[python-committers] Mark Lawrence

[Georg Brandl]

On 10/05/2014 09:36 PM, Ned Deily wrote:
> On Oct 5, 2014, at 12:24 , R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
>> 
>> It is certainly true that I for one ignore anything with his name on it, 
>> because most of the time it is noise and it isn't worth the effort to
>> figure out which ones aren't noise.
> 
> To me, the main issue is that the noise is not just directed at python
> committers but also to the python users who have submitted those issues or
> otherwise following them (via nosy or otherwise).  I think the risk is that
> his noise sends a wrong message to those users: i.e. that python-dev has
> suddenly taken an interest in this issue and that, by taking the time to
> create a patch, the issue will somehow get magically resolved.  That won't
> happen, of course, unless a core developer chooses to get involved.

Most of the messages like "can someone look at this" don't seem to send any
wrong messages.  However, I agree that some of them are a bit pompous, like
this one: http://bugs.python.org/issue1284316#msg228480  Responses to hints
tend to sound offended: http://bugs.python.org/issue1284316#msg228483

> The point of having the issue tracker is to solve problems, not to have a
> kind of contest about how many issues can be closed.  Yes, all things being
> equal, it is better to have fewer open issues but that's not the primary
> goal. 

The tracker does profit from having less inactive issues that are ready
to be closed after a trivial commit, or being out of date or missing
requested feedback.  I've closed a few such in the last few days because
of Mark's pings.

Remember that one thing we'd like users to see before reporting is to
search the tracker for similar issues: the less noise they find there
the better.

> And I am uncomfortable with the risk of users potentially inferring
> that he is somehow a de-facto "project leader" of Python maintenance.

Well, those users can easily be informed about the circumstances should
a question arise.

In total, I think there's no grounds for a ban (yet), but his tone has to
be watched.  If hints from our side are con ignored or receive ad-hominem
responses, that'll change the situation in my opinion.

cheers,
Georg