From: Emily Shaffer <emilyshaffer@google.com>
To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Denton Liu <liu.denton@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] MyFirstContribution: add avenues for getting help
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2019 13:45:19 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20191118214519.GH22855@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <xmqqv9rk4j1y.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
On Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 12:05:45PM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Emily Shaffer <emilyshaffer@google.com> writes:
>
> > +[[getting-help]]
> > +=== Getting Help
> > +
> > +If you get stuck, you can seek help in the following places.
>
> Is this list meant to be an exhaustive list of authoritative
> sources?
To the best of my knowledge, as applicable, yeah.
> IOW, are we reasonably sure that some of us would be
> around and give useful help, and that we do not mind readers to
> consider these places "officially endorsed by the project"?
Right. That's my hope. I worry that sending newbies to non-endorsed
places for help will lead to them getting incorrect or conflicting help.
>
> Or is this meant to be a list of reasonably well-known places, but
> may include places where the project does not want to be associated
> with the quality of answers given there?
No.
> I am (implicitly) assuming that it is the former, but I think it is
> better to clarify what this "list of places" is meant to be.
I'll try to fudge the language so that it implies these are official
channels for getting help.
> I notice that stack overflow is missing in this list. Intended?
> Not that I visit there at all nor I would recommend it, but I recall
> seeing questions asked by more than a few people after getting bad
> pieces of advice there.
Hm. SO for getting help contributing to a specific project? That doesn't
sound like a likely avenue or a good idea to me, since my understanding
is that we don't consider it an "official presence" (some projects do, I
guess).
I suppose the kinds of questions I expect to see on StackOverflow
include "How do I write a mutex lock in C" or "How do I generate patches
with a cover letter", not "I'm stuck on this Git tutorial" or "Would the
Git project welcome X change". To me, this doesn't seem like the place
to bring it up one way or another.
>
> > +==== https://public-inbox.org/git[git@vger.kernel.org]
> > +
> > +This is the main Git project mailing list where code reviews, version
> > +announcements, design discussions, and more take place. If you fail to receive
> > +help via the channels above, you can ask your question here. The Git list
> > +requires plain-text-only emails and prefers inline and bottom-posting when
> > +replying to mail; you will be CC'd in all replies to you. Optionally, you can
> > +subscribe to the list by sending an email to majordomo@vger.kernel.org with
> > +"subscribe git" in the body.
>
> Sounds good; I agree with Denton, especially with the mention of
> "you must join" on the other mailing list, that it is a good idea to
> explicitly say that subscription is optional in this entry.
>
> You can ask questions even if you haven't tried other avenues and
> failed, but this entry makes it sound as if an earlier failure
> elsewhere is a prerequisite for asking for help here.
I envision an exchange sort of like this:
Newbie to git@vger.kernel.org: "I'm having trouble compiling Git and I
want to write a patch, I'm getting X error"
Veteran to Newbie, cc git-mentoring, bcc git@vger.kernel.org:
"Please build with blah flag and paste console output, plus let us know
system information blah blah blah"
I don't mind the idea of pushing folks to ask on the mentoring list
first. It's pretty well attended already - just now I count 16 list
members, a pretty significant majority of which are project veterans. I
have no problem suggesting newbies ask their questions, which others
probably had and solved before them, in a space separate from the main
mailing list.
Of course if you want to encourage newbies to ask in any of these three
venues, weighted equally, I can change the language. But suggesting the
main list as a last resort was intentional.
- Emily
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-11-18 21:45 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 44+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-11-15 21:53 [PATCH] MyFirstContribution: add avenues for getting help Emily Shaffer
2019-11-15 22:05 ` Denton Liu
2019-11-15 23:03 ` Emily Shaffer
2019-11-15 23:06 ` [PATCH v2] " Emily Shaffer
2019-11-15 23:38 ` Johannes Schindelin
2019-11-16 0:09 ` Jonathan Nieder
2019-11-16 3:05 ` Junio C Hamano
2019-11-18 21:45 ` Emily Shaffer [this message]
2019-11-19 1:45 ` Junio C Hamano
2019-11-19 18:49 ` SZEDER Gábor
2019-11-19 21:29 ` Johannes Schindelin
2019-11-19 21:41 ` SZEDER Gábor
2019-11-20 1:50 ` Eric Wong
2019-11-20 11:41 ` Johannes Schindelin
2019-11-20 23:40 ` SZEDER Gábor
2019-11-20 10:45 ` Kerry, Richard
2019-11-20 11:37 ` Junio C Hamano
2019-11-19 18:25 ` SZEDER Gábor
2019-12-13 1:31 ` [PATCH v3] " Emily Shaffer
2019-12-13 3:00 ` Derrick Stolee
2019-12-13 4:14 ` Emily Shaffer
2019-12-13 4:16 ` [PATCH v4] " Emily Shaffer
2019-12-13 17:20 ` [PATCH v3] " Junio C Hamano
2019-12-13 17:49 ` Emily Shaffer
2019-12-13 18:40 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-01-24 20:09 ` [PATCH v5] " emilyshaffer
2020-01-24 20:35 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-01-24 20:50 ` Emily Shaffer
2020-01-24 20:54 ` Emily Shaffer
2020-01-24 21:11 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-01-24 21:01 ` [PATCH v6] " Emily Shaffer
2020-01-24 21:18 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-01-24 21:20 ` Emily Shaffer
2020-01-24 21:26 ` [PATCH v7] " Emily Shaffer
2020-01-24 21:56 ` SZEDER Gábor
2020-01-24 23:44 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-02-06 1:07 ` SZEDER Gábor
2020-02-06 16:33 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-02-06 19:49 ` Emily Shaffer
2020-02-06 22:13 ` Emily Shaffer
2020-02-14 2:03 ` [PATCH] MyFirstContribution: rephrase contact info Emily Shaffer
2020-02-14 2:10 ` Jonathan Nieder
2020-02-14 17:36 ` Junio C Hamano
2020-01-24 22:05 ` [PATCH v7] MyFirstContribution: add avenues for getting help Junio C Hamano
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