Re: Boost Asset Stewardship Review from Ruben

From: Zach Laine (whatwasthataddress_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-09-13 19:10:17

On Fri, Sep 13, 2024 at 1:58 PM John Maddock via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> 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.

Agreed.  To me, it's more a question of how we go about things.  I try
to add things like "this is not a criticism per se," or "I don't get
it yet," etc., to overcome the lack of body language and tone of voice
that we all rely on in non-textual communications.  I know others do
as well.  I think being short and to-the-point has its place, but
dealing with newcomers is usually not that place.

If we each try to improve this a bit at a time, it just becomes part
of the culture, and not something we need to concentrate on much.

Zach