[documentation] Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing list (HansBKK)

Fri Nov 21 04:41:33 UTC 2008

Sorry to come back so quick but I just got the digest

Big -1 from me on keeping both - I'd rather keep things as they are
than do that.

Fewer places to check is critical, having different cliques in
different media sucks. It's hard enough to build consensus!

AFAIK **drop** them both; all conversations could take place in the
issues queue, IMO the bumping feature there is very helpful (ref's
Joshua's point on old conversations), and it's mail notifications are
I think? just as good as GDO.

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 11:34 AM,  <documentation-request at drupal.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing list (Ryan Cross)
>   2. Re: Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing list (Angela Byron)
>   3. Re: Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing list (Addison Berry)
>   4. Re: Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing list (Shai Gluskin)
>   5. Re: Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing list   (Hans
>      Henderson) (HansBKK)
>   6. Re: Problem With One of the Main CVS Pages (Shari)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:58:40 +1100
> From: "Ryan Cross" <drupal at ryancross.com>
> Subject: Re: [documentation] Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing
>        list
> To: "A list for documentation writers" <documentation at drupal.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <4e983be00811201758r26cc5e53j322c50ff87ca5214 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 12:15 PM, Addison Berry <drupal at rocktreesky.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> On Nov 20, 2008, at 7:40 PM, Joshua Brauer wrote:
>> >>>
>> >
>> > In sort my vote would be that the email list should remain the
>> > primary workspace and wiki pages, when appropriate, can serve a
>> > valuable purpose as a supplement.
>>
>> Well the main problem is that we can't "occasionally" use wiki pages
>> as a supplement. You have to be a member to use a wiki page and if we
>> open up membership then folks can create any kind of group content
>> which will end up spawning some discussions on g.d.o and some on the
>> mail list.
>>
>>
> I think it would be worth while to open up the group membership and see if
> there is a natural migration towards them. In the same experimental mindset
> as opening up the editing rights to everyone, lets try it out and see how it
> goes. Yes, there may be problems with cross posting and etc, but lets see
> what people gravitate towards and the evolutionary tendency.
>
> I completely agree with Josh's assesment (especially about wiki competency)
> and I am not a fan of deprecating the mailing list, but I'm willing to let
> the masses speak and change my thinking. I would also point out that often
> the reason for people's reluctance to joining a mailing list is the
> perceived high traffic of them (which it usually isn't) and it would be
> quite easy to setup the mailing lists to have a better archive interface by
> joining services like mail-archive.org or nabble, so I don't think those are
> solid reasons for deprecating the list.
>
> One possibility would be to initially setup the group to only allow new
> members to collaborate on wikis, so we can use it as a supplement (instead
> of a full discussion forum).
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:28:30 -0500
> From: Angela Byron <drupal-docs at webchick.net>
> Subject: Re: [documentation] Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing
>        list
> To: A list for documentation writers <documentation at drupal.org>
> Message-ID: <FF253B32-D32A-4DC2-90B2-B1534CC23090 at webchick.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> On 20-Nov-08, at 7:40 PM, Joshua Brauer wrote:
>
>> Comments below. I'm NOT a fan of the idea of deprecating the mailing
>> list for the reasons below.
>
> While I was originally in favour of the move to g.d.o on the grounds
> that most people find web interfaces more friendly than e-mail, I
> actually found myself nodding along with basically all of Josh's points.
>
> If the main idea is to have central rallying points for organizing
> stuff, then... why not do so right on Drupal.org?
>
> For example, http://drupal.org/please-review-my-patch is a sort of "ad-
> hoc" page that members of the Drupal 7 core development team use to
> escalate issues up to me that are either "quickies" that could be
> committed while I'm on one of my many daily phone calls, or that
> really need core maintainer intervention because they are dead-locked
> in discussion or need architectural advice. And, unlike
> groups.drupal.org, drupal.org has no problem displaying the revision
> log: http://drupal.org/node/309321/revisions. And finally, it's really
> nice because you can do short-hand [#xxxxx] to automatically link to
> relevant issues.
>
> Not sure if this will address the current needs of the docs team, but
> it's worth a thought?
>
> But the bottom line is that g.d.o's current subscription and
> collaboration options are pretty lackluster compared to the power e-
> mail affords; until the situation improves, we are probably jumping
> ship too soon. The Documentation issue queue can be used for web-based
> conversations and comes complete with a very clear signal of whether
> an issue is dealt with or not, and handbook pages work better than
> g.d.o anyway for wiki-style collaboration.
>
> -Angie
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:02:31 -0500
> From: Addison Berry <drupal at rocktreesky.com>
> Subject: Re: [documentation] Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing
>        list
> To: A list for documentation writers <documentation at drupal.org>
> Message-ID: <EA02EA17-9F38-4EF4-A549-9BD5B8C88392 at rocktreesky.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> On Nov 20, 2008, at 9:28 PM, Angela Byron wrote:
>
>> If the main idea is to have central rallying points for organizing
>> stuff, then... why not do so right on Drupal.org?
>>
>> For example, http://drupal.org/please-review-my-patch is a sort of
>> "ad-
>> hoc" page that members of the Drupal 7 core development team use to
>> escalate issues up to me that are either "quickies" that could be
>> committed while I'm on one of my many daily phone calls, or that
>> really need core maintainer intervention because they are dead-locked
>> in discussion or need architectural advice. And, unlike
>> groups.drupal.org, drupal.org has no problem displaying the revision
>> log: http://drupal.org/node/309321/revisions. And finally, it's really
>> nice because you can do short-hand [#xxxxx] to automatically link to
>> relevant issues.
>>
>> Not sure if this will address the current needs of the docs team, but
>> it's worth a thought?
>
> Hm. Hm. Well, yeah it works in certain ways, but the main uses we have
> for wiki pages is for temporary stuff, like drafting up a forum post
> announcement to go to the front page or working out a new outline for
> a section of the handbook. How would we handle not cluttering up with
> lots and lots of these kind of pages that will never be used as real
> handbook pages? I guess we could just have a doc team book. That isn't
> as "stumble-upon-able" by casual contributors (which is one of my
> goals). Hm. The only other disadvantage would be that there is no
> email notification from handbook pages, but at least people could see
> them in their d.o tracker, which would be nice.
>
> I still feel like that is harder for casual contributors to notice and
> get involved, but yeah, we could give that go in terms of at least
> being able to work together. Something to consider.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:29:58 -0500
> From: "Shai Gluskin" <shai at content2zero.com>
> Subject: Re: [documentation] Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing
>        list
> To: "A list for documentation writers" <documentation at drupal.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <9f68efb70811201929t7e879573k31efcfbf26d5e09d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> This whole conversation is just screaming out to mobilize advocating for a
> few basic improvements on g.d.o. I agree with Nat's suggestions for pushing
> through full messages in notifications and installing mailhandler.
>
> I agree that Wiki functionality on g.d.o without history and diff is
> useless. I'd like to hear more details about what is holding this up? Is it
> a problem specific to OG? It's pretty basic functionality.
>
> *I think we should use whatever clout we have as an important group within
> the Drupal community to get the needed changes to g.d.o. As Nat also said,
> every other group is probably screaming for this also. Let's band together.*
>
> What kind of example are we setting when tasks that clearly fall into the
> realm of "Community Plumbing" are not being handled by Drupal?
>
> Yes, e-mail has been the killer ap for a whole generation. It can be hard to
> move away from it. But the future is server and not client. It's the
> "Semantic Web" and not the junk heap on your (my) hard drive. We aren't
> there yet, but I feel like it helps move everything forward when we are
> willing to be guinea pigs in attempting to actually use the technology we
> are developing.
>
> It was interesting hearing Angie's story of how the D7 core folks use
> drupal.org pages for a similar need. Clever! But I would call that a
> "community plumbing hack." I don't want to start replicating hacks. I'd
> rather try to get g.d.o fixed!
>
> My 3 cents,
>
> Shai
>
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 10:02 PM, Addison Berry <drupal at rocktreesky.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> On Nov 20, 2008, at 9:28 PM, Angela Byron wrote:
>>
>> > If the main idea is to have central rallying points for organizing
>> > stuff, then... why not do so right on Drupal.org?
>> >
>> > For example, http://drupal.org/please-review-my-patch is a sort of
>> > "ad-
>> > hoc" page that members of the Drupal 7 core development team use to
>> > escalate issues up to me that are either "quickies" that could be
>> > committed while I'm on one of my many daily phone calls, or that
>> > really need core maintainer intervention because they are dead-locked
>> > in discussion or need architectural advice. And, unlike
>> > groups.drupal.org, drupal.org has no problem displaying the revision
>> > log: http://drupal.org/node/309321/revisions. And finally, it's really
>> > nice because you can do short-hand [#xxxxx] to automatically link to
>> > relevant issues.
>> >
>> > Not sure if this will address the current needs of the docs team, but
>> > it's worth a thought?
>>
>> Hm. Hm. Well, yeah it works in certain ways, but the main uses we have
>> for wiki pages is for temporary stuff, like drafting up a forum post
>> announcement to go to the front page or working out a new outline for
>> a section of the handbook. How would we handle not cluttering up with
>> lots and lots of these kind of pages that will never be used as real
>> handbook pages? I guess we could just have a doc team book. That isn't
>> as "stumble-upon-able" by casual contributors (which is one of my
>> goals). Hm. The only other disadvantage would be that there is no
>> email notification from handbook pages, but at least people could see
>> them in their d.o tracker, which would be nice.
>>
>> I still feel like that is harder for casual contributors to notice and
>> get involved, but yeah, we could give that go in terms of at least
>> being able to work together. Something to consider.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
>> List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
>>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:34:25 +0700
> From: HansBKK <hans.drupal at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [documentation] Proposal to deprecate the docs mailing
>        list    (Hans Henderson)
> To: documentation at drupal.org
> Message-ID:
>        <361c29f50811202034v54cabbc8k975580b9c8d2d858 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Big +1 from me
>
> Joshua makes some great technical points, but it comes down to
> preference and work style, and mine is to visit a web location to
> participate in a discussion rather than having it come to me.
>
> I do think it shouldn't be that hard to get the best of both worlds
> with some enhancements that would benefit all OG sites and Drupal in
> general, but also recognize that Moshe's got limited bandwidth to
> implement any code changes. But would be nice. . .
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:27:37 -0600
> From: Shari <webweaver64 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [documentation] Problem With One of the Main CVS Pages
> To: A list for documentation writers <documentation at drupal.org>
> Message-ID: <492638B9.1060602 at yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> I thought I would add what someone who doesn't know anything about HEAD
> or CVS thought when going to the page...
>
> Reading what is there, I would have assumed it was talking about the
> latest unstable release of version 6. Because I didn't know for sure
> what HEAD referred to I moved backward, along the breadcrumb, to "Drupal
> and CVS", I still wasn't sure if HEAD was referring to 6 or 7. So I
> clicked on CVS FAQ it isn't answered there but there is a note: "-
> What's "HEAD"? What should I use it for?" as something that needs to be
> answered. So then I went back, and clicked on "Drupal CVS branches and
> tags" to see if it was explained there. I found "The HEAD branch is
> special and is used to refer to the latest development version.," still
> doesn't answer if it's 6.7 or 7.x. There was a link for a more detailed
> explanation, which I clicked on and got this:
>
> "In /Drupal core/, HEAD is the name given to the version of Drupal core
> being worked on by developers right now. Of course, now that core is
> only using two digits for the version number (starting with the 5.0
> release), there's no longer any ambiguity about what the next version of
> core will be called, so the use of "HEAD" to identify a release is no
> longer necessary. For example, now that the official 6.0 release of
> Drupal core is out, everyone knows that the next version of core under
> development will eventually become the 7.x release series, so the
> nightly snapshot releases are more properly called "7.x-dev", not "HEAD"."
>
> The 1st part seems to be saying that it would be the next 2 digit core
> version which would mean it would be 6.7, but then it says it's 7.x-dev,
> so I'm still not sure what HEAD refers to. Is it 6.7 or 7.x?
>
> Also the title, actually doesn't mean anything to me either. Checking
> out from the main repository, wouldn't be something I would have any
> idea of meaning, and would most likely ignore it. I would suggest
> Getting files from the main repository, Downloading from..., Access the ...
>
> I thought I would share my entire process, so you can see why some of
> this does indeed need to be made clearer if the intention is for anyone
> visiting and wanting to learn, to be able to understand. I know, I don't
> know or understand some of the lingo, and am willing to move back, or
> attempt to find the information, however as in this case even trying to
> find the information left me still not understanding, and if I have to
> work harder then this, it's likely to be something I just let go.
>
> Now that I just typed all that, I reread the original post, and noticed
> that Shai had placed stable release in italics, this leads me to believe
> that 7 is what you get when you dl HEAD. If HEAD is indeed 7, I would
> suggest something like this to explain it: Once a version has been
> released e.g. 6.0, all further version release under the number 6, are
> considered "Stable" releases and not "Development" releases. The HEAD or
> development release would be the next /full /number e.g. 7.x
>
> Shari
>
> Shai Gluskin wrote the following, On 11/19/2008 4:59 PM:
>> Hi gang,
>>
>> This is about http://drupal.org/node/320
>>
>> The title of the page is: /Checking out from the main repository
>>
>> /The assumption on that page is that you want to check out HEAD. There
>> is one small section which says, "If you want to check out a specific
>> version of Drupal..."
>>
>> I believe the assumption of the page should be opposite, that you want
>> to check out a specific version of Drupal. That is how you can check
>> out the latest stable release.
>>
>> The use-case for checking out HEAD is for core committers or folks
>> testing patches to core. That is very important. However, I think the
>> vast majority of people wanting to get their feet wet in CVS (and
>> therefore coming to this handbook page) want to check out the latest
>> /stable release/ in order to make it easier to upgrade the next time
>> an updated stable release is deployed.
>>
>> I'd like to edit the page so that the primary instructions are for
>> checking out a specific version and the secondary instructions are for
>> folks wanting to checkout HEAD.
>>
>> I thought this was a big enough change that I wanted to run it by others.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Shai
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> --
>> Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
>> List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
>
>
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