[pypy-dev] Avoiding loving it to death

[Bengt Richter]

I have a fear that we are going to love this project to death if
we don't settle on how not to overwhelm the core people with
pet ideas, well meant advice, musings, and war stories, etc.
(of which I have my share, that I have to restrain myself not
to contribute ;-)

I'm wondering if it might not be good to have a private list for
the core developers that could be cc:'d with only stuff that actually
supplies something they specifically asked for, so when time is short
they don't have to sift through so much to find what might be directly
helpful in what they are actually doing on the project.

E.g., what I visualize is a core person asking for something specific,
like help with a bug, or help googling to find something specific, or
concrete proposals for improving an algorithm, or entity representation,
or re-implementing a C module in restricted Python, etc, etc.

The key thing would be to have a way for responders to say to themselves,
"I don't have a real solution, but my similar experience might be helpful,
so I'll post in the general list, but not the core list."

Then discussion can churn and occasionally emit a gem, but the core list
would only get cc:'d with the really useful stuff. If the core people's
original request is cc:'d to the core list, it would become a good archive
reflecting progress in a focused way, without foregoing the benefits of
freer discussion and banter on the main list. 

I think it could work on the honor system, so long as the rules are
clear, since there would still be the more open outlet, but you could
block people if necessary.

BTW, I am never sure who would like to be CC:'d personally and who is
satisfied to read the list or newsgroup. I would like some guidelines
on that, to avoid unnecessary redundancies.

I don't think the project would die from mailing list dilution, but
I could see core people deciding to withdraw in order to make progress,
and that would seem a shame, if there can be a way for us all to help
without being more bother than its worth.

HTH ;-)

Regards,
Bengt Richter