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Discussion mechanisms in Mozilla
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Gervase Markham
Apr 10, 2012, 10:33:41 AM4/10/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
Majken requested that I break this out into a separate thread.
In an open project, it is vital to have a "public, approachable,
asynchronous, multiple participant, written, archived, searchable,
filterable, accessible communications mechanism for the Mozilla project."
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement>
Our current solution to this is the Mozilla Discussion Forums:
https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
Of those listed attributes, it has been suggested that the current
forums are not as _accessible_ as they could be to non-technical people.
To make this more concrete, it would be good to understand what
particular aspects of the current solution are difficult (discovery?
subscription? message management? notification of new messages?) and to
have people outline what an improved solution might look like.
Perhaps it's too focussed around the existing arrangements, but this may
help frame the discussion:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement
Gerv
In an open project, it is vital to have a "public, approachable,
asynchronous, multiple participant, written, archived, searchable,
filterable, accessible communications mechanism for the Mozilla project."
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement>
Our current solution to this is the Mozilla Discussion Forums:
https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
Of those listed attributes, it has been suggested that the current
forums are not as _accessible_ as they could be to non-technical people.
To make this more concrete, it would be good to understand what
particular aspects of the current solution are difficult (discovery?
subscription? message management? notification of new messages?) and to
have people outline what an improved solution might look like.
Perhaps it's too focussed around the existing arrangements, but this may
help frame the discussion:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement
Gerv
patrickf
Apr 10, 2012, 10:49:33 AM4/10/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
the forum, in the forum itself. I am not convinced that it is
technological accessibility so much a the structure, depth and speed
of discussion that is prevent many Mozilla employees from
participating (of the group of employees called out by Asa as not
being able to contribute, the one I represent, product marketing, was
held up as the prime example).
It therefore seems like a sensible next step, that I poll that group
and return here with any observations, and perhaps other groups
identified could do the same.
Patrick
Majken Connor
Apr 10, 2012, 3:09:54 PM4/10/12
to patrickf, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
I have *So* many thoughts on this topic as I have been thinking about it
for literally years and didn't know there was a formal place to bring it
up! I'll try and only bring up a few thoughts at a time and see what others
raise, but please let me know if I'm going on cuz this is a topic I
*really* care about.
1. Information in General
People have a desire to follow projects with different amount of attention
and with different levels of interest. So there need to be different
channels to address these levels of interest. Blogs are very good for
people who want to know the big things, get announcements. I use the
add-ons blog as my example of an ideal situation. The way they write their
blog posts are *amazing,* informative, easy to read, but not too burdensome
on the writer. I think they also get the right content. It's also split up
into the appropriate feeds so someone can follow all, or just the jetpack
updates for example. I would love to see this be some sort of Mozilla
expected standard.
But others do want to follow all the discussion. They want to see where
they can jump in or actively get involved in building the project. "In the
beginning" there were newsgroups for this, and they fulfill certain
purposes very well. Purposes that are key IMO to Mozilla's mission. Anyone
can follow the discussion and participate in it. They can participate at a
time that is convenient to them. They can skim or skip certain
conversations that don't appeal to them and move on to the ones that do.
>From what I can see, too much is being pushed into phone meetings. The
discussion about the CoC is a great example of how I think things should be
done to protect Mozilla's values of inclusiveness. There has been a lot of
discussion going on, with many views and issues raised. I have changed my
views, or acquired views on things I didn't think about before. At this
point I would feel confident to have a real time meeting to review and make
some decisions on the issues being faced. I would also feel confident that
if I didn't make that meeting my views had been represented and taken into
account. Could you imagine if Mitchell and Deb and a couple others had
just scheduled a meeting and written us a Code of Conduct?
1. Newsgroups
I touched on this above, but they are really important as they are
currently the only tool we have that allows *all* the community to access
*all* the information. I think part of the problem is thinking of them as
newsgroups. For myself I find them very easy to use as mailing lists. I
subscribe, and I make filters so they don't go into my inbox. I catch up on
them when I have the time. Google groups is a *pain* as Robert (sorry
forget which one!) mentioned in another thread. In an ideal world we'd have
some sort of system that allowed you to follow discussions based on tags
and keywords so you didn't have to follow a whole newsgroup. Forum software
does this, but I'm not sure which ones have good email interfaces. You
don't think it at first, but being able to just read and reply from email
is a *huge* convenience. I currently subscribe to the SUMO contributor
forum via email, but I still have to open the site (and possibly login) to
add thoughts.
Though I'm not saying all activity *must* happen on the newsgroup. If a
small group has an inspired conversation on IRC (or in person!) it's not
hard to recap the conversation and put it to the newsgroup/mailing list to
check for more opinions.
I'm a little worried when it's employees deciding not to use these
standard/common tools as well. Those of us in the "greater" community have
had to adapt to them to be part of Mozilla (I hated newsgroups at first,
too, but now I love the mailing list aspects esp for focused projects like
hackasaurus and ReMo). There should be the same expectation for people who
are even more fortunate to be paid and in positions of power over the
projects. Especially if it's not being replaced by a similar and equally
accessible tool... which would be awesome to see.
-Majken "Lucy" Connor
On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:49 AM, patrickf <patric...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 10, 4:33 pm, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>
for literally years and didn't know there was a formal place to bring it
up! I'll try and only bring up a few thoughts at a time and see what others
raise, but please let me know if I'm going on cuz this is a topic I
*really* care about.
1. Information in General
People have a desire to follow projects with different amount of attention
and with different levels of interest. So there need to be different
channels to address these levels of interest. Blogs are very good for
people who want to know the big things, get announcements. I use the
add-ons blog as my example of an ideal situation. The way they write their
blog posts are *amazing,* informative, easy to read, but not too burdensome
on the writer. I think they also get the right content. It's also split up
into the appropriate feeds so someone can follow all, or just the jetpack
updates for example. I would love to see this be some sort of Mozilla
expected standard.
But others do want to follow all the discussion. They want to see where
they can jump in or actively get involved in building the project. "In the
beginning" there were newsgroups for this, and they fulfill certain
purposes very well. Purposes that are key IMO to Mozilla's mission. Anyone
can follow the discussion and participate in it. They can participate at a
time that is convenient to them. They can skim or skip certain
conversations that don't appeal to them and move on to the ones that do.
>From what I can see, too much is being pushed into phone meetings. The
discussion about the CoC is a great example of how I think things should be
done to protect Mozilla's values of inclusiveness. There has been a lot of
discussion going on, with many views and issues raised. I have changed my
views, or acquired views on things I didn't think about before. At this
point I would feel confident to have a real time meeting to review and make
some decisions on the issues being faced. I would also feel confident that
if I didn't make that meeting my views had been represented and taken into
account. Could you imagine if Mitchell and Deb and a couple others had
just scheduled a meeting and written us a Code of Conduct?
1. Newsgroups
I touched on this above, but they are really important as they are
currently the only tool we have that allows *all* the community to access
*all* the information. I think part of the problem is thinking of them as
newsgroups. For myself I find them very easy to use as mailing lists. I
subscribe, and I make filters so they don't go into my inbox. I catch up on
them when I have the time. Google groups is a *pain* as Robert (sorry
forget which one!) mentioned in another thread. In an ideal world we'd have
some sort of system that allowed you to follow discussions based on tags
and keywords so you didn't have to follow a whole newsgroup. Forum software
does this, but I'm not sure which ones have good email interfaces. You
don't think it at first, but being able to just read and reply from email
is a *huge* convenience. I currently subscribe to the SUMO contributor
forum via email, but I still have to open the site (and possibly login) to
add thoughts.
Though I'm not saying all activity *must* happen on the newsgroup. If a
small group has an inspired conversation on IRC (or in person!) it's not
hard to recap the conversation and put it to the newsgroup/mailing list to
check for more opinions.
I'm a little worried when it's employees deciding not to use these
standard/common tools as well. Those of us in the "greater" community have
had to adapt to them to be part of Mozilla (I hated newsgroups at first,
too, but now I love the mailing list aspects esp for focused projects like
hackasaurus and ReMo). There should be the same expectation for people who
are even more fortunate to be paid and in positions of power over the
projects. Especially if it's not being replaced by a similar and equally
accessible tool... which would be awesome to see.
-Majken "Lucy" Connor
On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:49 AM, patrickf <patric...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 10, 4:33 pm, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> There is a degree of paradox in discussing making the Mozilla forum
> sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
> the forum, in the forum itself. I am not convinced that it is
> technological accessibility so much a the structure, depth and speed
> of discussion that is prevent many Mozilla employees from
> participating (of the group of employees called out by Asa as not
> being able to contribute, the one I represent, product marketing, was
> held up as the prime example).
>
> It therefore seems like a sensible next step, that I poll that group
> and return here with any observations, and perhaps other groups
> identified could do the same.
>
> Patrick
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
> the forum, in the forum itself. I am not convinced that it is
> technological accessibility so much a the structure, depth and speed
> of discussion that is prevent many Mozilla employees from
> participating (of the group of employees called out by Asa as not
> being able to contribute, the one I represent, product marketing, was
> held up as the prime example).
>
> It therefore seems like a sensible next step, that I poll that group
> and return here with any observations, and perhaps other groups
> identified could do the same.
>
> Patrick
>
>
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>
Gervase Markham
Apr 12, 2012, 8:40:33 AM4/12/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 10/04/12 15:49, patrickf wrote:
> There is a degree of paradox in discussing making the Mozilla forum
> sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
> the forum, in the forum itself.
Yes, indeed :-) Feel free to report back with the experiences of those
> There is a degree of paradox in discussing making the Mozilla forum
> sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
> the forum, in the forum itself.
who can't access it.
> I am not convinced that it is
> technological accessibility so much a the structure, depth and speed
> of discussion that is prevent many Mozilla employees from
> participating (of the group of employees called out by Asa as not
> being able to contribute, the one I represent, product marketing, was
> held up as the prime example).
in that way (apart from "go slower"). Do you have suggestions?
Gerv
Gervase Markham
Apr 12, 2012, 8:45:17 AM4/12/12
to Majken Connor, patrickf
On 10/04/12 20:09, Majken Connor wrote:
> I touched on this above, but they are really important as they are
> currently the only tool we have that allows *all* the community to access
> *all* the information. I think part of the problem is thinking of them as
> newsgroups.
It is for precisely this reason that I try very hard to always refer to
> I touched on this above, but they are really important as they are
> currently the only tool we have that allows *all* the community to access
> *all* the information. I think part of the problem is thinking of them as
> newsgroups.
them as "discussion forums", and to persuade people making reference to
them to use URLs of this form:
https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#governance
which provides links to all three access methods.
> forget which one!) mentioned in another thread. In an ideal world we'd have
> some sort of system that allowed you to follow discussions based on tags
> and keywords so you didn't have to follow a whole newsgroup.
thread as read" in Thunderbird is fairly powerful. "Ignore thread" would
be even better, but we don't have that.
Gerv
Henri Sivonen
Apr 12, 2012, 9:48:42 AM4/12/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
Gerv wrote:
> Of those listed attributes, it has been suggested that the current
> forums are not as _accessible_ as they could be to non-technical people.
> To make this more concrete, it would be good to understand what
> particular aspects of the current solution are difficult (discovery?
> subscription? message management? notification of new messages?) and to
> have people outline what an improved solution might look like.
...
> Of those listed attributes, it has been suggested that the current
> forums are not as _accessible_ as they could be to non-technical people.
> To make this more concrete, it would be good to understand what
> particular aspects of the current solution are difficult (discovery?
> subscription? message management? notification of new messages?) and to
> have people outline what an improved solution might look like.
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement
The top three problems that I see are:
1) We refer to them as the newsgroups which implies that you have to
use an old school mechanism to access them (if people these days even
know what newsgroups are). But sometimes (see
https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/ ) we refer to them as forums
which implies a web-based user interface in the style of phpBB. In
both cases, the terminology obfuscates the fact that these discussion
groups are available using the means that is normal among open source
projects as well as Web standardization groups: mailing lists.
2) The bridging between newsgroups, mailing lists and Google groups
means that each group has at least three distinct addresses. This
leads to all sorts of annoyances. First, you have to know how to
mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
looks like it was an off-list private email. Third, when you reply via
email to a mailing list, sometimes the message you're replying to
contains an email address for the corresponding Google group and you
have to edit out that address because you are posting to the
lists.mozilla.org address instead.
3) The archives are hosted by Google. Google started to require
people to log in in order to be able to read archives. This feels
wrong. Even if the login doesn't bother you, it's annoying when the
archives to fall behind what's actually happening on the mailing
lists.
What I would like to see is consolidating to Mozilla-hosted mailing
lists with Mozilla-hosted archives with a Mozilla-hosted search engine
for the archives as well as the archives being friendly to third-party
search engines so that you can search the archives using Google's Web
search if you like. I think newsgroups are way too old school to be
the primary mechanism and having newsgroups as a secondary mechanism
causes too much an annoyance in the form of the artifacts of the
bridging and the mental address translation. I think a Web forum
doesn't work as a single mechanism, because it's too annoying for
power users and many of us are power users who read a lot of email
from Mozilla lists and potentially other open source projects, the W3C
or the IETF. People who want to participate in the discussions through
a Web interface should subscribe to the mailing lists using an email
account that comes with a Web mail interface. For example, Gmail
works pretty well.
I think the biggest problem with moving to mailing lists only with
in-house archival is that the state of the mailing list archival
software is pretty sad. It would probably be worthwhile to ask the W3C
if they'd be willing to share their email archival software.
--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
Patrick Finch
Apr 12, 2012, 11:00:31 AM4/12/12
to Gervase Markham, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 4/12/2012 2:40 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 10/04/12 15:49, patrickf wrote:
>> There is a degree of paradox in discussing making the Mozilla forum
>> sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
>> the forum, in the forum itself.
>
>> sufficiently accessible to those who are not currently contributing to
>> the forum, in the forum itself.
>
> Yes, indeed :-) Feel free to report back with the experiences of those
> who can't access it.
So, I met with that team yesterday and asked everyone about their
> who can't access it.
experiences of using Mozilla forums.
First: several people in the team do interact using forums, but there
was general agreement that while many people read a lot of lists, no one
contributes a great deal to any list, and some people don't at all.
Second: inaccessibility of discussions on the Mozilla forums is not a
technology issue for anyone (I tend to agree with the three items
identified by Henri, but they were not addressed by the product
marketing group).
Reasons why people didn't participate "as much as they might" included:
Discussions often felt fragmented or unfocussed (frequently asked
question, "have you seen what's happening in XXX-planning?" etc.).
Engaging in discussions therefore often felt unproductive, and for some
people located in California, they didn't necessarily see a point in
doing this "when they could have a conversation face-to-face".
(clearly, that is excluding a much larger constituency.)
There were a few concerns registered about flaming, which I think we
have a thread on already.
Another important topic for marketing was concerns about people
reporting on our lists -commentary about market positions is often
newsworthy. That's largely a fact of life in the Mozilla community.
There was a recognition that more market data (and market anecdote!)
being injected into discussions would be beneficial.
So -a mixed bag, all in all, but much of this reflects the fact that
product discussions are often on dev- lists, and marketeers are not
developers. The marketing forums themselves are not especially well
curated.
>> I am not convinced that it is
>> technological accessibility so much a the structure, depth and speed
>> of discussion that is prevent many Mozilla employees from
>> participating (of the group of employees called out by Asa as not
>> being able to contribute, the one I represent, product marketing, was
>> held up as the prime example).
>
> I can't imagine what sort of fixes could be applied to a problem defined
> in that way (apart from "go slower"). Do you have suggestions?
I do, and "go slower" is not amongst them :)
> in that way (apart from "go slower"). Do you have suggestions?
I think there needs to be better curation of the marketing community
forums. There's one huge canonical list for too broad a range of topics.
There's a balance to be struck there, and the skill is in creating
groups that reflect areas of interest, and as interests change, so
should the composition of those groups.
Patrick
Robert O'Callahan
Apr 12, 2012, 8:30:58 PM4/12/12
to Henri Sivonen, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:48 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsiv...@iki.fi> wrote:
> I think the biggest problem with moving to mailing lists only with
> in-house archival is that the state of the mailing list archival
> software is pretty sad. It would probably be worthwhile to ask the W3C
> if they'd be willing to share their email archival software.
>
The W3C's archives are also wretched, and apparently the software they use
> I think the biggest problem with moving to mailing lists only with
> in-house archival is that the state of the mailing list archival
> software is pretty sad. It would probably be worthwhile to ask the W3C
> if they'd be willing to share their email archival software.
>
is a dead project. There was a thread about this in www-style a while back.
A mailing list with a good Web-accessible archive that also lets people
send messages through the archive interface (basically, pretending to be a
Web-based forum for people who don't want to deal with email directly at
all) would be perfect for us and for the W3C. Unfortunately I don't know if
such software exists.
Rob
--
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. ... If you love those
who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors
doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more
than others?" [Matthew 5:43-47]
Zack Weinberg
Apr 12, 2012, 8:42:10 PM4/12/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 2012-04-12 5:30 PM, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:48 AM, Henri Sivonen<hsiv...@iki.fi> wrote:
>> I think the biggest problem with moving to mailing lists only with
>> in-house archival is that the state of the mailing list archival
>> software is pretty sad. It would probably be worthwhile to ask the W3C
>> if they'd be willing to share their email archival software.
>
> The W3C's archives are also wretched, and apparently the software they use
> is a dead project. There was a thread about this in www-style a while back.
The W3C archives are not as bad as some I've seen, but mhonarc
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:48 AM, Henri Sivonen<hsiv...@iki.fi> wrote:
>> I think the biggest problem with moving to mailing lists only with
>> in-house archival is that the state of the mailing list archival
>> software is pretty sad. It would probably be worthwhile to ask the W3C
>> if they'd be willing to share their email archival software.
>
> The W3C's archives are also wretched, and apparently the software they use
> is a dead project. There was a thread about this in www-style a while back.
(http://mhonarc.org/) is better (see http://gcc.gnu.org/lists.html for
an example installation) (I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it
"not terrible", though)
> A mailing list with a good Web-accessible archive that also lets people
> send messages through the archive interface (basically, pretending to be a
> Web-based forum for people who don't want to deal with email directly at
> all) would be perfect for us and for the W3C. Unfortunately I don't know if
> such software exists.
wiki now, so there's manpower.
We'd need to get some people who actually _like_ web forums to tell us
what they want it to be like, though.
zw
David Illsley
Apr 13, 2012, 3:28:24 AM4/13/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
1. Part of it is mindset based. If you come to a thread late, you can either try to pick it up in a constructive way, or think you're too late. Similarly for people 'leading' threads, you can either be of the opinion that you 'solved it' in the first 3 hours so you'll stop reading it, or you can engage. I'm absolutely not for permathreads, but I think it's important that people try to have a mindset that followups within a few days are at least worth consideration.
2. Structure and discoverability is important. Having decent canonical URLs for discussions and ways of talking about the 'forums' would likely help. The recent e-mail to the mozillians list about the Kilimanjaro event talked about 'our public Dev Planning list', which is the first time I've seen that naming and linked to both google groups and the 'forum' page.
3. Some lists are hard to find. I'm particularly proud of finding the listinfo page for services-dev
4. With a decent web interfaces, building an 'interesting/important/popular discussions' dashboard outside of the forums software itself would be an interesting project. It could take some of the thoughts around tagging without having to have them built into the list/forum software.
5. Running a distributed community like mozilla requires powerful collaboration tools. I think there's an increasingly compelling argument for building some custom tools to push the state of the art forward, particularly with a web-focus.
David
David Illsley
Apr 13, 2012, 3:28:24 AM4/13/12
to mozilla.g...@googlegroups.com, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Thursday, April 12, 2012 1:40:33 PM UTC+1, Gervase Markham wrote:
Stormy Peters
Apr 17, 2012, 12:02:22 PM4/17/12
to Zack Weinberg, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Zack Weinberg <za...@panix.com> wrote:
> On 2012-04-12 5:30 PM, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>
> On 2012-04-12 5:30 PM, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:48 AM, Henri Sivonen<hsiv...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>
>> A mailing list with a good Web-accessible archive that also lets people
>> send messages through the archive interface (basically, pretending to be a
>> Web-based forum for people who don't want to deal with email directly at
>> all) would be perfect for us and for the W3C. Unfortunately I don't know
>> if
>> such software exists.
>>
>
>>
>> A mailing list with a good Web-accessible archive that also lets people
>> send messages through the archive interface (basically, pretending to be a
>> Web-based forum for people who don't want to deal with email directly at
>> all) would be perfect for us and for the W3C. Unfortunately I don't know
>> if
>> such software exists.
>>
>
> Maybe we should make one? I hear the devmo people are writing their own
> wiki now, so there's manpower.
>
> We'd need to get some people who actually _like_ web forums to tell us
> what they want it to be like, though.
>
Mairin Duffy has been working on a better web interface for Mailman. Before
> wiki now, so there's manpower.
>
> We'd need to get some people who actually _like_ web forums to tell us
> what they want it to be like, though.
>
we create another tool, we should check in with her.
http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2012/03/14/mailman-brainstorm-2/
Stormy
Ben Bucksch
Apr 18, 2012, 3:55:57 PM4/18/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
For me, the biggest problems are:
* Many different communication methods, none of them synced
* No way to filter for topics that I am interested in (assuming I have
only 1h/week)
As for the first problem, we have as communication methods:
* bugzilla
* newsgroups (with mailing list and web frontend)
* blogs
* Wiki
* IRC
Plus other ventures that are used by some projects:
* google groups (proprietary, not newsgroup)
* github review
* Other IM technologies
* Face-to-face
As for the first methods, each has its advantages and problems (listed
below), so when talking about a single topic, we often find the need to
change forum. But given that the different tools are not integrated in
any way (apart from links at best), discussions are split, so that ends
up being highly disruptive and usually loses most participants or simply
never happens. I don't have a solution, just the problem statement.
Also, the "other ventures" listed above are completely intransparent for
the project / community, yet I sense that many very important decisions
are made there and the merely the result is communicated publicly. This
is worrying me a lot.
Advantages:
bugzilla
+ very specific to a code change, so it's easy to go from a code line to
commit to bugzilla thread and see the rationale, even years after it
happened. That's incredibly important, invaluable.
- not threaded, which means that it's often not readable, which means
that bugs (or comments in the bugs) with too many comments get ignored,
or one group of people gets very annoyed at another chatty group of people.
- when used for near-realtime communication, it ends up unreadable.
newsgroups
+ threaded - but threading is currently technically broken by some of
the gateway software, making the threading fairly useless.
+ good for high-level discussions and decisions
+ large audience (which can be good or bad, depending on importance of
topic)
- difficult to differentiate between significant posts and chatter
wiki
+ can be reorganized after the fact to form a coherent whole that's easy
to read
- not good for discussion
IRC
+ good for back-and-forth
- not archived in an accessible way
* Many different communication methods, none of them synced
* No way to filter for topics that I am interested in (assuming I have
only 1h/week)
As for the first problem, we have as communication methods:
* bugzilla
* newsgroups (with mailing list and web frontend)
* blogs
* Wiki
* IRC
Plus other ventures that are used by some projects:
* google groups (proprietary, not newsgroup)
* github review
* Other IM technologies
* Face-to-face
As for the first methods, each has its advantages and problems (listed
below), so when talking about a single topic, we often find the need to
change forum. But given that the different tools are not integrated in
any way (apart from links at best), discussions are split, so that ends
up being highly disruptive and usually loses most participants or simply
never happens. I don't have a solution, just the problem statement.
Also, the "other ventures" listed above are completely intransparent for
the project / community, yet I sense that many very important decisions
are made there and the merely the result is communicated publicly. This
is worrying me a lot.
Advantages:
bugzilla
+ very specific to a code change, so it's easy to go from a code line to
commit to bugzilla thread and see the rationale, even years after it
happened. That's incredibly important, invaluable.
- not threaded, which means that it's often not readable, which means
that bugs (or comments in the bugs) with too many comments get ignored,
or one group of people gets very annoyed at another chatty group of people.
- when used for near-realtime communication, it ends up unreadable.
newsgroups
+ threaded - but threading is currently technically broken by some of
the gateway software, making the threading fairly useless.
+ good for high-level discussions and decisions
+ large audience (which can be good or bad, depending on importance of
topic)
- difficult to differentiate between significant posts and chatter
wiki
+ can be reorganized after the fact to form a coherent whole that's easy
to read
- not good for discussion
IRC
+ good for back-and-forth
- not archived in an accessible way
Ben Bucksch
Apr 18, 2012, 4:09:55 PM4/18/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 13.04.2012 09:28, David Illsley wrote:
> 5. Running a distributed community like mozilla requires powerful collaboration tools. I think there's an increasingly compelling argument for building some custom tools to push the state of the art forward, particularly with a web-focus.
+1
> 5. Running a distributed community like mozilla requires powerful collaboration tools. I think there's an increasingly compelling argument for building some custom tools to push the state of the art forward, particularly with a web-focus.
Majken Connor
Apr 18, 2012, 4:26:55 PM4/18/12
to Ben Bucksch, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
You forgot to evaluate blogs, which I think might hold some of the key.
bugzilla is not good for discussion or conversation, it's for tracking.
What makes it good for staying informed is that people will update the bug
with progress. It's proof that not all discussion has to happen in one
place, or a perfectly open place, to keep people informed enough to be
involved and feel like the process is open. Blogs can have a similar
functionality but on a different scale. If people take the time to post to
a team blog with regular updates the same way the post to bugzilla (doesn't
have to be beautiful prose, just the necessary info) IMO that solves a lot
of the issues with time and trying to follow *everything*.
I also find the problem isn't that there are many mechanisms (there should
be, lots of different activities happen) but that they're not always used
consistently. Independent of the tools we use for other tasks, I think it's
really important for teams to keep informative blogs. I don't think there
is much competition in terms of technology for this type of outward
communication.
I also think the newsgroups/mailing lists are important. It would be great
if there were something better, but there isn't yet and so I think we
should use these consistently. They provide a mechanism for keeping teams
open and collaborative that is worth a lot more than the cost for learning
how to use them. If there are problems we should work around them and
invest in better tools, not just abandon them.
It would be great if we could put hashtags in messages for example, and
teach our clients to filter on them.
-Lucy
> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>
bugzilla is not good for discussion or conversation, it's for tracking.
What makes it good for staying informed is that people will update the bug
with progress. It's proof that not all discussion has to happen in one
place, or a perfectly open place, to keep people informed enough to be
involved and feel like the process is open. Blogs can have a similar
functionality but on a different scale. If people take the time to post to
a team blog with regular updates the same way the post to bugzilla (doesn't
have to be beautiful prose, just the necessary info) IMO that solves a lot
of the issues with time and trying to follow *everything*.
I also find the problem isn't that there are many mechanisms (there should
be, lots of different activities happen) but that they're not always used
consistently. Independent of the tools we use for other tasks, I think it's
really important for teams to keep informative blogs. I don't think there
is much competition in terms of technology for this type of outward
communication.
I also think the newsgroups/mailing lists are important. It would be great
if there were something better, but there isn't yet and so I think we
should use these consistently. They provide a mechanism for keeping teams
open and collaborative that is worth a lot more than the cost for learning
how to use them. If there are problems we should work around them and
invest in better tools, not just abandon them.
It would be great if we could put hashtags in messages for example, and
teach our clients to filter on them.
-Lucy
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>
Ben Bucksch
Apr 18, 2012, 4:43:07 PM4/18/12
to Majken Connor, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 18.04.2012 22:26, Majken Connor wrote:
> bugzilla is not good for discussion or conversation, it's for tracking.
> What makes it good for staying informed is that people will update the
> bug with progress.
Agreed. That's the ideal.
> bugzilla is not good for discussion or conversation, it's for tracking.
> What makes it good for staying informed is that people will update the
> bug with progress.
> It's proof that not all discussion has to happen in
> one place, or a perfectly open place, to keep people informed enough to
> be involved and feel like the process is open.
in favor of the other, and I didn't suggest that.
My point was that we either need one new tool which fulfills are the
different needs and purposes at once, or we need an integration between
the tools. What's difficult today is that even if these tools are all
perfectly used (which they are not by any means, we're all humans), I
would still not be able to follow decisions that crossed different
discussion tools. Much less am I able to just reply on the newsgroup to
a bugzilla comment without losing most participants.
Majken Connor
Apr 18, 2012, 6:34:26 PM4/18/12
to Ben Bucksch, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
Yeah, my comments were more in general to help the foundation of the
discussion. It's really great to see people interested in solving the
problem!
It's too bad the newsgroup/mailing list option doesn't allow someone to
subscribe to one thread at a time. I don't think it would be difficult at
all to add a field to bugzilla called "related discussion" that could be
used to hold links. Etherpads are a possible workaround for now. With
Mozilla reps we do a lot of planning and doc writing, not a lot of patches
and so we're trying to use bugzilla to track our progress (I showed the
group how productive a triage meeting can be if everything is in bugs!) and
we can attach an etherpad in the URL field for many things. Still doesn't
automate it though, but maybe it inspires someone!
discussion. It's really great to see people interested in solving the
problem!
It's too bad the newsgroup/mailing list option doesn't allow someone to
subscribe to one thread at a time. I don't think it would be difficult at
all to add a field to bugzilla called "related discussion" that could be
used to hold links. Etherpads are a possible workaround for now. With
Mozilla reps we do a lot of planning and doc writing, not a lot of patches
and so we're trying to use bugzilla to track our progress (I showed the
group how productive a triage meeting can be if everything is in bugs!) and
we can attach an etherpad in the URL field for many things. Still doesn't
automate it though, but maybe it inspires someone!
Stormy Peters
Apr 19, 2012, 1:58:28 PM4/19/12
to Majken Connor, Ben Bucksch, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Majken Connor <maj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, my comments were more in general to help the foundation of the
> discussion. It's really great to see people interested in solving the
> problem!
>
> It's too bad the newsgroup/mailing list option doesn't allow someone to
> subscribe to one thread at a time. I don't think it would be difficult at
> all to add a field to bugzilla called "related discussion" that could be
> used to hold links. Etherpads are a possible workaround for now.
The Systers group has added a feature to Mailman where you can unsubscribe
> Yeah, my comments were more in general to help the foundation of the
> discussion. It's really great to see people interested in solving the
> problem!
>
> It's too bad the newsgroup/mailing list option doesn't allow someone to
> subscribe to one thread at a time. I don't think it would be difficult at
> all to add a field to bugzilla called "related discussion" that could be
> used to hold links. Etherpads are a possible workaround for now.
from a thread in a Mailman list.
I imagine it could be tweaked some how to do the opposite.
Stormy
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>
Gervase Markham
Apr 20, 2012, 12:13:05 PM4/20/12
to Patrick Finch
On 12/04/12 11:00, Patrick Finch wrote:
> Second: inaccessibility of discussions on the Mozilla forums is not a
> technology issue for anyone (I tend to agree with the three items
> identified by Henri, but they were not addressed by the product
> marketing group).
That's very interesting.
> Second: inaccessibility of discussions on the Mozilla forums is not a
> technology issue for anyone (I tend to agree with the three items
> identified by Henri, but they were not addressed by the product
> marketing group).
> Discussions often felt fragmented or unfocussed (frequently asked
> question, "have you seen what's happening in XXX-planning?" etc.).
>
> Engaging in discussions therefore often felt unproductive, and for some
> people located in California, they didn't necessarily see a point in
> doing this "when they could have a conversation face-to-face". (clearly,
> that is excluding a much larger constituency.)
understand that shortcuts like this are, in the long term,
community-corrosive.
> There were a few concerns registered about flaming, which I think we
> have a thread on already.
> Another important topic for marketing was concerns about people
> reporting on our lists -commentary about market positions is often
> newsworthy. That's largely a fact of life in the Mozilla community.
:-) Do we have any kind of official position on what upcoming stuff or
market stuff we need to keep closed?
> I think there needs to be better curation of the marketing community
> forums. There's one huge canonical list for too broad a range of topics.
appropriate to sub-divide. Please take a lead in doing that, and file
the necessary bugs for new groups :-)
Gerv
Gervase Markham
Apr 20, 2012, 12:18:30 PM4/20/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 17/04/12 12:02, Stormy Peters wrote:
> Mairin Duffy has been working on a better web interface for Mailman. Before
> we create another tool, we should check in with her.
> http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2012/03/14/mailman-brainstorm-2/
I've sent her an email.
> Mairin Duffy has been working on a better web interface for Mailman. Before
> we create another tool, we should check in with her.
> http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2012/03/14/mailman-brainstorm-2/
Gerv
Gervase Markham
Apr 20, 2012, 12:19:56 PM4/20/12
to Henri Sivonen
On 12/04/12 09:48, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> 1) We refer to them as the newsgroups which implies that you have to
> use an old school mechanism to access them (if people these days even
> know what newsgroups are). But sometimes (see
> https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/ ) we refer to them as forums
> which implies a web-based user interface in the style of phpBB. In
> both cases, the terminology obfuscates the fact that these discussion
> groups are available using the means that is normal among open source
> projects as well as Web standardization groups: mailing lists.
So you would prefer us to use the term "mailing lists"?
> 1) We refer to them as the newsgroups which implies that you have to
> use an old school mechanism to access them (if people these days even
> know what newsgroups are). But sometimes (see
> https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/ ) we refer to them as forums
> which implies a web-based user interface in the style of phpBB. In
> both cases, the terminology obfuscates the fact that these discussion
> groups are available using the means that is normal among open source
> projects as well as Web standardization groups: mailing lists.
> 2) The bridging between newsgroups, mailing lists and Google groups
> means that each group has at least three distinct addresses. This
> leads to all sorts of annoyances.
them are.
> First, you have to know how to
> mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
> to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
> mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
> the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
> non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
> looks like it was an off-list private email.
> Third, when you reply via
> email to a mailing list, sometimes the message you're replying to
> contains an email address for the corresponding Google group and you
> have to edit out that address because you are posting to the
> lists.mozilla.org address instead.
> What I would like to see is consolidating to Mozilla-hosted mailing
> lists with Mozilla-hosted archives with a Mozilla-hosted search engine
> for the archives as well as the archives being friendly to third-party
> search engines so that you can search the archives using Google's Web
> search if you like.
> I think newsgroups are way too old school to be
> the primary mechanism and having newsgroups as a secondary mechanism
> causes too much an annoyance in the form of the artifacts of the
> bridging and the mental address translation.
achieve the bridging without annoying people. But I concur our
implementation is not as good as theirs.
Gerv
Josh Matthews
Apr 20, 2012, 1:22:07 PM4/20/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 12-04-20 12:19 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>> First, you have to know how to
>> mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
>> to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
>> mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
>> the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
>> non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
>> looks like it was an off-list private email.
>
> Can you name those clients? Is Thunderbird one?
I'm often confused in gMail when this occurs.
>> First, you have to know how to
>> mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
>> to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
>> mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
>> the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
>> non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
>> looks like it was an off-list private email.
>
> Can you name those clients? Is Thunderbird one?
Cheers,
Josh
Majken Connor
Apr 20, 2012, 1:43:28 PM4/20/12
to Josh Matthews, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
This is a problem that all you old schoolers like the lists to reply to
individuals and not lists directly. I think at Mozilla we don't run a big
enough risk of taking "bad" things off list to lose the ease of not having
to reply all each time. In gmail if you reply all it puts the person in the
to line and the list in cc, but I haven't had problems with it unless
someone has accidentally sent it to me individually, then I have to untag
it from the inbox (I have my lists set to filter to their own labels and
skip the inbox).
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Josh Matthews <jo...@joshmatthews.net>wrote:
> On 12-04-20 12:19 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>
individuals and not lists directly. I think at Mozilla we don't run a big
enough risk of taking "bad" things off list to lose the ease of not having
to reply all each time. In gmail if you reply all it puts the person in the
to line and the list in cc, but I haven't had problems with it unless
someone has accidentally sent it to me individually, then I have to untag
it from the inbox (I have my lists set to filter to their own labels and
skip the inbox).
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Josh Matthews <jo...@joshmatthews.net>wrote:
> On 12-04-20 12:19 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>
>> First, you have to know how to
>>> mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
>>> to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
>>> mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
>>> the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
>>> non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
>>> looks like it was an off-list private email.
>>>
>>
>> Can you name those clients? Is Thunderbird one?
>>
>
>>> mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
>>> to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
>>> mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
>>> the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
>>> non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
>>> looks like it was an off-list private email.
>>>
>>
>> Can you name those clients? Is Thunderbird one?
>>
>
> I'm often confused in gMail when this occurs.
>
> Cheers,
> Josh
>
> ______________________________**_________________
>
> Cheers,
> Josh
>
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>
Henri Sivonen
Apr 23, 2012, 3:01:17 AM4/23/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Ben Bucksch
<ben.buck...@beonex.com> wrote:
> Plus other ventures that are used by some projects:
> * google groups (proprietary, not newsgroup)
> * github review
> * Other IM technologies
I sort of understand the appeal of github, but the use of Google
<ben.buck...@beonex.com> wrote:
> Plus other ventures that are used by some projects:
> * google groups (proprietary, not newsgroup)
> * github review
> * Other IM technologies
Groups and non-IRC IM is very worrying, because it *looks* like people
who start using Google Group-only mailing lists don't even bother
asking for a lists.mozilla.org list and that people who use other IM
technologies (I haven't noticed this myself) can't be bothered to join
IRC.
I think setting up a Google Group instead of asking for a
lists.mozilla.org list (which gets listed on lists.mozilla.org so that
people can find it, which is important!) takes the consumerization of
IT too far. Is there something that's onerous about requesting a
lists.mozilla.org list or don't people who set up a Google Group just
care about doing things in a consistently discoverable way?
Patrick FInch
Apr 23, 2012, 3:09:10 AM4/23/12
to Gervase Markham, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 4/20/12 6:13 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>> Another important topic for marketing was concerns about people
>> reporting on our lists -commentary about market positions is often
>> newsworthy. That's largely a fact of life in the Mozilla community.
>
> I've also encountered this reluctance in PR. (Is that the same people?
> :-) Do we have any kind of official position on what upcoming stuff or
> market stuff we need to keep closed?
no, this was product marketing reporting a perceived concern from PR,
> :-) Do we have any kind of official position on what upcoming stuff or
> market stuff we need to keep closed?
and I sense that this can vary depending on state of a product, and
current press interest in a topic.
>> I think there needs to be better curation of the marketing community
>> forums. There's one huge canonical list for too broad a range of topics.
>
> If you can find the appropriate fault lines, it would be entirely
> appropriate to sub-divide. Please take a lead in doing that, and file
> the necessary bugs for new groups :-)
I will instigate, but especially the marketing collective
> appropriate to sub-divide. Please take a lead in doing that, and file
> the necessary bugs for new groups :-)
(https://wiki.mozilla.org/Marketing_Collective ) should take a lead here.
Patrick
--
Patrick Finch
Mozilla
pfi...@mozilla.com
Mobile: +46 768 444 833
IM: patric...@gmail.com
Henri Sivonen
Apr 23, 2012, 3:11:27 AM4/23/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 7:19 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> On 12/04/12 09:48, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>
> On 12/04/12 09:48, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>
>> 1) We refer to them as the newsgroups which implies that you have to
>> use an old school mechanism to access them (if people these days even
>> know what newsgroups are). But sometimes (see
>> https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/ ) we refer to them as forums
>> which implies a web-based user interface in the style of phpBB. In
>> both cases, the terminology obfuscates the fact that these discussion
>> groups are available using the means that is normal among open source
>> projects as well as Web standardization groups: mailing lists.
>
>> use an old school mechanism to access them (if people these days even
>> know what newsgroups are). But sometimes (see
>> https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/ ) we refer to them as forums
>> which implies a web-based user interface in the style of phpBB. In
>> both cases, the terminology obfuscates the fact that these discussion
>> groups are available using the means that is normal among open source
>> projects as well as Web standardization groups: mailing lists.
>
> So you would prefer us to use the term "mailing lists"?
Yes.
>> 2) The bridging between newsgroups, mailing lists and Google groups
>> means that each group has at least three distinct addresses. This
>> leads to all sorts of annoyances.
>
> It does. Some of them are fixable with patches; I don't know if all of them
> are.
Not all of them are. For instance, you can't patch away the fact that
> are.
newsgroups and mailing lists have different addressing schemes, so
people mentioning lists/groups on e.g. Bugzilla will end up using an
addressing scheme different from the one you use.
>> First, you have to know how to
>> mentally translate between these notations in case someone tells you
>> to post somewhere but uses an addressing scheme that doesn't match the
>> mechanism through which you participate. Second, when someone posts to
>> the newsgroup and CCs you via email in some email clients it is
>> non-obvious that the message was also addressed to a newsgroup, so it
>> looks like it was an off-list private email.
>
> Can you name those clients? Is Thunderbird one?
Gmail is one. I don't know if Thunderbird is one.
(To write *this* reply on Gmail, I had to manually fix the To address
and to manually view the headers of your email to make sure that it
was a message sent to the newsgroup instead of an off-list private
email just to me so it was OK to post the reply to the list. Since the
copy you sent to me directly via email arrived before the copy that
traveled through the newsgroup to mailing list bridge, Gmail's
deduplication suppressed the mailing list copy, so the message I
replied to had no trace of the existence of the mailing list in the
headers.)
>> Third, when you reply via
>> email to a mailing list, sometimes the message you're replying to
>> contains an email address for the corresponding Google group and you
>> have to edit out that address because you are posting to the
>> lists.mozilla.org address instead.
>
> I wonder if we could manage some server-side deduplication?
I mean the problem is that if you aren't a Google Groups subscriber,
you shouldn't be trying to send email to the Google Groups address in
the first place.
>> What I would like to see is consolidating to Mozilla-hosted mailing
>> lists with Mozilla-hosted archives with a Mozilla-hosted search engine
>> for the archives as well as the archives being friendly to third-party
>> search engines so that you can search the archives using Google's Web
>> search if you like.
>
Beyond "using whatever the W3C uses", I don't. But as already pointed
out, it's not a very good suggestion. Just the other things I'm aware
of are worse.
>> I think newsgroups are way too old school to be
>> the primary mechanism and having newsgroups as a secondary mechanism
>> causes too much an annoyance in the form of the artifacts of the
>> bridging and the mental address translation.
>
>
> I don't think that's true of necessity; gmane, for example, seems to achieve
> the bridging without annoying people. But I concur our implementation is not
> as good as theirs.
How does it deal with the dual addressing when talking about the
> the bridging without annoying people. But I concur our implementation is not
> as good as theirs.
groups/lists in e.g. Bugzilla comments?
Gervase Markham
Apr 23, 2012, 7:57:05 AM4/23/12
to Henri Sivonen
On 23/04/12 08:11, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> How does it deal with the dual addressing when talking about the
> groups/lists in e.g. Bugzilla comments?
I'm not sure. Maybe it knows the mailing list posting address for each
> How does it deal with the dual addressing when talking about the
> groups/lists in e.g. Bugzilla comments?
group and removes it from the CC/To on the newsgroup copy, so when you
hit Reply on the newsgroup copy, it doesn't reply also to the list
posting address?
Anyway, it works :-)
Gerv
Gervase Markham
Apr 23, 2012, 9:17:19 AM4/23/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
Gerv
<snip>
It's become a project called 'HyperKitty,' there's some
rudimentary prototype code available, and there's at least a couple of
Google Summer of Code students applying to work on it.
http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-d...@python.org/msg12657.html
From the Fedora Project, Toshio Kuratomi and Pierre-Yves Chibon
developed the initial prototype at the PyCon code sprints and will
likely serve as mentors to the GSoC student(s). Aamir Khan is the most
active student applicant; I don't remember the name of the other student
who was thinking about applying.
All the work is happening in coordination with Mailman upstream.
Hope this helps; the post from Pierre linked above should have the links
to the usual stuff (code repo, web page, etc.)
~m
Henri Sivonen
Apr 23, 2012, 9:20:32 AM4/23/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> On 23/04/12 08:11, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>
> On 23/04/12 08:11, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>
>> How does it deal with the dual addressing when talking about the
>> groups/lists in e.g. Bugzilla comments?
>
>> groups/lists in e.g. Bugzilla comments?
>
> I'm not sure. Maybe it knows the mailing list posting address for each group
> and removes it from the CC/To on the newsgroup copy, so when you hit Reply
> on the newsgroup copy, it doesn't reply also to the list posting address?
That's not what I mean. I mean how does it deal with the duality when
> and removes it from the CC/To on the newsgroup copy, so when you hit Reply
> on the newsgroup copy, it doesn't reply also to the list posting address?
referring to the groups/lists elsewhere? (AFAICT, it can't.)
For example, when someone on Bugzilla says "Take it to the
newsgroups.", the reader has to know (s)he doesn't need to figure out
how to get NNTP access and can instead take it to the mailing lists.
Or when someone says: "See my post in dev-planning", the other person
has to know to search for mozilla.dev.planning on Google Groups /
NNTP.
Gervase Markham
Apr 24, 2012, 7:04:20 AM4/24/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 23/04/12 14:20, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> For example, when someone on Bugzilla says "Take it to the
> newsgroups.", the reader has to know (s)he doesn't need to figure out
> how to get NNTP access and can instead take it to the mailing lists.
> Or when someone says: "See my post in dev-planning", the other person
> has to know to search for mozilla.dev.planning on Google Groups /
> NNTP.
I think the general principle is that the lists are what they are, and
> For example, when someone on Bugzilla says "Take it to the
> newsgroups.", the reader has to know (s)he doesn't need to figure out
> how to get NNTP access and can instead take it to the mailing lists.
> Or when someone says: "See my post in dev-planning", the other person
> has to know to search for mozilla.dev.planning on Google Groups /
> NNTP.
those are what are referred to, but the NNTP access is there for people
who want it. So, taking up your earlier point, if we went this route we
would be referring to them as "mailing lists".
Gerv
Janet Swisher
Apr 24, 2012, 12:01:55 PM4/24/12
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
on the listing page: http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
Currently, it says:
"Mozilla has forums to enable communication among the Mozilla
community. They are set up so they can be read as newsgroups, mailing
lists or web groups - so it's convenient for everyone to take part."
This puts all the interfaces on an equal footing, which it sounds from
the above like they're not. I've interacted with would-be contributors
who were confused by this and thought they had to subscribe to all
versions. I suggest replacing the second sentence with something like
this:
"The primary format for discussion forums is through email mailing
lists. In case you don't like to use email for discussions, each
mailing list has a corresponding Web-based Googlegroups interface and
an NNTP feed (if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need
to)."
--Janet
Nicholas Nethercote
Apr 24, 2012, 11:32:48 PM4/24/12
to Janet Swisher, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 2:01 AM, Janet Swisher <jswi...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I suggest replacing the second sentence with something like
> this:
>
> "The primary format for discussion forums is through email mailing
> lists. In case you don't like to use email for discussions, each
> mailing list has a corresponding Web-based Googlegroups interface and
> an NNTP feed (if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need
> to)."
Yes, please please please, this would be great.
> I suggest replacing the second sentence with something like
> this:
>
> "The primary format for discussion forums is through email mailing
> lists. In case you don't like to use email for discussions, each
> mailing list has a corresponding Web-based Googlegroups interface and
> an NNTP feed (if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need
> to)."
Nick
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