[Python-Dev] Python Core Mentorship program

[Guido van Rossum]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 1:57 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> If you don't want a specific party snooping the site, just block that
> specific party. Why make a walled garden that *nobody* outside can look
> into? That undermines the free exchange of information.
>
> Surely a forum specifically for mentorship will be more useful if
> outsiders can be directed to existing discussions, without needing to
> join the private club.

This argument comes up repeatedly. Some people object on principle to
all closed lists. Other people will not participate in a discussion
(or will not speak their minds about certain topics) unless they have
some sense that the list is "closed". The former group will then argue
that the closedness of the list is an illusion, that there are many
ways to snoop on the list regardless. (And there are, technically
speaking.) The latter group will still feel a different comfort level
and argue that *socially* it is not the same thing at all.

I propose to give it a rest. If you want to know what's going on
there, just subscribe, nobody will stop you (and if they did there are
plenty of public forums to complain). You will find soon enough that
nothing unsavory is being discussed. There's an understanding that
only people, not bots/indexers/etc., subscribe to the list, and that
the members are not to forward/publish what they read outside the list
without permission. That's enough to give group #2 the feeling of
comfort (depending, always, on how the attitude of the members turns
out to be of course) but it doesn't mean it's closed. There are other
ways to publish information that might be useful for others, e.g.
blogs, wikis, etc.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)