[arch-general] Personal note

[mike cloaked]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 9:44 PM, David Benfell
<benfell at parts-unknown.org> wrote:
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> On 08/15/2012 12:51 PM, mike cloaked wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 8:43 PM, Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no>
>> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Karol Blazewicz
>>> <karol.blazewicz at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>>
>>>>> As most devs have done already, I'm going to change my
>>>>> relationship with arch-general.
>>>>
>>>> What is the preferred way to contact you or other devs with
>>>> questions or suggestions (better wording for an announcement
>>>> etc.)?
>>>
>>> We don't currently have a satisfactory answer to this question.
>>> Hopefully a solution will present itself soon, I know people are
>>> discussing the problem. After all, we DO want useful feedback,
>>> and there IS really good feedback inbeetween all the rest.
>>>
>>> I guess important stuff should still be picked up by someone,
>>> alternatively you could cc the relevant dev (who e.g. wrote the
>>> news item, etc.).
>>>
>> You know I have been watching this really destructive war of
>> attrition on this list for quite some time - and it is reminiscent
>> of the long flame wars that occurred on the Fedora general list
>> that led me to unsubscribe from the Fedora list and start looking
>> at Arch as the distribution for my laptops.
>>
> And numerous other places. As far as I know, the problem has never
> been solved and has laid waste in nearly all of them, with the result
> that support has become harder to find.
>
> There is almost always a tension between those who know what they are
> doing and those who don't. In my own field, I lose patience with naves
> rather quickly, so I'm hardly in a position to lecture anyone about
> this. That said, by contrast, there are a few developers out there who
> seem gifted at the human relations part of this, are brilliant at the
> hand-holding that is sometimes needed, and I think are not so often
> recognized. They're also often working on ancillary projects for which
> there are easy alternatives rather than core stuff. Distributions,
> init, the kernel, even desktop environments I think fall into this
> latter category where replacement can mean ripping out a lot of stuff
> and building from scratch.
>
> Our (emphasis on the collective) failure to solve this, however, is
> debilitating, not only for existing users for whom support is harder
> to find, but in terms of attracting future users, not just to Arch but
> to the open source community in general.
>

Yes - sadly there are no winners in a war of attrition - and everyone
loses - the good guys get blown away along with the tide of
destruction which is so sad. It would be so much better if everyone
really thought carefully about trying to contribute positively, and
not negatively and destructively - people are much more likely to
listen to reasoned argument and  feel more likely they can add to the
positive ideas being discussed.

When it gets personal then that is usually the beginning of the
end-game - it is pointless and you get the cycle of tornado damage -
especially in such a public domain as a mailing list.

The real shame is how it takes so few to create such a disaster - I
hope that everyone who has contributed to this debacle will think
carefully about what they have done - and I also hope that any key
contributors who have felt at wit's end and want out, will be able to
take time to let calm return so that they may be able to come back and
feel that their contributions are valued - there is a huge silent
majority who value hugely what the developers have created
collectively and individually to make our system the capable and
functional system that we run every day on our systems.

I live in hope for an improved atmosphere on this list after a night's
sleep and more settled thoughts.

-- 
mike c