+1

I have other interests outside Python. Email filters allow me to categorize email automatically, saving messages in folders which wait for me to get around to that category.

Considering the explosion of outlets for Python discussion, I will relate a recent unfortunate incident I don't think would have happened a couple years ago. I won't name names, but I won't go out of my way to keep the parties from being discovered. Someone posted a note to the [Python Help] forum on discuss.python.org recently stating Python had an obvious memory leak. I tried to help, explaining what I thought he needed to do to demonstrate a leak. He posted a small C program which initialized, then immediately finalized the Python runtime, and basically said, "this is a memory leak." I pointed out that you need to loop over the same operation to determine if you really have a leak. Back and forth for a bit.

Finally, I said, "if you believe this to be a memory leak, then you should open an issue on GitHub." My intent was to get his argument in front of the people who really are the experts on Python's memory management. His response, "Oh, I already have, here and here and here." What a nice way to waste my time... I imagine he was trolling, but maybe he was just dissatisfied with the responses he got on GH and thought he could get someone to go to bat for him.

My thinking is this would likely have not happened in the olden days when almost all Python development/programming traffic was housed in python-list and python-dev.Granted, the Python community was smaller, but, perhaps just as importantly, a couple active core developers always seemed to keep an eye on python-list. It seems likely that someone would have seen this thread and nipped it in the bud early. "I responded to your issue a couple months ago and explained why this isn't a memory leak. Now go away." Today, I don't recall noticing core developers on the [Python Help] forum. (I could well be wrong, but the web interface doesn't make it obvious at-a-glance who's posted to a thread from the summary page. It's tiny avatars all the way down.)

The flip side of that is that if you want to ask a question about something, it's less obvious where to post that question. The fragmented community means you stand a greater chance of guessing wrong and have it not be seen by anyone who can help.

Just my 2¢

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