[Python-Dev] Goodbye

[Nick Coghlan]

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 8:47 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> Simply, situations like the above (Mark closing a bug just because
> nobody would answer his message on a short delay) have happened
> multiple times - despite people opposing, obviously -, and we decided
> that it was better to remove his tracker privileges since his
> contribution has not really been productive for us.
>
> There was a whole python-dev thread some time (weeks? months?) ago where
> several of us already tried to suggest more fruitful ways of
> contributing, suggestions which weren't received very welcomingly AFAIR.
>
> Now I understand that opinions over this may vary and involve multiple
> factors, but I would suggest that at least a bit of mentoring is needed
> if we want to give privileges early on.
> (and the amount of mentoring needed can vary wildly from one person to
> another)

I still prefer the "trust but monitor" approach over excessively high
barriers to entry, but we do need to recognise that one consequence of
that approach is that we *will* get into situations where we need to
tell people "thank you for your contributions, but we think, on
balance, we will be better off if you don't contribute in this way any
more".

Mark *did* do quite a bit of good in his time with tracker privileges.
A number of lingering issues that would have otherwise continued
lingering did indeed get closed. That work is still appreciated, even
if it was ultimately deemed by the other tracker admins not to be
sufficient to balance out the hassles created by his aggressive stance
towards closing older issues (which, while unloved, are not
automatically invalid).

If this had happened *without* the prior discussion regarding more
appropriate handling of tracker issues, then I would have an issue
with it. However, given that the first reaction was to provide
additional mentoring, with revocation of privileges only happening
when the problems continued, that seems to me like the way this
process is *meant* to work.

Regards,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia