[Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Paul Moore]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 23:38, James Lu <jamtlu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It’s very demotivating to hear just negative feedback on this list.
>
> Was starting this thread useful for y’all?

In the interests of clear communication, no it wasn't.

In the interests of trying not to be *too* demotivating, the reason is
that it was far too general a question, and it was almost entirely
about how people behave, which is a sensitive topic, and not one
that's well suited to the medium of email. So people ended up
digressing and debating minor off-topic points, because it's bluntly
too hard to come up with a polite, clear explanation, suitable for an
email, of why certain people's writing styles are hard to work with
(and even if someone did that, it's just stating the problem -
proposing a solution is a whole order of magnitude more work).

Very few people have the time or the inclination to put a lot of
effort into carefully reasoned, well thought through emails. It's too
much like writing an essay or a report. But that's what's needed when
discussing a complex proposal. And "discussing complex proposals" is
essentially the whole point of this list (as I see it). "Hey, wouldn't
it be neat if we could do X" is *not* the intended use of the list,
and it's precisely those partially (or even not at all) thought out
postings that generate the most frustrating, least clear,
conversations.

Paul