Am Mittwoch, den 10.05.2006, 00:08 +0200 schrieb Pascal Bleser:
The point wasn't so much about the email address or not, it was more about a structure, process, whatever to try to get discussions into a somewhat more effective path. Up to now many threads get somehow diluted into sticking on 2-3 unimportant details, ad nauseum, making the actual topic irrelevant and in the end, nothing agreed upon, nothing decided, 1 step forward, 2 step backwards.
and at least one step sideways. That's what happened to this particular thread, and after seeing that you made quite some valid points with your original mail that opened this thread, it seemed to be leading nowhere with the email-discussion. I was hoping to set you guys "on the right track" again.
Too bad I had to try to explain "meritocracy" down to nitty gritty of one example (opensuse.org emails, in this case).
Well yeah, I never heard (or saw) that word either :(
Seems that exactly the same thing happened again.
yep, and the discussion thread deserved better imho.
Well, I just started contributing to opensuse by translating a couple of pages on the wiki (oh, darn, I should post that to the opensuse-wiki mailing list I guess), so according to you I would not (yet) be eligible for an opensuse email address, but if it was up to houghi, I would actually get one. Guess what? I couldn't care less about another email-address or not.
What's the problem, if you don't care about it ? ;)
see above.
What I care about is that I virtually can't find any information on opensuse.org that goes beyond how to download the latest release.
Right. And it's probably the biggest challenge as far as a large wiki is concerned: how to organize and categorize pages to find them easily, say, on looking at 2 or 3 (index) pages at most. Not that the challenge is wiki-specific, it's just related to documentation in general. Indexing is an art of its own.
I couldn't agree more. And I certainly hope we have the right kind of artists for that job.
Really, what's wrong or "ugly" with that ? Does it sound like apartheid ? ;) ^^^^^^^^ that was totally out of line. smiley or not.
Ummm... well, you're picking a single line totally out of context. Thank you for trying to make me look like an ass, that's a particularly nice and appreciated move.
you are very welcome ;). And Apartheid is one of the *very* few trigger-words that are not to be used in any other context than their own historical one. period.
BTW, do I sound arrogant or harsh to you ? Well, I'm trying to push things forward and at some point it involves making statements and/or speaking on behalf of others, either to be agreed upon or to trigger reactions, discussions, decisions and actions (in that order ;D).
No, not arrogant, but losing yourself (and some really good points in your original posting) in imho totally fruitless discussions about some really. really, really (may I say it again: really!) unimportant things.
Probably. I guess I just shouldn't have reacted to some replies in the first place that were picking single, unimportant elements of the mail and spending too much time on explaining those until they become irrelevant. I just wonder whether it's tactics or not. I'll try not to fall into the same trap again.
It sometimes looks like it is intentional, yet I strongly believe it isn't so. It's just very easy to get stuck in detail discussions only because you tried to explain your statement with an example.
How about giving your opinion about the "really good points" in the original posting ? Maybe it's still possible to not dismiss the whole thread just because of that.
I am far from dismissing it! On the contrary, I support a lot what you are trying to achieve, and being one of the beneficiaries of your contributions in form of an entire software repository I sure do appreciate your work. Let's get to the things you mentioned in your posting: (I only mention the ones I have an opinion about) ------------------------------------------------- - we have to get more in control ourselves, commit as dedicated volunteers on as many tasks as possible yes, absolutely. After we have identified these tasks. - we have to think about what we need from Novell/SUSE to do that (e.g. admin privileges, contacts, infrastructure, documentation, sources, whatever) well, that - I hope - will come natural once we find out what we want to do and once we are working on the projects. Example: If someone actually works on an article explaining in depth the boot process of, say, suse 10.1, I expect Novell to help by opening their own internal docu about it. - we have to develop our own initiatives I think there are enough larger and smaller tasks at hand. Let's worry about initiative when it's needed (or wanted). - howtos and documentation: have a look at Gentoo's wiki, IMO that's a direction we can follow (grossly), by writing wiki pages e.g. about how to setup LAMP on SUSE Linux, an IMAP server, stuff like that It's a start. And I understand that it's *very* difficult to find the right structure, not mention the right way to index our wiki. No matter how we eventually organise the wiki, I want to urge everyone here to write their howto's, guides, etc. and publish them on the website, regardless of the wiki having a working structure or not. The more articles we have, the easier it is (or so I hope) to actually categorise and index them in a way that makes sense. - web forums: yep, that one, the current non-situation is just not satisfactory, we have to discuss it again and involve the maintainers of current forums into the discussion, right from the start Another ACK. And from what I read, you managed to involve at least one forum maintainer: David Crouse from http://opensuse.us - information flow: not enough information between different parts of the community, also about the wiki, announcements, changes, decisions, ... I would want to attribute this to the history of how suse used to develop their distribution and to the fact that the opensuse project is still relatively new. Friction is inevitable and I believe it will diminish over time. ------------------------------------------------- There are some huge tasks to take on, and to actually tackle them I want to go with what was already said on this list or on the wiki one, can't remember right now: * Make things as simple as possible for people to contribute. * Break down the big tasks into many smaller ones. * Let's get a TODO-List together and publish it on one of the lists or the wiki itself (I would prefer the mailing list). -- Andreas P.S.: Sorry, I really didn't intend for this to be such a long posting. pheeew ;)