[aur-general] TU application - Kyle Keen

[Xyne]

keenerd wrote:

> Hello all.  I am applying to become a TU.  My sponsor is Xyne.
> 
> My name is Kyle Keen, though my handle for irc/bbs/the-last-12-years
> has been Keenerd.  I've been using Arch for a while now, from back
> when it was still known for refusing to package info files.  Before
> that I did a wee bit of dev work for Puppy Linux.  I actually got a
> bash gui app (yay xdialog) into the ISO but please don't look up the
> code, it was my first bash script and is rather terrifying.  Lately I
> am a 24 year old freelance electrical engineer and spend my days
> writing C, my nights writing Python and during the twilight hours some
> Bash.
> 
> Right now I host the bugbot in #archlinux-bugs and I've got a few AUR
> packages(1).  Of them, ScrotWM and Slurm probably deserve to be in
> [community].  I've written several well-liked metatools for Arch
> including Pacgraph, Pacmatic, and Aurphan.  Aurphan is the main reason
> for trying to apply.
> 
> Pierre requested a feature to cross check official packages as well as
> the AUR(2).  I was a little shocked to find 35 official orphans on my
> system.  Clearly, we are understaffed.  Arch has been nothing short of
> amazing and I want to do what I can to help keep it going.  Other
> goals include improving the maintenance tools and porting Arch to old
> or cheap architectures.  I also mirrored the AUR for a while and have
> a nearly complete copy of the old comments from before the Great Table
> Drop that should be re-inserted.
> 
> Thanks for your consideration,
>   Kyle
> http://kmkeen.com
> 
> 1) http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?SeB=m&K=keenerd&SO=d&SB=v
> 2) https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=108693


The discussion period is nearly over but I have something that I want to bring
up after reading though the nearly 100 new messages on aur-general.

keenerd wrote:

> If no one can think of a better way to deal with the nonconforming
> packages, I'll write a bot to post insulting comments.  Personally, I
> really like this solution.  The AUR has always had a wild west
> frontier / insane asylum feel to it.  The less regulation, the better
> it works.  But a few well placed suggestions could help make the two
> thousand maintainers do a better job.

Heiko Baums wrote:

> Am Mon, 6 Dec 2010 16:53:08 -0500
> schrieb keenerd <keenerd at gmail.com>:
> 
> > > find /var/abs -name *.png | wc -l == 60
> > 
> > Of +4800 packages, that is 1.2%.  The AUR is more than twice that
> > rate.  But while we are running the numbers to determine best
> > practices.....
> 
> This would be about 480000+ e-mails to users if your bot continues
> writing those AUR comments. That's too many.
> 
> As I said before, please, don't do this. You can, of course, let such a
> bot help you finding "bad" packages. But you have to verify its results
> personally, before you write such AUR comments.
> 
> Such automations are usually pretty unreliable except they are written
> very thoughtfully and are tested a lot.
> 
> And regarding the 1.2%... Don't trust any statistics you did not even
> fake.
> 
> Heiko

I'm a bit bothered by the way that you've handled this. You proceeded to write
and launch the bot based on your personal interpretation of the rules without
waiting for any definitive conclusion from the ongoing discussion about them.

Comments aren't that big a deal, even if there will be many confused
maintainers, but with TU status on the AUR you could do much more with
disastrous consequences.

Considering this and the still-ongoing discussion about the AUR guidelines, do
you agree that it would be prudent to be more patient in the future and wait
until we've come to a conclusion before going ahead with something like this
again?