Sourceforge notifications considered harmful

It completely sucks, and has completely sucked ever since the decision was made a few months ago, that Mailman-Developers gets Cc'd on every Sourceforge update. I'm sure Barry (or whoever) felt they were doing a service, but it has practically killed discussion here and cost us many, many kilobytes of repetitive cruft, since everytime anyone adds a "yeah me too" comment to the end of a bug, the ENTIRE thing has to be reposted here.
If you don't actually want to have a Developers discussion list, then shut it down and let people submit stuff via Sourceforge only. If you do want one, let us have one.
Sure, it seems legit to let the list know what bugs have been added/updated. So run a nightly script that prepares a one-line-per-bug summary of adds & updates, and let that be a single (very useful) message on the list.

- Tom Neff (tneff@bigfoot.com) wrote:
If you don't actually want to have a Developers discussion list, then shut it down and let people submit stuff via Sourceforge only. If you do want one, let us have one.
How about a mailman-developers and mailman-bugsandpatches list?
| Matthew Davis /\ http://dogpound.vnet.net/ | |--------------------------------------------| | Wednesday, January 15, 2003 / 11:57PM |
Definition of Terror: A female Klingon having a bad hair day.

"TN" == Tom Neff <tneff@bigfoot.com> writes:
TN> It completely sucks, and has completely sucked ever since the
TN> decision was made a few months ago, that Mailman-Developers
TN> gets Cc'd on every Sourceforge update. I'm sure Barry (or
TN> whoever) felt they were doing a service, but it has
TN> practically killed discussion here
That's definitely the /last/ thing I wanted to do! I think it's worse now because 2.1 is out, people are finding it, playing with it, and are submitting bugs and patches against it.
Here's a proposal:
a. I create a mailman-coders@python.org list
b. Send SF tracker messages to this list instead of mailman-developers
c. Possibly (and I think optimally), retire mailman-checkins and send the cvs diffs to mailman-coders as well. Personally, I don't see the need for two different lists, but -checkins is more than this list would do.
So vote by the -1/0/+1 rules against these options:
- Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is
- Do a + b
- Do a + b + c
-Barry

On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 12:12:07AM -0500, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
a. I create a mailman-coders@python.org list
b. Send SF tracker messages to this list instead of mailman-developers
c. Possibly (and I think optimally), retire mailman-checkins and send the cvs diffs to mailman-coders as well. Personally, I don't see the need for two different lists, but -checkins is more than this list would do.
So vote by the -1/0/+1 rules against these options:
- Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is
0
- Do a + b
+1
- Do a + b + c
+0
-- Jon Parise (jon@csh.rit.edu) :: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~jon/

Barry wrote:
That's definitely the /last/ thing I wanted to do! I think it's worse now because 2.1 is out, people are finding it, playing with it, and are submitting bugs and patches against it. ...
I hope I didn't sound too ungrateful or anything.
I don't know whether or how my suggested solution fits into Barry's a/b/c -1/0/+1 thing. I just think that mailman-developers should go on as it was (akin to the -developers list for so many other open source projects) but that the Sourceforge bug dump messages should be replaced by a single daily summary message saying which SF bugs were updated, with a one line subject for each.

"TN" == Tom Neff <tneff@bigfoot.com> writes:
TN> I just think that mailman-developers should go on as it was
TN> (akin to the -developers list for so many other open source
TN> projects) but that the Sourceforge bug dump messages should be
TN> replaced by a single daily summary message saying which SF
TN> bugs were updated, with a one line subject for each.
That's too much work, unless someone else volunteers to set it up and run it. But Daniel Buchmann made a very good point that it makes translators lives easier to separate checkin messages and tracker reports, so unless there are strenuous objections, I'll go with plan a+b.
Thanks all, -Barry

Ok folks, thanks for the votes (one day we'll use Marilyn's eVote :).
I've just created mailman-coders and pointed the trackers at that list. Feel free to subscribe <wink>.
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-coders
As for summaries, I'm all for them, if someone else can implement it. I don't have the time.
-Barry

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
"BAW" == Barry A Warsaw "Re: [Mailman-Developers] Sourceforge notifications considered harmful" Thu, 16 Jan 2003 00:12:07 -0500
BAW> So vote by the -1/0/+1 rules against these options:
BAW> 1. Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is
-1
BAW> 2. Do a + b
+1
BAW> 3. Do a + b + c
0
jam
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- Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is 0
- Do a + b +1
- Do a + b + c 0
- do a + b + post summaries to mailman-developers +1
I don't mind getting the SF messages, even on those "my poor laptop's on dialup" days, but to be honest, they get procmailed to another folder and I tend to forget about them most of the time, so they're not really serving their purpose.
I *really* like the idea of this list getting summaries as suggested in the original mail because I know I'd take the time to scan a summary. (After all, I scan the summary of stuff caught in my spam filter every day, and it's way less interesting.) Sure, plenty of people will ignore it, but at least the volume won't be so large that it'll drive people and discussions away, and it just might better serve the original purpose of having all the SF stuff send to this list.
Terri (who *wishes* she were going to the spam conference)

- Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is
+0
- Do a + b
+1
- Do a + b + c
+1
Gee, eVote could help here. I'm dawdling with the install process and documentation, but soon.
On an eVoted list, for this poll, you'd send a message to the list address that says:
eVote poll public visible group
- Do nothing [-1,1]
- Do a + b [-1,1]
- Do a + b + c [-1,1] message: Here's a proposal: a. I create a mailman-coders@python.org list b. Send SF tracker messages to this list instead of mailman-developers c. Possibly (and I think optimally), retire mailman-checkins and send the cvs diffs to mailman-coders as well. Personally, I don't see the need for two different lists, but -checkins is more than this list would do. --- end of message --
Then the list would get detailed poll instructions, and then I'd reply-to the list addresses saying:
eVote
- 0
- 1
- 1 --- end of message --
I hope people will find it handy sometimes.
Marilyn

Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
a. I create a mailman-coders@python.org list
b. Send SF tracker messages to this list instead of mailman-developers
c. Possibly (and I think optimally), retire mailman-checkins and send the cvs diffs to mailman-coders as well. Personally, I don't see the need for two different lists, but -checkins is more than this list would do
So vote by the -1/0/+1 rules against these options:
- Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is
-1
- Do a + b
+1
- Do a + b + c
-1
(I'm very interested in checkins; I'm not very interested in "I tried to install Mailman and it didn't work, can you help?" buried in pounds of Sourceforge crap. Those notifications from SF's bugtracking *suck*, is a large part of the problem; if they just had delta text, or even changebars, or something, they'd suck a lot less.)

- Barry A. Warsaw (barry@python.org) wrote:
- Do nothing, everything's fine just the way it is
-1
- Do a + b
+1
- Do a + b + c
0
| Matthew Davis /\ http://dogpound.vnet.net/ | |--------------------------------------------| | Thursday, January 16, 2003 / 09:38PM |
My karma ran over my dogma
participants (10)
-
barry@python.org
-
Bryan Fullerton
-
Dan Mick
-
jam@jamux.com
-
Jon Parise
-
Marilyn Davis
-
Matthew Davis
-
mss@mawhrin.net
-
Terri Oda
-
Tom Neff