Mailing-List: contact ooo-dev-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
Received-SPF: pass (athena.apache.org: local policy)
Message-ID: <4E606C19.40005@ellisons.org.uk>
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2011 06:39:37 +0100
From: Terry Ellison <Terry@ellisons.org.uk>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US;
 rv:1.9.2.20) Gecko/20110805 Thunderbird/3.1.12
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: An invitation to committers to the OOo Community Forums
References: <4E5FB6F0.2060504@ellisons.org.uk>
 <CAP-ksoirgnV8Bvf_i_u2yN3gK66keWgKpZX+9LDvaqi2z-UN9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <4E5FC756.5010106@ellisons.org.uk>
 <CAP-ksoiK2TL0gQje-FmbjuxFCVDDhoNVuB6xeMcCd0bBZB71Qg@mail.gmail.com>
 <4E5FD55C.40207@ellisons.org.uk>
 <CAP-ksohXHc5FRd=x2D82T7xY37i+GRtxh6FbENmy+gSyiwp90g@mail.gmail.com>
 <4E5FE090.2020506@apache.org>
 <CAP-ksojj4z0Ne45FcPcu-yUstQ5MdAf4gYqWdLZvHCgbFbRDKQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <014801cc68e5$d5fd5290$81f7f7b0$@acm.org>
 <CAP-ksoiCVS5F6wG=JrwpuZYCuSte6WpdkNhZZT9B+xLWS+QfQw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1314911707.1938.55.camel@sybil>
 <CAP-ksoj=tqVBoFTso7jHc4qjki6giBqBYBAe5oFn7OKo=p5L9Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <4E60193C.4090304@shanecurcuru.org>
In-Reply-To: <4E60193C.4090304@shanecurcuru.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On 02/09/11 00:46, Shane Curcuru wrote:
> Separately from how moderation is done and separately from the issue 
> that many traditional participants/contributors to a lot of OOo areas 
> are non-english speakers, I just wanted to mention an additional 
> factor about mailing list norms at Apache.
>
> For community-focused lists, we should aim to have fewer lists rather 
> than more.  Why?  Because splitting lists and having discussions 
> happening in various different places tends to split part of the 
> active community.
>
> Having a single ooo-dev@ list here can seem like there's a lot of 
> traffic on it (which there is!).  But even if when people skip threads 
> that aren't of immediate interest to them, everyone has a chance to 
> see all the discussions happening.  Having all the different 
> discussions on the same list ensure that everyone can stay on the same 
> page, and see where the active community of contributors is moving.
>
> With multiple different lists running a single community, not only can 
> specific decisions not be well communicated to the other lists, but 
> the community sense is much harder to keep synchronized on multiple 
> lists versus a single list.
>
> Note that it *is* appropriate to have multiple lists for different 
> functions or primary sets of participants - so I do expect that there 
> will be an ooo-user@ list, etc.
>
> Does that make some sense?  It's part of why it's a better idea to 
> transition project management into a few discrete lists here at 
> @apache.org, rather than leaving project decision making in a variety 
> of different places.
>
> - Shane
>
> NOTE: The above being said, I definitely see wisdom in Terry's comment 
> earlier in the thread about "B) an evolutionary one: ..." in terms of 
> making changes to existing forum management processes in careful and 
> well-communicated steps, instead of simply forcing changes in the 
> immediate term.
>

Shane there are some intrinsic differences between a DL and posting into 
a forum. However, reading this entire thread I get the feeling that some 
of the current practices on the forum may be unacceptable to Apache / 
the project.  However in this case, I would suggest that:

1) we adopt an evolutionary approach -- that is get the forums moved and 
then make any changes.

2) we constitute a small group with forum experience *and* ASF 
experience do a specific task of reviewing current practices against 
Apache norms and practices, then draft some change guidelines for 
feeding to the forums, and an impact assessment of their 
implementation.  We can then feed them into the ooo-dev list for comment 
and if needed vote on their adoption.

This would address such issue as:
(i) Do we allow the forum moderators use the forum itself to discuss 
forum management or must this be done on ooo-dev
(ii) Do we permit the NL forum moderators to use their own NL for this 
or are we insisting that this is done in English?
(iii) Do we permit the use of a closed access forum / DL for discussing 
forum conduct?

I have my own opinions on the consequences of some of these points, for 
example, many NL moderators / volunteers have poor working use of 
English; many moderators would be unwilling to discuss moderation issues 
for establish consensus if this had to be done in public.  My feeling is 
that if we choose to forced them to work this way then we will lose many 
of our moderators / forum contributors who answer most of the Qs.  But 
let us at least draft this guideline and vote on it before executing.

I will post a synopsis of this thread to the forums and ask them to 
comment back here.