[Python-Dev] tracker contribution

[R. David Murray]

On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:06:32 +0100, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> You all might have gathered that I'm very dispirited by the negative 
> attitudes that I get from a relatively small minority of Python people. 
>   I might as well quit because it doesn't do my mental health a great 
> deal of good.  That minority will of course be very happy to see me go 
> because they'll be able to sit back on their loathsome, spotty behinds 
> picking blackheads and resort to the usual "we're far too busy to do 
> anything" routine.  You might understand that I don't completely agree 
> with this.

Mark, please understand that (as far as I can tell) the "small minority
of people" of whom you are speaking here, who have offered advice on how
to make your triage work more helpful to the Python community, are some
of the most *active* Python committers and community participants.

I think the best thing for your mental health would be to see if you can
just ignore things that seem negative, and see if there's any useful
advice in what is said.  And if you don't find the opinions useful,
then you don't.  The essence of community is cooperation, and cooperation
can't happen without communication; and yes, some of it is going to sound
negative (and some of it will even *be* negative...that's human nature,
as your message demonstrates).  Which I think you have done, since I've
seen you put into practice some of the suggestions that were made.

I regret that I haven't been able to follow your prolific work closely
(in fact, I have had to stop following the bugs list, I now just watch
the new bugs list...not just due to the volume, but because of my other
commitments, but the volume certainly contributed, unfortunately[*]).
I especially regret that because I was the one who gave you developer
privs on the tracker, and so I have something of a responsibility to so.
I'm relying on the positive feedback that you are getting here to assuage
my guilt for not paying closer attention to your work, and also on the
fact that I have seen the quality of your work improve over time from
the bugs I have reviewed that you've commented on.

--
R. David Murray                                      www.bitdance.com

[*] I think this may be a source of some of the discomfort you have
sensed.  I had been used to being able to keep up with the bugs list,
but even before you started your work I was already thinking that that
wasn't going to work for much longer...as Python becomes more popular, the
number of bug reports increases, and as we add more committers and gather
more people who are actively helping out, the message traffic increases.
This is *good*:  it means we are getting more done (well, at least if
we can continue to add committers it does), but it also means that it
is no longer possible for a part time volunteer to keep an overview
of the bug/patch activity.  The danger, of course, is that more things
will slip through the cracks....but this is not, as you have observed,
a new problem.