When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

[Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen]

At the Dev Summit, I mentioned this gist I've got lined up for
whenever someone should consider sending an email to this list:

https://gist.github.com/tfnico/4441562

It's a handy link to share in some encounters, exemplified by Konstantin here:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Md72iVvPHqw/Zi3yFIRrR2AJ

I see that Peff already improved the git-scm.com/community late last
year to cover some of the same points, but it is weighed a bit
differently. Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when
redirecting people with "user questions" away from this list, or
inspire them to write better bug reports.

Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

[Junio C Hamano]

Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen <tfnico@gmail.com> writes:

> At the Dev Summit, I mentioned this gist I've got lined up for
> whenever someone should consider sending an email to this list:
>
> https://gist.github.com/tfnico/4441562
>
> It's a handy link to share in some encounters, exemplified by Konstantin here:
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Md72iVvPHqw/Zi3yFIRrR2AJ
>
> I see that Peff already improved the git-scm.com/community late last
> year to cover some of the same points, but it is weighed a bit
> differently. Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when
> redirecting people with "user questions" away from this list, or
> inspire them to write better bug reports.

As to "better bug reports", I often find people pointing others to

    http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

Even in a better report that gives specific precondition, input,
environment and output, sometimes I see one thing that is crucial
missing: what the user expected to see and how the output is
different from that expectation.  Such a "bug report" may report the
designed behaviour, leaving the developers to scratch their heads,
"yeah, thanks for a detailed write-up, we can reproduce it exactly,
and everything is working as expected---how did you expect it to
work in what different way and why?".

Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

[Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 8:01 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> As to "better bug reports", I often find people pointing others to
>
>     http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

Thanks, I've added it to the gist. It is already linked on
http://git-scm.com/community .

Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi,

Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen wrote:

>              Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when
> redirecting people with "user questions" away from this list, or
> inspire them to write better bug reports.

This won't come as a surprise given what I said at Git Merge: I'd
rather we don't redirect people with user questions away from this
list.  The current volume has been pleasant and manageable.

I especially disagree with

	Generally speaking, Git has very few bugs, and if you're not
	sure what you are doing, it's probably a user-issue, and not
	an issue for the Git developers.

User issues are an issue for git developers.  The hardest part of
making git work well is getting it to match how humans work, not
getting it to be technically correct or theoretically bug free.

So if I were writing it, I'd drop everything up to "If you believe
you've found a bug in Git for Windows".

Another alternate forum to point people to is #git on freenode.  It is
reachable from https://webchat.freenode.net, so a person seeking quick
help doesn't even have to set up an IRC client.

It might be nice to add a note to the "If you can find no existing
discussions" paragraph: if there's been a previous discussion, it's
fine to raise the subject again.  A good practice is to link to and
summarize the previous discussion so people can learn from what has
happened before.

On the other hand inspiring people about how to tell stories better or
write bug reports in a more useful way is always welcome.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: When and how to to contact the Git developers (gist)

[Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 11:10 PM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen wrote:
>
>>              Perhaps someone here would prefer to use my gist when
>> redirecting people with "user questions" away from this list, or
>> inspire them to write better bug reports.
>
> This won't come as a surprise given what I said at Git Merge: I'd
> rather we don't redirect people with user questions away from this
> list.  The current volume has been pleasant and manageable.
>

I see your point. And I do see this working out well for freshly
created open-source projects with low traffic mailing lists.

However, this is a high traffic list, and that has the disadvantage of
blending user questions into a majority of patch- and expert
discussion.

This makes it (a) harder for the user needing help to recognise
existing contexts, and (b) harder for "amateurs" like myself to spot
other users that I can easily help out.

And then there is the whole Majordomo blocking emails for various
reasons issue, HTML being one of several, ref
<http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html>. Here are some examples
of when we tried helping people on the Google Groups user list with
sending mail to this list:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/iiNBWq3_uUs/ke2eDiumPEsJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/eT_UDv7TpjY/CfYE8jHQ_vYJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/qibnKchBf6I/UPtv1_Ctxm4J
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/4KXBwBXNd5Q/4yuBELlc8lUJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/git-users/Tl141kCJ45Q/-ToWHYfdmXEJ

And then there is the mental hurdle: I mean, I still consider it
intimidating to send mails to this list. A new user could in some
cases be terrified.

My personal reference are Apache projects: they always have one
dev-list, and a separate user-list. The key there is that the
user-list is adjacent to the dev-list, and all the devs (who are
interested) monitor the user-list closely.

So I'm historically/personally biased towards the dev/user split.
Perhaps you see this differently, and it is up to you (the consensus)
to choose what kind of traffic you want, or which behaviour you want
to discourage/encourage.

I'll also note the trend of how modern users are becoming less and
less users of email, turning to web-based forums instead for
assistance, and I enjoy the fact that Google Groups is an alternative
that offers seamless web- and email-based interaction.

To summarize: I think that usability problems of Majordomo have lead
you into a situation where you could consider embracing a user-list
like the one found at Google Groups.

Unless, of course, you believe that the users that make it through
here are a good representation of your user-base, and they provide
just enough input for you to steer the project forward. The rest of
the users in need of help, and I think that is a vast majority, will
find another outlet.

My own motivation is that I want all Git users to figure out their
problems as soon and as efficient as possible, and directing them to
the Google Group seems to be the best way IMHO.

> I especially disagree with
>
>         Generally speaking, Git has very few bugs, and if you're not
>         sure what you are doing, it's probably a user-issue, and not
>         an issue for the Git developers.
>
> User issues are an issue for git developers.  The hardest part of
> making git work well is getting it to match how humans work, not
> getting it to be technically correct or theoretically bug free.
>
> So if I were writing it, I'd drop everything up to "If you believe
> you've found a bug in Git for Windows".

I've removed that sentence, and reformulated the part below. I'll keep
the link to the Groups list and StackOverflow for reasons mentioned
earlier.

> Another alternate forum to point people to is #git on freenode.  It is
> reachable from https://webchat.freenode.net, so a person seeking quick
> help doesn't even have to set up an IRC client.

Thanks, I've added this.

> It might be nice to add a note to the "If you can find no existing
> discussions" paragraph: if there's been a previous discussion, it's
> fine to raise the subject again.  A good practice is to link to and
> summarize the previous discussion so people can learn from what has
> happened before.

OK, added.