[development] #drupal and #drupal-contribute split (Was: Re: Proposal: Move all dev support off this list to new StackExchange site)

[Sam Tresler]

Honestly I don't think anyone currently active in the Drupal community could be framed as more curmedgeonly than myself, but if you want to fight for the title it might be entertaining ;)

I think I could phrase "This isn't about you" better.  It wasn't meant to target you-you, but you as a developer.  I was taking your personal story, applying it as what I imagine many developers who made the same choice you did felt and saying, This isn't about developers vs. non-developers, and I feel the question of "How do we make it a good place for developers to work?" isn't the right question.  No, I wasn't trying to personally invalidate the experience you bring to the table, although I can see how specifically stating exactly that might have confused people.  I'll sit hear and chew on my foot a while.

I guess what I am ultimately saying, is we keep saying This *or* that.  Would it be helpful to take a little of our thought process and say, "what if?".  I mean, we have a goal here, right?

How do we make an infrastructure that supports newcomers, facilitates developers, concentrates on non-disruptive integration of factions, and keeps our community strong?"  When I say 'you won't please everybody' I mean it, but I feel like the current conversation is please A or please B, there is no C.

Throw both those models out, and lets figure out what we actually want.

-Sam


Sam Tresler
646-246-8403


On Fri, 18 Mar 2011, Earl Miles wrote:

> On 3/18/2011 1:52 PM, Sam Tresler wrote:
>>> Really, a way to translate what you're saying is that you'd rather *I*
>>> didn't have a place where I can participate, because I don't want to be
>>> inundated with support requests.
>>
>> This isn't about you.  That thinking is part of the problem, in my
>> opinion.  We're having a conversation here about what is best for
>> Drupal, not what is best for the developers.  I'm not trying to be
>> inflammatory, but making the project worse for the end users, the
>> documenters, the forum posters, and various other people who bring good
>> things to the table isn't a tenable solution.
>
> Prior to #drupal-contribute being split out, we had a bot that would,
> several times a day, 'correct' people about which channel they should be
> asking support questions in. Sometimes these corrections were taken
> amiss. No matter how politely we framed them, I always found these
> corrections to be offensive.
>
> One of the reasons I left #drupal was because I was tired of how
> offensive that was.
>
> What webchick wants is a place where everyone can gather and be happy.
> But, like you just said, we can't please everyone.
>
> If the choice is to please new people who may or may not contribute, who
> may or may not stick around, at the expense of people who are
> contributing and have stuck around, that is going to create churn.
>
> I'm not in agreement with the camp that says our current system is
> telling new users to go away. I think our OLD system was telling new
> users to go away, by throwing them into an environment that they
> fundamentally won't be ready for.
>
> And I think it's wrong to insist that people who are on IRC to do work
> have to stick around in an environment where they will have to watch a
> bot tell new users to screw off (in nicer words...well, eventually. For
> at least a year it was NOT nicer words) is fundamentally wrong and
> counterproductive.
>
> Naturally, I find it interesting that when I tried to write from my
> experience and my example and how I use IRC, the responses are "This
> isn't about you."
>
> Why are you allowed to write about your experiences as being normal, yet
> my experience makes me elitist and/or childish? Why is it you're
> assuming that I'm only doing this to make my life easier, and screw the
> newbies? Am I really that curmudgeonly?
>
> So, making this about me: I just interpreted, "Get off IRC. It's for new
> people." (Yes, that's tongue in cheek).
>