Question for Gustavo and Sam: bringing back the fun

Margarita Manterola · External Since: Mar 03, 2006 Posts: 54

Hi!

This is for Gustavo and Sam, who have both stated in their campaigns
that they want to bring back the fun to Debian. Now, I'm all for
Debian being more fun, but I wonder:

How do you plan to bring back the fun? What are the specific steps
required to achieve such a goal?

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Besos,
Marga

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Gustavo Franco · External Since: May 09, 2006 Posts: 117

On 3/13/07, Margarita Manterola <margamanterola.DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> This is for Gustavo and Sam, who have both stated in their campaigns
> that they want to bring back the fun to Debian. Now, I'm all for
> Debian being more fun, but I wonder:
>
> How do you plan to bring back the fun? What are the specific steps
> required to achieve such a goal?
>

Hi Marga,

Going through all the topics in my platform during my term, replacing
endless flamewars with motivated people, sane discussions and real
work being done, will be fun enough for me and hopefully for those
interested in a better atmosphere to contribute for Debian.

I'm not saying that there will be no unsatisfied people, trolls and
flames as side effects. My point is that if we flood the mailing lists
and every other communication channel with interesting information of
what's being done and discuss with real solutions in your hands, it
will be easier to identify who's here for develop a universal
operating system and who isn't.

regards,
-- stratus
http://stratusandtheswirl.blogspot.com

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Julien BLACHE · External Since: Nov 14, 2004 Posts: 541

"Margarita Manterola" <margamanterola DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:

> 1) flamewars: the constant bickering on mailing list is depressing, it
> takes away a lot of time, and it gives the whole project a bad
> reputation.

I don't know what's worse, the bickering itself or the bickering about
the bickering.

Flamewars are actually fun, when done properly.

JB.

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Margarita Manterola · External Since: Mar 03, 2006 Posts: 54

On 3/15/07, Sam Hocevar <sam.DeleteThis@zoy.org> wrote:

> My main approach to make it fun again to work on Debian is to
> reduce the frustration. You cannot have fun doing something if your
> contributions are ignored, if you cannot access the resources you need
> to do the work, if your administrative requests are postponed because
> there are more urgent matters, and if you do not know what is going on
> and why.

Agreed, you can't. But even if all of these were fixed (and none are
easy to fix, anyway), that does not guarantee that everyone will start
having fun.

>From my own point of view, there are several things that currently
make things not fun, which are not listed in your platform:

1) flamewars: the constant bickering on mailing list is depressing, it
takes away a lot of time, and it gives the whole project a bad
reputation.

2) bad maintainers "owning" packages (i.e. not being able to help out
packages that are bad shape, because only RC or important bugs should
be NMUed). Thus, we see patches for "normal" bugs rotten in the BTS
for years. This is depressing too.

3) reluctancy to change how we do things. There are a lot of DDs that
have a "We are the best distribution ever, we shouldn't change
anything" attitude. We are being left behind. All the other distros
are improving, renewing, adding extra stuff, and we are still doing
the same things.

4) jealousy, bitterness, envy, and other feelings like that among DDs.
If we just stopped the personal attacks and started concentrating on
what we like (free software, I assume we all like that), then we could
have much more fun.

5) (this should taken with a grain of salt) length of releases.

About this last point, I'm all for stable and good releases, but I'd
like to quote some parts of Ian Murdock's "founding" message [0]

(...)
1) Debian will be sleeker and slimmer.
2) Debian will contain the most up-to-date of everything.
3) Debian will contain a installation procedure that doesn't need to be babysat;
(...)

That, along the other points included in that mail, was the outline of
a distribution that would be "fun". He proposed a distribution that
was good technically, that was up-to-date, that was easy to use, and
was nicer.

I don't have any magical solution, but I do feel that as we went for
the "Debian will be stable and robust and secure" goal, we left behind
a lot of the other goals. Can we be stable, robust and secure, and
still be sleeker, easy to use and up-to-date ?

I think that would be a great help into making Debian more fun (at
least for me).

[0]: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development/msg/a32d4e2ef...dcc6?ou

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Marga

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Raphael Hertzog · External Since: May 28, 2005 Posts: 461

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Julien BLACHE wrote:
> "Margarita Manterola" <margamanterola DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 1) flamewars: the constant bickering on mailing list is depressing, it
> > takes away a lot of time, and it gives the whole project a bad
> > reputation.
>
> I don't know what's worse, the bickering itself or the bickering about
> the bickering.
>
> Flamewars are actually fun, when done properly.

Mailing list are a tool. We want constructive and rewarding discussions.
Then we have fun because we have achieved something.

"Having fun in a flamewar" is not the kind of fun we need to seek.
Because there's no reward for the project, only some self-satisfaction of
a few individuals.

"People need to learn to put Debian's interests before their owns."
That was from you on http://blog.technologeek.org/2006/03/01/20

It would be so great if you could also apply it in the context
of mailing list discussions.

Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog

Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/

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Julien BLACHE · External Since: Nov 14, 2004 Posts: 541

Raphael Hertzog <hertzog.DeleteThis@debian.org> wrote:

>> Flamewars are actually fun, when done properly.

> "Having fun in a flamewar" is not the kind of fun we need to seek.
> Because there's no reward for the project, only some self-satisfaction of
> a few individuals.

Actually I had in mind a couple of flamewars which, at some point,
turned into something fun, and ended up on -curiosa.

I was *not* referring to the individual fun one can have while flaming
somebody else.

You really need to stop trying to second guess what I'm thinking. You
don't know me nearly enough to be good at that Smile

JB.

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Thomas Viehmann · External Since: Jun 03, 2005 Posts: 112

Julien BLACHE wrote:
> I don't know what's worse, the bickering itself or the bickering about
> the bickering.
The bickering about the bickering about the bickering.

Debian having a reputation for its flamewars seems to be a pretty clear
indication of a problem. If it was "In Debian people discuss
passionately and then make good decisions" it would be much less of a
problem than the current "Debian = endless flames".

> Flamewars are actually fun, when done properly.
As long as your idea of "properly" includes "elsewhere", you might have
not have much opposition.

Kind regards

T.
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Loïc · External Since: Nov 11, 2004 Posts: 471

On Thu, Mar 15, 2007, Julien BLACHE wrote:
> Flamewars are actually fun, when done properly.

Oh right; the fun part must be an omission on
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming> -- unless
you meant the artistic type of flamewars. Wink

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Loïc Minier

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Julien BLACHE · External Since: Nov 14, 2004 Posts: 541

Thomas Viehmann <tv.RemoveThis@beamnet.de> wrote:

> Debian having a reputation for its flamewars seems to be a pretty clear
> indication of a problem. If it was "In Debian people discuss
> passionately and then make good decisions" it would be much less of a
> problem than the current "Debian = endless flames".

The only thing that changed is that some people started bickering
about the flamewars. And seeing how quite the lists have been in the
past months, I think it's high time they finally STFU.

Otherwise, the passionate discussions still happen and the good
decisions are still taken.

JB.

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Lars Wirzenius · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 118

On to, 2007-03-15 at 16:05 +0100, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 11:15:03AM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> > 1) flamewars: the constant bickering on mailing list is depressing, it
> > takes away a lot of time, and it gives the whole project a bad
> > reputation.
>
> FWIW you're not _forced_ either to read them, nor to participate.

I've tried not participating or reading lists with large flame contents:
for significant parts of 2006 I did not read -devel and -project (for
instance). The result was that you're cut off from any sense of what the
project is doing and where it is going. You tinker with your own
packages, but you're not really part of the development community. The
only reason I didn't completely drop out was because I stayed on
#debian-devel on IRC.

--
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Lars Wirzenius · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 118

On to, 2007-03-15 at 16:52 +0100, Julien BLACHE wrote:
> The only thing that changed is that some people started bickering
> about the flamewars.

Ah yes, I remember that happening. In about 1995.

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Julien BLACHE · External Since: Nov 14, 2004 Posts: 541

Lars Wirzenius <liw.RemoveThis@liw.iki.fi> wrote:

>> FWIW you're not _forced_ either to read them, nor to participate.
>
> I've tried not participating or reading lists with large flame contents:
> for significant parts of 2006 I did not read -devel and -project (for
> instance). The result was that you're cut off from any sense of what the
> project is doing and where it is going. You tinker with your own

Oh come on, you can read the lists without reading nor participating
in the flamewars.

JB.

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Mike Hommey · External Since: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 921

On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 07:37:35PM +0100, Julien BLACHE <jblache RemoveThis @debian.org> wrote:
> Lars Wirzenius <liw RemoveThis @liw.iki.fi> wrote:
>
> >> FWIW you're not _forced_ either to read them, nor to participate.
> >
> > I've tried not participating or reading lists with large flame contents:
> > for significant parts of 2006 I did not read -devel and -project (for
> > instance). The result was that you're cut off from any sense of what the
> > project is doing and where it is going. You tinker with your own
>
> Oh come on, you can read the lists without reading nor participating
> in the flamewars.

No you can't, because each time you don't read a flamewar, $DEITY kills
a $CUTE_LITTLE_ANIMAL.

Mike

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Steve Langasek · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 2073

On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 03:57:13PM +0100, Pierre Habouzit wrote:

> > > Flamewars are actually fun, when done properly.

> > Mailing list are a tool. We want constructive and rewarding discussions.

> Humour (of lack of) is a quality. Having some is very rewarding in the
> long term, as it allows us to keep some fun and motivation too. I'm
> tired of the self-importantness and excessive seriousness of people on
> the lists.

Many of us probably missed the humor because of the missing disclaimer
explaining "ha-ha, this was only a joke, I don't really think we should have
flamewars despite the fact that I'm frequently a rude jerk to others in the
project."

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Josselin Mouette · External Since: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 989

Le jeudi 15 mars 2007 à 15:19 -0700, Steve Langasek a écrit :
> Many of us probably missed the humor because of the missing disclaimer
> explaining "ha-ha, this was only a joke, I don't really think we should have
> flamewars despite the fact that I'm frequently a rude jerk to others in the
> project."

Do you consider calling people "jerks" or "pricks" a good example of how
not to flame?
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MJ Ray · External Since: Jun 02, 2005 Posts: 272

Thomas Viehmann <tv.DeleteThis@beamnet.de> wrote:
> Debian having a reputation for its flamewars seems to be a pretty clear
> indication of a problem. If it was "In Debian people discuss
> passionately and then make good decisions" it would be much less of a
> problem than the current "Debian = endless flames".

I agree that it indicates a problem, but I think the bigger problem is
'endless' rather than 'flames'.

(According to the New York Times, I've almost never flamed. I'll explain
that on my own site/pdn Real Soon Now. I wonder if the academic
definition of 'flame' is a bit broke.)
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MJ Ray · External Since: Jun 02, 2005 Posts: 272

Steve Langasek <vorlon.DeleteThis@debian.org> wrote:
> Many of us probably missed the humor because of the missing disclaimer
> explaining "ha-ha, this was only a joke, I don't really think we should have
> flamewars despite the fact that I'm frequently a rude jerk to others in the
> project."

One person's rude jerk is another's blunt honest advisor. Can we allow both?

It's sort of disappointing how much less trouble I've had since adding such
disclaimers to the end of emails containing jokes. There seem to be far too
many starched attitudes around.

But, if such disclaimers keep the threats out of my mailbox, I'm happy to
keep trying to explain the jokes.
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