tb-planning mailing list
Dan Mosedale
Until now, we've had two primary discussion forums for driving
Thunderbird work forward. We've had dev-apps-thunderbird, which is
theoretically development-focused, but realistically has been fairly
free form, and populated by folks with an extremely wide variety of
perspectives. We've also had thunderbird-drivers, which is completely
private, and populated only by folks who are in the very center of
pushing releases out the door.
A number of us who participate in both forums have noticed over time
that there are a non-trivial number of discussions that don't fit very
well in either place. These are things that need input from a
significantly larger group of people than the release-drivers (eg other
core developers, add-on developers, UX wizards), and they also benefit
generally from having more transparency. However, these conversations
also need to be drivable to completion without getting derailed by
emotional outpourings, venting, personal attacks, and straw men and also
without leaving the participants exhausted and frustrated. In other
words, it has to actually be _easy_ to get work done.
To that end, I've created a tb-planning mailing list as a middle ground
designed specifically for these sorts of discussions. I've written up a
wiki page at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/tb-planning>
describing the list mechanism and rules.
Like many things in the Mozilla world, this is somewhat experimental.
Which is to say that it's a mechanism that we haven't used before, and
it has both pros and cons compared to the other discussion setups that
we've tried. It's clear to me from recent discussions in the
dev-planning list that some people are likely to feel that this isn't
the most convenient setup for them. I'd like to request that folks give
this several months to evolve before rendering judgment on how well it's
working.
Interested community members are encouraged to subscribe:
<https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning> has all the info you need.
Dan
Peter Lairo
> Interested community members are encouraged to subscribe:
> <https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning> has all the info you need.
I'm not sure how mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird doesn't already fulfill
that need (and without further splintering the community). Threads here
are generally on-topic, interesting threads can be "watched" (w),
starred (s), tagged (1-9), and if a sub-thread does veer off-topic,
there's always SHIFT+K (ignore sub-thread).
I do hope you manage to get "a significantly larger group of people".
Will there be a *newsgroup group* for this?
(mozilla.dev.apps.tb-planning) I couldn't find it in news.mozilla.com
via "Subscribe / Refresh". Newsgroups are better than mailing lists at
correctly tracking threads.
--
Regards,
Peter Lairo
Bugs I think should be fixed ASAP:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=250539
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=391057
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436259
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=446444
https://www.mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=22003
Islam: http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/
Israel: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: http://www.venganza.org/
Anthropogenic Global Warming skepsis: http://tinyurl.com/AGW-Skepsis
Ben Bucksch
Can we have a newsgroup, too, please?
I prefer to read using the news server when I feel like it rather than
having stuff sitting unread in my mailbox.
Given that it's moderated, you should still have full control. Most our
mailing lists are gatewayed on the news server, so I hope (depending on
the implementation of the news->mail gateway direction) you'd just keep
moderating as usual.
Robert Kaiser
> To that end, I've created a tb-planning mailing list as a middle ground
> designed specifically for these sorts of discussions. I've written up a
> wiki page at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/tb-planning>
> describing the list mechanism and rules.
I'll need to be on it, as information is likely to run through it that I
need to catch as it affects SeaMonkey, but not being a newsgroup and my
mailboxes overflowing, I'll probably just need to straightly dump most
of its traffic. I dislike mailing lists for swamping my overfilled mail
folders with information that in most cases just needs to be deleted,
while newsgroups ease dealing with such stuff much more easily.
But then, local mail and even more newsgroups are doomed, I'm told. Erm,
why again are we doing clients that are directed to do those?
Robert Kaiser
Dan Mosedale
> I'm not sure how mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird doesn't already fulfill
> that need (and without further splintering the community). Threads
> here are generally on-topic, interesting threads can be "watched" (w),
> starred (s), tagged (1-9), and if a sub-thread does veer off-topic,
> there's always SHIFT+K (ignore sub-thread).
to paper over the damage after it's been done. After someone has been
called incompetent, or people are yelling at each other, or someone
feels shouted down because a few people are willing to repeat themselves
ad infinitum, the conversation feels hostile and unsafe. People whose
opinions are important to hear are less motivated to join or participate
further because it feels dysfunctional, less likely to reach a useful
conclusion, and unrewarding.
> I do hope you manage to get "a significantly larger group of people".
thunderbird-drivers", not "significantly larger than
dev-apps-thunderbird." If the list doesn't initially doesn't reach that
goal, I'll continue to tweak it or even iterate as necessary.
> Newsgroups are better than mailing lists at correctly tracking threads.
list, if enough of the participants use broken MTAs, that can be true.
However, gatewayed newsgroup/mailing list pairs actually tend to have
_more_ broken threads than pure email lists, because Message-Id headers
tend to get overwritten in the gatewaying process, which breaks the
threading algorithm.
> Will there be a *newsgroup group* for this?
> (mozilla.dev.apps.tb-planning) I couldn't find it in news.mozilla.com
> via "Subscribe / Refresh".
mentioned in the original post, I understand that mailing lists have a
few pain points that newsgroups don't have. Because of that, this list
is an experiment in the following sense: we want to see how hard it is
for a mailing list without NNTP access to attract the right set of
Mozilla contributors for the work that needs to get done.
Dan
Dan Mosedale
>> Like many things in the Mozilla world, this is somewhat
>> experimental. Which is to say that it's a mechanism that we haven't
>> used before, and it has both pros and cons compared to the other
>> discussion setups that we've tried. It's clear to me from recent
>> discussions in the dev-planning list that some people are likely to
>> feel that this isn't the most convenient setup for them. I'd like to
>> request that folks give this several months to evolve before
>> rendering judgment on how well it's working.
>>
>> Interested community members are encouraged to subscribe:
>> <https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning> has all the info you
>> need.
> Can we have a newsgroup, too, please?
> I prefer to read using the news server when I feel like it rather than
> having stuff sitting unread in my mailbox.
newsgroups don't have, and I completely agree that this is one of them.
An important part of why I think it's the right thing for tb-planning to
be mailing-list-only is that we believe that making mailing lists more
usable is an important short to medium-term goal for Thunderbird. We're
already investigating front-end changes to allow Thunderbird to sand off
some of those rough edges.
As mentioned elsewhere, this list is an experiment in the following
gNeandr
.. for the "tb-planning will be reflected into a Google Group
<http://groups.google.com/group/tb-planning> for archival and
web-reading purposes. " ...
I would recommend to read this:
http://forum.jquery.com/topic/jquery-is-moving-to-a-forum
That sounds to me, on the long run your have a better choice with not to
use GG!? They moved away because of good reasons.
G�nter
[02.03.2010 22:31] �Dan Mosedale� wrote:
> [.... ]
Chris Ilias
> To that end, I've created a tb-planning mailing list as a middle ground
> designed specifically for these sorts of discussions. I've written up a
> wiki page at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/tb-planning>
> describing the list mechanism and rules.
What's the difference in purpose between tb-planning vs
dev-apps-thunderbird and dev-planning?
Dan Mosedale
a few months ago while thinking about this. Agreed that there are
problems with all solutions available. The fact that Zoho Discussions
doesn't reflect into email is a showstopper for a Thunderbird-related
list at this point in time. In the long run, I hope they (or some other
sufficiently nice web-based forum will get that). Additionally, I very
much intend to push Thunderbird to get better at working with web-based
forums over time.
Dan
> _______________________________________________
> dev-apps-thunderbird mailing list
> dev-apps-t...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-thunderbird
Dan Mosedale
and is prone to having emotional discussions become very noisy and flame
filled, to the point where valued contributors give up on those discussions.
dev-planning is aimed at a much larger set of people with a much broader
set of goals, and also contains lots of mozilla-wide content.
The intent of tb-planning is to be narrowly focused on only development
and planning for only Thunderbird, and to use a moderation mechanism to
simply drop incendiary, repetitive, or otherwise non-constructive
messages on the floor so that they don't get a chance to poison the
discussion.
Dan
Ben Bucksch
> dev-apps-thunderbird is not sufficiently development/planning-focused
> and is prone to having emotional discussions become very noisy and
> flame filled, to the point where valued contributors give up on those
> discussions.
Agreed.
How about simply switching dev-apps-thunderbird to moderated, thus
moving the non-dev discussions to .support. or similar?
Justin Wood (Callek)
Sadly, no NNTP access means I won't be viewing/participating regularly
(atm). NNTP allows me not to convolute my E-mail system with messages.
Many of which I might not otherwise care about; but I can use the
threading mechanic in NNTP (good enough for my uses) to follow what I do
care about.
Mozilla has long had a NNTP<->Mail List<->Google Groups interface, I do
wish it would be/had been used here.
--
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Peter Lairo
> On 3/2/10 2:06 PM, Peter Lairo wrote:
>> I'm not sure how mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird doesn't already fulfill
>> that need (and without further splintering the community). Threads
>> here are generally on-topic, interesting threads can be "watched" (w),
>> starred (s), tagged (1-9), and if a sub-thread does veer off-topic,
>> there's always SHIFT+K (ignore sub-thread).
> While those tools are somewhat helpful, they are really just band-aids
> to paper over the damage after it's been done. After someone has been
> called incompetent, or people are yelling at each other, or someone
> feels shouted down because a few people are willing to repeat themselves
> ad infinitum, the conversation feels hostile and unsafe. People whose
> opinions are important to hear are less motivated to join or participate
> further because it feels dysfunctional, less likely to reach a useful
> conclusion, and unrewarding.
That is the reason you want to create a separate group? Unruly
participants in mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird`? Wow! I thought this place
was pretty well-behaved.
And why wouldn't people behave nearly the same at the list?
(BTW/OT/humor: wouldn't you rather belong to a "group" than be on a "list")
While I do understand that many people can quickly feel dominated by
others (I do too at times), I think that the sensitivity reaction may
have gone too far in this case.
<philosophical rambling - feel free to ignore>
Some people feel strongly about things. Some express themselves
forcefully. It's more beneficial to mozilla to make the effort to hear
their *sometimes* good points (and ignore/killfile them when they're
just being jerks). Likewise, polite people *sometimes* have nothing
important to say. So, is the *priority* (yes, other things are important
too) to have a polite environment, or is it to have an environment that
is most beneficial to the mozilla products?
</philosophical rambling - feel free to ignore>
>> I do hope you manage to get "a significantly larger group of people".
> Me too! Do note that what I meant was "significantly larger than
> thunderbird-drivers", not "significantly larger than
> dev-apps-thunderbird." If the list doesn't initially doesn't reach that
> goal, I'll continue to tweak it or even iterate as necessary.
Hopefully, you'll also be willing to kill it if it turns out very few
people are interested.
>> Newsgroups are better than mailing lists at correctly tracking threads.
> In cases where there is only a newsgroup and no corresponding email
> list, if enough of the participants use broken MTAs, that can be true.
> However, gatewayed newsgroup/mailing list pairs actually tend to have
> _more_ broken threads than pure email lists, because Message-Id headers
> tend to get overwritten in the gatewaying process, which breaks the
> threading algorithm.
If you must choose one over the other, then why favor a mailing list
over a newsgroup???
It seems that most of the initial respondents to your announcement here
(many of them key developers) have expressed a dislike for mailing lists
- or at least a preference for newsgroups.
>> Will there be a *newsgroup group* for this?
>> (mozilla.dev.apps.tb-planning) I couldn't find it in news.mozilla.com
>> via "Subscribe / Refresh".
> No, in part because of the threading issue described above. As mentioned
> in the original post, I understand that mailing lists have a few pain
> points that newsgroups don't have. Because of that, this list is an
> experiment in the following sense: we want to see how hard it is for a
> mailing list without NNTP access to attract the right set of Mozilla
> contributors for the work that needs to get done.
Well, I know I'm probably considered a black sheep here, so I'm likely
not considered belonging to "the right set of Mozilla contributors", but
FWIW, I will not subscribe to a mailing list.
Anyhow, good luck!
Peter Lairo
> usable is an important short to medium-term goal for Thunderbird.
FWIW: I think there are *far* more important issues that should be
addressed before mailing lists - i.e. things normal users need much more
often (e.g., bug 250539, bug 391057, and the extremely underpowered
address book).
Robert Kaiser
> dev-apps-thunderbird is not sufficiently development/planning-focused
> and is prone to having emotional discussions become very noisy and flame
> filled, to the point where valued contributors give up on those
> discussions.
I don't think that we can keep emotional discussions out anywhere unless
we don't want to have people in who feel strongly about our products. I
don't even think having emotions is bad to have - but perhaps that
thinking is why many projects fail after some time - once their
contributors don't have any passions, any emotions about the project any
more. Discussions tend not get get heated then, but good work tends to
not be done any more either.
Robert Kaiser
Dan Mosedale
emotional discussions, but that when there _were_ emotional discussions
they were becoming noisy and flame-filled.
The intent here is that when messages are bounced back for being too
inflammatory or non-constructive, the sender will re-frame more
constructively and re-send.
Dan
JoeS
> dev-apps-thunderbird is not sufficiently development/planning-focused and is prone to having emotional discussions become very noisy and flame filled, to the point where valued contributors give up on those discussions.
As can Bugzilla
As can The Forums
As can Get Satisfaction
You might just take all discussion to personal email and be done with it.
But this is the type of thing that leads community members to believe that all developers live in an "Ivory Tower"
We need more engagement, not secretion, to build the community.
Looks like about 20 headers/week here, that doesn't seem to be a lot of chaff to sift through.
As a matter of fact I see very few posts here that could be answered in support, or general "bitching" for that matter.
Further: If prospective valued contributors can't stand the "heat" (a little criticism)
Then maybe they should just "Stay out of the kitchen"
--
JoeS Using TB3
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_3.0_-_New_Features_and_Changes
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Thunderbird/Thunderbird_Binaries
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Breakpad#Using_the_application_to_view_crash_reports
Ben Bucksch
> Further: If prospective valued contributors can't stand the "heat" (a
> little criticism)
> Then maybe they should just "Stay out of the kitchen"
My view is rather than productive people in general can't stand "the
heat", because it's unproductive. That's not to say that pointing out
problems is a bad thing, but keeping to repeat them (in one thread /
place or several) is.
Gervase Markham
> Some people feel strongly about things. Some express themselves
> forcefully. It's more beneficial to mozilla to make the effort to hear
> their *sometimes* good points (and ignore/killfile them when they're
> just being jerks).
I think perhaps the existence of the new list is the result of a
fundamental disagreement on that point. Your opinion is the above one;
others think differently.
Gerv
Gervase Markham
> How about simply switching dev-apps-thunderbird to moderated, thus
> moving the non-dev discussions to .support. or similar?
Because, AIUI, it's not possible to have a moderation mechanism which
covers all the possible entry points for messages into the standard
Mozilla three-different-access-methods system.
I'd be happy to be proved wrong, though.
Gerv
Gervase Markham
> On 3/3/2010 1:08 PM, Dan Mosedale wrote:
>> dev-apps-thunderbird is not sufficiently development/planning-focused
>> and is prone to having emotional discussions become very noisy and
>> flame filled, to the point where valued contributors give up on those
>> discussions.
>
> As can Bugzilla
...and we disable the accounts of the flamers.
> As can The Forums
> As can Get Satisfaction
...which is not a development forum.
> Further: If prospective valued contributors can't stand the "heat" (a
> little criticism)
> Then maybe they should just "Stay out of the kitchen"
I think that's exactly what just happened. Valued contributors are going
to work in a different kitchen.
Gerv
Joshua Cranmer
mozilla.test.multimedia is moderated, last time I checked.
Dan Mosedale
point, but I think just getting a safer list (tb-planning) created is
far and away the highest order bit, and it's already done. Further, I
think the existing of tb-planning is likely to modify how d-a-t is used
in some ways, so I suspect that discussion is clearer if we have it down
the road a bit...
Dan
Dan Mosedale
> If you must choose one over the other, then why favor a mailing list
> over a newsgroup???
continue to be) given low priority by thunderbird-drivers: impact.
Since our resources are highly constrained, we need to focus them on the
areas that have the highest impact.
Many (most?) web sites and apps require you have to have an email
address to sign up. One of the consequences of this is that the vast
majority of people on the net have access to email and use it at least a
little bit if not significantly. Orders of magnitude fewer have and use
Newsgroups.
Dan
Gervase Markham
> Many (most?) web sites and apps require you have to have an email
> address to sign up. One of the consequences of this is that the vast
> majority of people on the net have access to email and use it at least a
> little bit if not significantly. Orders of magnitude fewer have and use
> Newsgroups.
Although presumably you want to be looking at the potential contributors
to a tb-planning mailing list, rather than the net population at large?
Or are those two sets the same, in your view?
It is true that NNTP is by far the most popular method of contributing
to the existing Mozilla newsgroup/mailing list/Google Group triples,
including Thunderbird ones. I recently did some stats for a discussion
in .planning, which you may have seen.
Total Google Mail News
mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird.mbox
Posters: 327 90 (27.52%) 41 (12.54%) 196 (59.94%)
Posts: 1991 191 (9.59%) 231 (11.60%) 1569 (78.80%)
mozilla.support.thunderbird.mbox
Total Google Mail News
Posters: 306 37 (12.09%) 27 (8.82%) 242 (79.08%)
Posts: 1972 63 (3.19%) 158 (8.01%) 1751 (88.79%)
This, of course, is not an argument for anything, just data.
Gerv
Dan Mosedale
> On 04/03/10 18:45, Dan Mosedale wrote:
>> Many (most?) web sites and apps require you have to have an email
>> address to sign up. One of the consequences of this is that the vast
>> majority of people on the net have access to email and use it at least a
>> little bit if not significantly. Orders of magnitude fewer have and use
>> Newsgroups.
> Although presumably you want to be looking at the potential contributors
> to a tb-planning mailing list, rather than the net population at large?
> Or are those two sets the same, in your view?
* tb-planning is an experiment to see if we can get the right set of
mozilla contributors using a mailing list only in order to get work done
going forward, not the maximally sized set of current contributors
* to use a hockey metaphor, it's important that we're skating to where
the puck is going to be, not to where it is now
Dan