Re: Boost Asset Stewardship Review from Ruben

From: John Maddock (jz.maddock_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-09-13 18:58:46

On 13/09/2024 17:39, Phil Endecott via Boost wrote:
> Ruben Perez wrote:
>> I'd like to echo a point made by others in the mailing list throughout
>> this discussion and also somewhat reflected in The Boost Foundation's
>> proposal, about mailing list friendliness to newcomers. When I first
>> reached out to evaluate the potential usefulness of what would become
>> Boost.MySQL (https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost//2020/03/248301.php)
>> I received a couple of really discouraging comments, which almost made
>> me abandon the idea. These comments were based on the (somehow
>> understandable) misconception that my library was a wrapper around the
>> official C API. Thanks to other people's support (Richard, Chris,
>> Vinnie and some others, IIRC) I managed to move forward. But it could
>> have not been the case. As a community, we could try to improve
>> instances of this to make things better for newcomers.
>
> I clicked on Ruben's link above, mainly to check if it was a comment from
> me that he was complaining about. It wasn't. But I encourage others
> to look at that email thread. Was it reasonable for Ruben to "almost
> abandon the idea" based on the replies he received? Could the Boost
> review process work effectively if messages such as those in that
> thread were not allowed?

I admit I didn't re-read the whole thread (though quite a bit), but I 
think Rubin fell foul of two things here: firstly a few folks who didn't 
actually check what the library was about before posting: that was 
quickly corrected.  And then having the audacity to suggest something 
that absolutely everyone had an opinion about ;)

The latter is generally more of an issue around here: because it can be 
simply impossible to please everybody.  It helps in that case to have a 
clear single-minded vision of what you're trying to achieve, AND to be 
able to articulate that: that can be hard for newcomers, and harder 
still for non-native English speakers I'm sure.  From what I saw, Rubin 
actually did a good job there.

I'm not sure how heavier moderation here would have helped - though as a 
(mostly absentee recently) moderator to this list I'm certainly open to 
suggestions on how we can make these conversations go more smoothly.  
Perhaps, thinking out loud here, some gentle moderator interjections to 
help tease out from the author what they are trying to achieve, combined 
with a reminder when needed, that folks should actually take a look at 
what it is they're commenting on?

What I'm not seeing though, is anything that should be flat out banned, 
or should lead to a return to the sin bin and posts being moderated 
before posting.

Best, John.