[Python-Dev] Python Core Mentorship program

[Jesse Noller]

On Mar 25, 2011, at 8:14 PM, Laura Creighton <lac at openend.se> wrote:

> In a message of Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:14:02 -0400, Jesse Noller writes:
>> Ben,
>> 
>> In principle I agree with you - I would like open archives for the
>> specific reasons you cite, but I value the ability for people who may
>> not be comfortable with coming out and openly discussing things on a
>> list if they know it's open to the magical powers of google and public
>> archives. Heck, having open archives makes it *easier to find out*
>> about the list itself, serving the purpose even more.
>> 
>> But - weighed in favor of the target audience (those that may not yet
>> be comfortable with "full disclosure", or discussing personality
>> clashes on the tracker, or those worried about future employers
>> digging up stuff) - I want to error on the side of the closed list
>> archives for now. In several months, we all might realize it was a
>> monumental mistake. At that time, we can fix the problem.
> 
> I would have thought that the set of people who were more comfortable
> with the closed list was prettry close to zero.  Because the problem
> with saying something stupid in public is really not one of perfect
> strangers using google to find out that I said something stupid once,
> but rather that current members of the target group, in this case
> the subscribers to python-dev or python-dev-mentors will find out
> that I think stupid thoughts _now_, and think less of me for it, and
> maybe say some nasty things about me.
> 
> Python-dev historically has been rather special.  The forbidding message
> "Do not post general Python questions to this list. For help with 
> Python please see the Python help page." in a red boarded box is
> fairly effective at getting the message "do not waste the valuable
> time of these people" across.  For a while, I remember, we lied and
> said that subscriptions to python-dev needed to be approved, even
> when they didn't.  That seemed to deter some people from even trying
> to join, which was probably either a good thing, or a bad thing on
> the whole (but, of course, we have no way to measure).  And the other
> thing that makes python-dev unusual is that it is casually read by
> a large number of people who never say a word.  All open mailing lists 
> have lurkers, especially those who read them without a subscription,
> through some other means, but python-dev is unsual in the number of
> people who try to read it 'just in case something important happens',
> and 'just to feel like they know what is going on in the python community'.
> All of these factors add to the 'don't waste people's time' factor.
> 
> Thus there is a lot to be said about having a separate group, where
> python-dev contributors answer questions that they have made time for,
> even if others might consider them a waste of time.  Because those
> others are not forced to subscribe and read them.  But I don't see
> such a compelling reason for a closed group.  It's not as if we expect
> that mentoring to be a source of deeply personal stories and
> anecdotes.  Or that people want the safety to discuss heretical
> approaches to changing CPython not expected to go down well with
> python-dev.
> 
> It all seems to boil down to 'some people would be more comfortable
> this way'.  I'd like to get some metrics on how many of those people
> there are.  And I'd like to measure them against a different group,
> people like me who won't contribute to a closed group, in part because
> the whole closed-ness of it makes me undomfortable. My experience
> with closed-groups vs open groups has been almost entirely negative,
> which would be reason enough for me to hesitate to join one, but
> especially when it comes to a _mentoring_ list.  The single most
> important reason why I would post something I think might be really
> stupid is because 'if I don't understand this, then there are probably
> others out there like me in the same boat'.  So I ask such things with
> the hope that the exchange will be googled _a whole lot_ in the
> future.  And again, when I answer a question fully and completely, I
> do so thinking 'I'll bet a lot of people, and not this one soul, will
> be interested in this'.  If the answer will only be seen by the
> comparatively few people in a closed mailing list, I am comparatively
> unmotivated to write anything, or write anything substantial.
> 
> I've seen a whole lot of very bad behaviour on the part of self-styled
> leaders of closed mailing lists.  They determine the party-line of the
> group and then, because it is private, blast those souls who do not
> conform with impunity.  Having been on the receiving end of a number
> of such exchanges, my conclusion has been that having the whole thing
> open is often the only defence one has.  Firstly, most people are
> more restrained when what they say can be seen by the world at large,
> so some of these incidents would not happen.  But secondly, the ability
> to share the mail with others greatly empowers the people on the
> receiving end.  But if you cannot get an outside opinion because doing
> so would violate the group's closed-ness, then you are more vulnerable.
> 
> The point of bringing this up is not because I think that
> python-dev-mentors is likely to run into these sorts of problems, but
> to let you know that there is a substantial number of people out
> there who are not emotionally comfortable with closed groups as
> opposed to open ones.  And I don't see why the emotional comfort of
> those who like closed groups should have precedence over the emotional
> comfort of those of us who find closed groups threatening.
> 
> The argument 'we'll try it closed, and then we will see about opening
> it up, later' doesn't work for me, because every time I have been
> involved in such an effort, except once, the end result has been that
> later _never_ happens. The people who like the group closed _always_
> successfully resist such change.  It is too much easier for people
> like me who only got involved in the first place because of the
> expectation of the group's eventual opening to drop out and quit the
> group than to spend the amount of energy necessary to open the group
> up.  And for me, at any rate, my reluctance to spend the energy is in
> large part because of the closed-ness of the group.  I'd care a lot
> more about the group, if the group was open.
> 
> I don't think that people like me are that rare -- hmm, I should rephrase
> that -- I don't think that people with this attitude towards closed groups
> are that rare.  And it is hard to find out about us, because we're the
> people who don't join such things.  So no matter how well a given closed
> group works, according to those who are members of such a thing, it is
> impossible to say whether the group would have been _so_ _much_ _better_
> if it were open -- or whether being closed was essential to its success.
> 
> So 'In several months we might all realize that this was a momentual
> mistake and then fix the problem' never works.  No matter what you do,
> there will always be some people who like it, so you will never get the
> 'all'.  But what might be possible to measure is the number of people
> who won't be joining a closed list, but who would join an open one,
> versus those who will join the closed list but wouldn't join the
> open one, by having some sort of vote.  Of course, a vote could only
> measure people's intentions, which are often different from what they
> really do, but it would at least allow some sort of measurement of
> what isn't happening, which is otherwise close to impossible to see.
> 
> I for one would feel a lot better about what I was missing out on in
> python-dev-mentors if I knew that there were some actual human beings
> benefitting from it who would not have joined an open group.  Without
> some sort of metric, I will always worry that it was done 'in case
> there might be people like that out there' or 'to test the theory 
> that the reason we don't have enough python-dev contributers is
> because python-dev is an open group' without any actual use-cases
> at all.
> 
>> 
>> "The perfect is the enemy of the good." :)
>> 
> 
> "If you can not measure it, you can not improve it."
> Lord Kelvin: (Sir William Thomson)
> 
> Laura


Thank you for the feedback Laura - I think that if the people volunteering to be mentors (a fair number have) can vote and/or change the policy once we have agreed to a code of conduct for the group.

I for one like to assume In the better side of people and things, and therefore I believe that the list as outlined will be a force for good, and not bad. Remember, anyone with a subscription can access anything - so it's not truly private.

Should you wish to participate, you would be welcome.

Jesse



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