productive discussions and many unproductive ones, and over time you > start to see patterns. You also see what happens to those communities over > time. > > On the mailing lists where discussions become these unwieldy floods with > 30-40 posts a day on one topic, over time what I have seen is that that > rapid fire of posts generally does not lead to better decisions being made. > In fact, usually it is the opposite. Faster discussions are not usually > better discussions, and the chances of that gem of knowledge getting lost > in the flood of posts is much greater. The more long-term consequence is > that people start hesitating to bring up ideas, sometimes even very good > ones, simply because even the discussion of them gets to be so draining > that it's better to just leave things be. As an example, I do have work to > do :) and I know if I was the one who had wanted to propose a fix for > os.urandom or what have you, waking up to 30 messages I need to read to get > caught up each day would be a pretty disheartening prospect, and possibly > not even possible with my work obligations. It raises the bar to > participating, in a way. > > Perhaps some of this is inherent in mailing list discussions, but really > in my experience, just a conscious decision on the part of contributors to > slow down the discussion and "think more, write less", can do quite a lot > to ensure the discussion is in fact a better one. > > I probably should have taken more time to write my initial message, in > fact, in order to better coalesce my points into something more succinct > and clearly understandable. I somehow managed to convince people I need to > learn mail management strategies. :) > > Anyway, that is just my $0.02 cents on the matter. With inflation it > accounts for less every day, so make of it what you will. :P > > Thanks, > > Kevin > > > --Guido (don't get me started on top-posting :-) > > On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:22 PM, Kevin Ollivier < > kevin-li...@theolliviers.com> wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Recent joiner here, I signed up after PyCon made me want to get more >> involved and have been lurking. I woke up this morning again to about 30 >> new messages in my inbox, almost all of which revolve around the os.urandom >> blocking discussion. There are just about hourly new posts showing up on >> this topic. >> >> >> >> >> There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Discussion of issues >> is certainly good, but so far since joining this list I am seeing too much >> discussion happening too fast, and as someone who has been involved in open >> source for approaching two decades now, frankly, that is not really a good >> sign. The discussions are somewhat overlapping as so many people write back >> so quickly, there are multiple sub-discussions happening at once, and >> really at this point I'm not sure how much new each message is really >> adding, if anything at all. It seems to me the main solutions to this >> problem have all been identified, as have the tradeoffs of each. The >> discussion is now mostly at a point where people are just repeatedly >> debating (or promoting) the merits of their preferred solution and >> tradeoff. It is even spawning more abstract sub-discsussions about things >> like project compatibility policies. This discussion has really taken on a >> life of its own. >> >> For someone like me, a new joiner, seeing this makes me feel like wanting >> to simply unsubscribe. I've been on mailing lists where issues get debated >> endlessly, and at some point what inevitably happens is that the project >> starts to lose members who feel that even just trying to follow the >> discussions is eating up too much of their time. It really can suck the >> energy right out of a community. I don't want to see that happen to Python. >> I had a blast at PyCon, my first, and I really came away feeling more than >> ever that the community you have here is really special. The one problem I >> felt concerned about though, was that the core dev community risked a sense >> of paralysis caused by having too many cooks in the kitchen and too much >> worry about the potential unseen ramifications of changing things. That >> creates a sort of paralysis and difficulty achieving consensus on anything >> that, eventually, causes projects to slowly decline and be disrupted by a >> more agile alternative. >> >> Please consider taking a step back from this issue. Take a deep breath, >> and consider responding more slowly and letting people's points stew in >> your head for a day or two first. (Including this one pls. :) Python will >> not implode if you don't get that email out right away. If I understand >> what I've read of this torrent of messages correctly, we don't even know if >> there's a single real world use case where a user of os.urandom is hitting >> the same problem CPython did, so we don't even know if the blocking at >> startup issue is actually even happening in any real world Python code out >> there. It's clearly far from a rampant problem, in any case. Stop and think >> about that for a second. This is, in practice, potentially a complete >> non-issue. Fixing it in any number of ways may potentially change things >> for no one at all. You could even introduce a real problem while trying to >> fix a hypothetical one. There are more than enough real problems to deal >> with, so why push hypothetical problems to t >> he top of your priority list? >> >> It's too easy to get caught up in the abstract nature of problems and to >> lose sight of the real people and code behind them, or sometimes, the lack >> thereof. Be practical, be pragmatic. Before you hit that reply button, >> think - in a practical sense, of all the things I could be doing right now, >> is this discussion the place where my involvement could generate the >> greatest positive impact for the project? Is this the biggest and most >> substantial problem the project should be focusing on right now? Projects >> and developers who know how to manage focus go on to achieve the greatest >> things, in my experience. >> >> Having been critical, I will end with a compliment. :) It is nice to see >> that with only a couple small exceptions, this discussion has remained very >> civil and respectful, which should be expected, but I know from experience >> that far too often these discussions start to take a nasty tone as people >> get frustrated. This is one of the things I really do love about the Python >> community, and it's one reason I want to see both the product and community >> grow and succeed even more. That, in fact, is why I'm choosing to write >> this message first rather than simply unsubscribe. >> >> Kevin >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Python-Dev mailing list >> Python-Dev@python.org >> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev >> Unsubscribe: >> https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/guido%40python.org >> > > > > -- > --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) > > -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
_______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
