Python library "support" propaganda lists?

[Aaron Watters]

Let me vent my annoyance.

In the last couple months on a few occasions
I've tried various Python libraries (and I'm not going to
name names) and run into some problem.

Following the documented procedure I eventually
post the problem to the "support" list trying to politely
explain everything, including the admission that
it may all be my stupidity causing the problem.

Then I'm told automatically that my post will
be moderated.

Then nothing happens. The post just disappears.
No offline reply. Nothing.

I don't know why this happens, but if people
are using their "support" forums as propaganda
lists for only happy news I consider this a serious
violation of the spirit of open source. There
is nothing wrong with filtering spam, of course,
but silently filtering non-spam, even inane non-spam,
is not acceptable. At least there should be an
offline RTFM reply to the poster.

There, I feel better now.
-- Aaron Watters
http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/W1100_1600.openFlashCharts

===
If you think you are smart enough
to write multi-threaded programs,
then you're not. -- Jim Ahlstrom

 

[Frank Millman]

Let me vent my annoyance.

In the last couple months on a few occasions
I've tried various Python libraries (and I'm not going to
name names) and run into some problem.

Following the documented procedure I eventually
post the problem to the "support" list trying to politely
explain everything, including the admission that
it may all be my stupidity causing the problem.

Then I'm told automatically that my post will
be moderated.

Then nothing happens. The post just disappears.
No offline reply. Nothing.

I don't know why this happens, but if people
are using their "support" forums as propaganda
lists for only happy news I consider this a serious
violation of the spirit of open source. There
is nothing wrong with filtering spam, of course,
but silently filtering non-spam, even inane non-spam,
is not acceptable. At least there should be an
offline RTFM reply to the poster.

There, I feel better now.
-- Aaron Watters
http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/W1100_1600.openFlashCharts

===
If you think you are smart enough
to write multi-threaded programs,
then you're not. -- Jim Ahlstrom

 

[Frank Millman]

Let me vent my annoyance.

In the last couple months on a few occasions
I've tried various Python libraries (and I'm not going to
name names) and run into some problem.

Following the documented procedure I eventually
post the problem to the "support" list trying to politely
explain everything, including the admission that
it may all be my stupidity causing the problem.

Then I'm told automatically that my post will
be moderated.

Then nothing happens. The post just disappears.
No offline reply. Nothing.

I don't know why this happens, but if people
are using their "support" forums as propaganda
lists for only happy news I consider this a serious
violation of the spirit of open source. There
is nothing wrong with filtering spam, of course,
but silently filtering non-spam, even inane non-spam,
is not acceptable. At least there should be an
offline RTFM reply to the poster.

There, I feel better now.
-- Aaron Watters
http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/W1100_1600.openFlashCharts

===
If you think you are smart enough
to write multi-threaded programs,
then you're not. -- Jim Ahlstrom

 

[Frank Millman]

Following the documented procedure I eventually
post the problem to the "support" list trying to politely
explain everything, including the admission that
it may all be my stupidity causing the problem.

Then I'm told automatically that my post will
be moderated.

Then nothing happens. The post just disappears.
No offline reply. Nothing.

Humble apologies for the idiotic blank replies - not once, but twice!!

Question - do you 'subscribe' to the lists first?

Exactly what you describe has happened to me before. The instructions
typically do not make it clear that you have to subscribe first, so I just
posted. After getting no response, I tried subscribing and then posting, and
it worked.

Instructions could be clearer, I agree.

Frank Millman

 

[Ulrich Eckhardt]

In the last couple months on a few occasions
I've tried various Python libraries (and I'm not going to
name names) and run into some problem.

Following the documented procedure [...]

Documented where?

[...] I eventually post the problem to the "support" list

Which support list?

Then I'm told automatically that my post will be moderated.

Then nothing happens. The post just disappears.
No offline reply. Nothing.

Are you talking about a single mailinglist maintained by Python or
are you talking about various lists of projects using Python?

I don't know why this happens, but if people
are using their "support" forums

And now it's a forum, not a mailinglist, and more than one of them?

Yes, I had people all over ignore requests, suggestions, bug reports etc. I
also had people take them up, comment sensibly, thank me or be up front and
reject my proposals for various reasons. Both categories came from
both "open" projects of volunteers and commercially run projects.

Maybe if they don't care about you, you shouldn't care about them?

I hope you have a happy weekend!

Uli

 

[Robert Kern]

Let me vent my annoyance.

In the last couple months on a few occasions
I've tried various Python libraries (and I'm not going to
name names) and run into some problem.

Following the documented procedure I eventually
post the problem to the "support" list trying to politely
explain everything, including the admission that
it may all be my stupidity causing the problem.

Then I'm told automatically that my post will
be moderated.

Then nothing happens. The post just disappears.
No offline reply. Nothing.

I don't know why this happens, but if people
are using their "support" forums as propaganda
lists for only happy news I consider this a serious
violation of the spirit of open source. There
is nothing wrong with filtering spam, of course,
but silently filtering non-spam, even inane non-spam,
is not acceptable. At least there should be an
offline RTFM reply to the poster.

You almost certainly ran into technical misconfiguration or lazy moderators.
Both are distressingly common with mailing lists. Hanlon's Razor: "Never
attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." You
may also want to check to see if your mail host is on any spam block lists like
Spamhaus.

So go ahead and name names. This may be the one chance the list owners will be
able to learn about their misconfiguration. Just don't accuse them of censoring
negative posts without actual evidence; you don't have any to support that
conclusion.

In any case, it is accepted (or so I assert) that if you are having problems
with a Python project, you can post your questions here until you are able to
post to the project's mailing list.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Aaron Watters]

[note: if this shows up twice, it's because my internet connection
flaked out]

You almost certainly ran into technical misconfiguration or lazy moderators.

It's suspicious, however, when other posts
which seem to be from new posters get through
in a timely fashion.

Question - do you 'subscribe' to the lists first?

Yes I do, or at least I try. Sometimes the request to
join gets silently moderated into the bit bucket also.

Ulrich: I'm not talking about the python.org lists
where I've *never* had problems. I'm talking about
other lists.

I know this may be due to simple laziness and negligence,
but in that case they should turn moderation off.

I don't want to say where I've had this problem,
because I don't want to offend anyone in particular
-- I'm just making a general observation. Maybe
as Robert suggests I will try comp.lang.python as
a fall back after a few days of nonresponsiveness
in the future...

-- Aaron Watters
http://aaron.oirt.rutgers.edu/myapp/docs/W1100_2200.TreeView

===
"I'm practicing monogamy
(but I'm not very good at it yet)." -- Steven Tyler

 

[Robert Kern]

I know this may be due to simple laziness and negligence,
but in that case they should turn moderation off.

That's the funny thing about mailing list problems. If a misconfiguration means
people can't post to your, you don't hear from the people having problems. Try
emailing one of the project leaders directly (and politely!) to ask them to
check their moderation queue for your post. And check Spamhaus to see if your
mail host is on their list!

I don't want to say where I've had this problem,
because I don't want to offend anyone in particular
-- I'm just making a general observation.

No, you're not. You're making unsupported accusations of malfeasance.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Aaron Watters]

That's the funny thing about mailing list problems. If a misconfiguration means
people can't post to your, you don't hear from the people having problems.. Try
emailing one of the project leaders directly (and politely!) to ask them to
check their moderation queue for your post. And check Spamhaus to see if your
mail host is on their list!


No, you're not. You're making unsupported accusations of malfeasance.

I don't mean to accuse anyone of anything.
I just want to note that any manipulation of
list content, *if* it ever occurs, is not
acceptable (aside from spam filtering).
Of course I can never prove anything along
these lines and any naming will only result
in creating life long enemies, and no benefit
to me of any kind.

You are right that misconfigurations and incompetence
could be confused with mailing list content
manipulation. I have tried "directly contact the owner" too in
at least one case that I can think of and received no
response -- maybe the fellow was too busy, or sick
or dead or something (but still active on the same
mailing list, somehow).
-- Aaron Watters

===
He's a humble man, with good reason.
- Churchill, on a colleague

 

[Robert Kern]

I don't mean to accuse anyone of anything.

Attaching a question mark to the end doesn't make it any less of an accusation.
Language is funny that way. C.f. the "Cavuto mark".

I just want to note that any manipulation of
list content, *if* it ever occurs, is not
acceptable (aside from spam filtering).

You need to have at least some evidence that it is occurring at all before
moralizing about the hypothetical. When you do either of these things, it gives
the rhetorical impression that you do have some support to believe that these
things are actually happening when, in fact, you don't.

Of course I can never prove anything along
these lines and any naming will only result
in creating life long enemies, and no benefit
to me of any kind.

You know, if you hadn't leapt to paranoid conclusions in the first place, you
could have named the lists that you were having problems with right here, and
probably other people would be able to help you. No acrimony. No enemies. All
benefit. This is why it is both irresponsible and entirely unhelpful to
pontificate about malfeasance before collecting sufficient evidence.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Aahz]

You know, if you hadn't leapt to paranoid conclusions in the first
place, you could have named the lists that you were having problems
with right here, and probably other people would be able to help
you. No acrimony. No enemies. All benefit. This is why it is both
irresponsible and entirely unhelpful to pontificate about malfeasance
before collecting sufficient evidence.

Robert speaks for me
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"You could make Eskimos emigrate to the Sahara by vigorously arguing --
at hundreds of screens' length -- for the wonder, beauty, and utility of
snow." --PNH to rb in r.a.sf.f