{"thread":{"id":"39046","subject":"When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)","startedAt":"2015-04-10T13:40:17Z","lastAt":"2015-04-14T11:38:30Z","messageCount":5,"participants":["Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen","Junio C Hamano","Jonathan Nieder"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"259224","messageId":"CAEcj5uW2Shh4QvtmenW2h6KXYUCoEe5bHYNv_HVFQgUit=cJ0w@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"39046","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)","fromName":"Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen","fromEmail":"tfnico@gmail.com","sentAt":"2015-04-10T13:40:17Z","receivedAt":"2015-04-10T13:40:17Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"tfnico@gmail.com","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/628cf28a25ca4c596c7284562100f70f0ef908bcbfadd4da1eb3d48c23658d01?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"At the Dev Summit, I mentioned this gist I've got lined up for\nwhenever someone should consider sending an email to this list:\n\nhttps://gist.github.com/tfnico/4441562\n\nIt's a handy link to share in some encounters, exemplified by Konstantin here:\n\nhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Md72iVvPHqw/Zi3yFIRrR2AJ\n\nI see that Peff already improved the git-scm.com/community late last\nyear to cover some of the same points, but it is weighed a bit\ndifferently. Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when\nredirecting people with \"user questions\" away from this list, or\ninspire them to write better bug reports.\n"},{"id":"259277","messageId":"xmqqbnis4ldv.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com","threadId":"39046","inReplyTo":"CAEcj5uW2Shh4QvtmenW2h6KXYUCoEe5bHYNv_HVFQgUit=cJ0w@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2015-04-13T06:01:32Z","receivedAt":"2015-04-13T06:01:32Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen <tfnico@gmail.com> writes:\n\n> At the Dev Summit, I mentioned this gist I've got lined up for\n> whenever someone should consider sending an email to this list:\n>\n> https://gist.github.com/tfnico/4441562\n>\n> It's a handy link to share in some encounters, exemplified by Konstantin here:\n>\n> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Md72iVvPHqw/Zi3yFIRrR2AJ\n>\n> I see that Peff already improved the git-scm.com/community late last\n> year to cover some of the same points, but it is weighed a bit\n> differently. Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when\n> redirecting people with \"user questions\" away from this list, or\n> inspire them to write better bug reports.\n\nAs to \"better bug reports\", I often find people pointing others to\n\n    http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html\n\nEven in a better report that gives specific precondition, input,\nenvironment and output, sometimes I see one thing that is crucial\nmissing: what the user expected to see and how the output is\ndifferent from that expectation.  Such a \"bug report\" may report the\ndesigned behaviour, leaving the developers to scratch their heads,\n\"yeah, thanks for a detailed write-up, we can reproduce it exactly,\nand everything is working as expected---how did you expect it to\nwork in what different way and why?\".\n"},{"id":"259282","messageId":"CAEcj5uWX+t4=br5RFEtN-9jfdzFShwx3iWiMfrZ40MwNFYsuUg@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"39046","inReplyTo":"xmqqbnis4ldv.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com","subject":"Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)","fromName":"Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen","fromEmail":"tfnico@gmail.com","sentAt":"2015-04-13T09:34:20Z","receivedAt":"2015-04-13T09:34:20Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"tfnico@gmail.com","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/628cf28a25ca4c596c7284562100f70f0ef908bcbfadd4da1eb3d48c23658d01?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 8:01 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:\n>\n> As to \"better bug reports\", I often find people pointing others to\n>\n>     http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html\n\nThanks, I've added it to the gist. It is already linked on\nhttp://git-scm.com/community .\n"},{"id":"259310","messageId":"20150413211002.GD5467@google.com","threadId":"39046","inReplyTo":"CAEcj5uW2Shh4QvtmenW2h6KXYUCoEe5bHYNv_HVFQgUit=cJ0w@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)","fromName":"Jonathan Nieder","fromEmail":"jrnieder@gmail.com","sentAt":"2015-04-13T21:10:02Z","receivedAt":"2015-04-13T21:10:02Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jrnieder@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/281595?v=4"},"body":"Hi,\n\nThomas Ferris Nicolaisen wrote:\n\n>              Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when\n> redirecting people with \"user questions\" away from this list, or\n> inspire them to write better bug reports.\n\nThis won't come as a surprise given what I said at Git Merge: I'd\nrather we don't redirect people with user questions away from this\nlist.  The current volume has been pleasant and manageable.\n\nI especially disagree with\n\n\tGenerally speaking, Git has very few bugs, and if you're not\n\tsure what you are doing, it's probably a user-issue, and not\n\tan issue for the Git developers.\n\nUser issues are an issue for git developers.  The hardest part of\nmaking git work well is getting it to match how humans work, not\ngetting it to be technically correct or theoretically bug free.\n\nSo if I were writing it, I'd drop everything up to \"If you believe\nyou've found a bug in Git for Windows\".\n\nAnother alternate forum to point people to is #git on freenode.  It is\nreachable from https://webchat.freenode.net, so a person seeking quick\nhelp doesn't even have to set up an IRC client.\n\nIt might be nice to add a note to the \"If you can find no existing\ndiscussions\" paragraph: if there's been a previous discussion, it's\nfine to raise the subject again.  A good practice is to link to and\nsummarize the previous discussion so people can learn from what has\nhappened before.\n\nOn the other hand inspiring people about how to tell stories better or\nwrite bug reports in a more useful way is always welcome.\n\nThanks,\nJonathan\n"},{"id":"259346","messageId":"CAEcj5uUzGfqCUwR+bEjDCF4W8+oL5TjbfBFfG6xRgPUn94Ktvg@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"39046","inReplyTo":"20150413211002.GD5467@google.com","subject":"Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)","fromName":"Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen","fromEmail":"tfnico@gmail.com","sentAt":"2015-04-14T11:38:30Z","receivedAt":"2015-04-14T11:38:30Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"tfnico@gmail.com","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/628cf28a25ca4c596c7284562100f70f0ef908bcbfadd4da1eb3d48c23658d01?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 11:10 PM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:\n> Hi,\n>\n> Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen wrote:\n>\n>>              Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when\n>> redirecting people with \"user questions\" away from this list, or\n>> inspire them to write better bug reports.\n>\n> This won't come as a surprise given what I said at Git Merge: I'd\n> rather we don't redirect people with user questions away from this\n> list.  The current volume has been pleasant and manageable.\n>\n\nI see your point. And I do see this working out well for freshly\ncreated open-source projects with low traffic mailing lists.\n\nHowever, this is a high traffic list, and that has the disadvantage of\nblending user questions into a majority of patch- and expert\ndiscussion.\n\nThis makes it (a) harder for the user needing help to recognise\nexisting contexts, and (b) harder for \"amateurs\" like myself to spot\nother users that I can easily help out.\n\nAnd then there is the whole Majordomo blocking emails for various\nreasons issue, HTML being one of several, ref\n<http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html>. Here are some examples\nof when we tried helping people on the Google Groups user list with\nsending mail to this list:\n\nhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/iiNBWq3_uUs/ke2eDiumPEsJ\nhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/eT_UDv7TpjY/CfYE8jHQ_vYJ\nhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/qibnKchBf6I/UPtv1_Ctxm4J\nhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/4KXBwBXNd5Q/4yuBELlc8lUJ\nhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Tl141kCJ45Q/-ToWHYfdmXEJ\n\nAnd then there is the mental hurdle: I mean, I still consider it\nintimidating to send mails to this list. A new user could in some\ncases be terrified.\n\nMy personal reference are Apache projects: they always have one\ndev-list, and a separate user-list. The key there is that the\nuser-list is adjacent to the dev-list, and all the devs (who are\ninterested) monitor the user-list closely.\n\nSo I'm historically/personally biased towards the dev/user split.\nPerhaps you see this differently, and it is up to you (the consensus)\nto choose what kind of traffic you want, or which behaviour you want\nto discourage/encourage.\n\nI'll also note the trend of how modern users are becoming less and\nless users of email, turning to web-based forums instead for\nassistance, and I enjoy the fact that Google Groups is an alternative\nthat offers seamless web- and email-based interaction.\n\nTo summarize: I think that usability problems of Majordomo have lead\nyou into a situation where you could consider embracing a user-list\nlike the one found at Google Groups.\n\nUnless, of course, you believe that the users that make it through\nhere are a good representation of your user-base, and they provide\njust enough input for you to steer the project forward. The rest of\nthe users in need of help, and I think that is a vast majority, will\nfind another outlet.\n\nMy own motivation is that I want all Git users to figure out their\nproblems as soon and as efficient as possible, and directing them to\nthe Google Group seems to be the best way IMHO.\n\n> I especially disagree with\n>\n>         Generally speaking, Git has very few bugs, and if you're not\n>         sure what you are doing, it's probably a user-issue, and not\n>         an issue for the Git developers.\n>\n> User issues are an issue for git developers.  The hardest part of\n> making git work well is getting it to match how humans work, not\n> getting it to be technically correct or theoretically bug free.\n>\n> So if I were writing it, I'd drop everything up to \"If you believe\n> you've found a bug in Git for Windows\".\n\nI've removed that sentence, and reformulated the part below. I'll keep\nthe link to the Groups list and StackOverflow for reasons mentioned\nearlier.\n\n> Another alternate forum to point people to is #git on freenode.  It is\n> reachable from https://webchat.freenode.net, so a person seeking quick\n> help doesn't even have to set up an IRC client.\n\nThanks, I've added this.\n\n> It might be nice to add a note to the \"If you can find no existing\n> discussions\" paragraph: if there's been a previous discussion, it's\n> fine to raise the subject again.  A good practice is to link to and\n> summarize the previous discussion so people can learn from what has\n> happened before.\n\nOK, added.\n"}]}