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cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
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 Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:16 am Post subject: Userrep's Roles |
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I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand my role as a userrepresentative. At first I thought the role of the userreps was go get the opinions and ideas from the community and put them to the developer community and also get a knowlege of what is happening in the developer community and relay it back to the community in general.
I would like to hear three sides here:
1. From the user, saying what they expect from us, what role they would like the userreps to perform and how they would like to see us do it.
2. From the developrs, saying what they expect from us, what role they would like the userreps to perform and how they would like to see us do it.
3. From userrel, stating the differences between the mother and daughter projects.
As this is a very new project and it is based on the userbase i am surprised to see that this is the first thread asking what the users and devellopers want to see from it.
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ChrisWhite
Retired Dev
Joined: 08 Jul 2004
Posts: 399
Location: Stockton, CA
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:46 am Post subject: |
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As a dev, I'd basically like a userrep to tell me the following:
1) When something appears to be a good idea for development
2) When someone leaves Gentoo for reasons that could have been prevented through reasonable methods
3) To express a pattern he/she has noticed in the community, both positive and negative
That's about it. |
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cheater1034
Veteran
Joined: 09 Sep 2004
Posts: 1558
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 1:20 am Post subject: |
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I'm sure there's various things, like user-userrep-dev interaction.
Possibly users communicating with us and us communicating with the devs for them.
| Quote: | 1) When something appears to be a good idea for development
2) When someone leaves Gentoo for reasons that could have been prevented through reasonable methods
3) To express a pattern he/she has noticed in the community, both positive and negative |
Also good things 
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antarus
Retired Dev
Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 77
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:07 am Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| cokehabit wrote: |
2. From the developrs, saying what they expect from us, what role they would like the userreps to perform and how they would like to see us do it.
3. From userrel, stating the differences between the mother and daughter projects.
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2. Userreps represent the userbase as a whole; this means being courteous to other users and developers (and I realize developers and users aren't always the friendliest people; the former being unacceptable in most instances). Mostly it is difficult to get a feel for what users want done vs what I want to accomplish as a developer. This is difficult mostly because the Gentoo project has no clear goals; we have this obscure statement of purpose but no milestones or fixed goals. Thus it is difficult to mark "progress" as a distribution; except progress as measured by our users. I'd like to see users pushing for these goals, as well as feedback on what needs work.
I don't expect User Reps to bring really specific issues to a developer's attention (such as bug XYZ is two years old and package foo needs to be stabled). Most users need no help doing that themselves.
3. I have no idea what you mean by "mother and daughter projects." Can you clarify? |
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omp
Retired Dev
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 1018
Location: Glendale, California
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:41 am Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| antarus wrote: | | 3. I have no idea what you mean by "mother and daughter projects." Can you clarify? |
I believe he means userrel as mother (project) and userrep as daughter (subproject), but don't quote me on that. 
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cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:50 am Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| antarus wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | 2. From the developrs, saying what they expect from us, what role they would like the userreps to perform and how they would like to see us do it.
3. From userrel, stating the differences between the mother and daughter projects. |
2. Userreps represent the userbase as a whole; this means being courteous to other users and developers (and I realize developers and users aren't always the friendliest people; the former being unacceptable in most instances). Mostly it is difficult to get a feel for what users want done vs what I want to accomplish as a developer. This is difficult mostly because the Gentoo project has no clear goals; we have this obscure statement of purpose but no milestones or fixed goals. Thus it is difficult to mark "progress" as a distribution; except progress as measured by our users. I'd like to see users pushing for these goals, as well as feedback on what needs work. |
I think the way to gauge any distro's sucess is by how happy the users are with it.
| antarus wrote: | | I don't expect User Reps to bring really specific issues to a developer's attention (such as bug XYZ is two years old and package foo needs to be stabled). Most users need no help doing that themselves. |
maybe an part of the userrep's role could be to ask if people could help fixing certain bugs? Would that help?
| antarus wrote: | | 3. I have no idea what you mean by "mother and daughter projects." Can you clarify? |
see omp
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Icer
Guru
Joined: 26 Aug 2003
Posts: 395
Location: @home
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 9:32 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | At first I thought the role of the userreps was go get the opinions and ideas from the community and put them to the developer community and also get a knowlege of what is happening in the developer community and relay it back to the community in general. |
That's my opinion too.
| Quote: | | Gentoo project has no clear goals; we have this obscure statement of purpose but no milestones or fixed goals. Thus it is difficult to mark "progress" as a distribution; except progress as measured by our users. I'd like to see users pushing for these goals, as well as feedback on what needs work. |
So why not make some kind of roadmap. At least for the core packages which make up Gentoo. Just to give the users and idea when some major change is going to take place. For example the roadmap would have entries like "portage 3.0 is in the works and it's planned release date is d.m.y and it should have the following improvements...". Then include link to project page where one can find more information.
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Last edited by Icer on Wed Sep 13, 2006 10:13 am; edited 2 times in total |
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mark_alec
Bodhisattva
Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 6066
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 9:45 am Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| cokehabit wrote: | | 3. From userrel, stating the differences between the mother and daughter projects. |
The main difference I can see is that userrel is made up of developers, and has many projects under its wings (adopt-a-dev, planet, userreps, gentoo status etc.) Userreps in one such project and its members are limited to non-developers.
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runningwithscissors
Guru
Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 454
Location: the third world
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Icer wrote: |
| Quote: | | Gentoo project has no clear goals; we have this obscure statement of purpose but no milestones or fixed goals. Thus it is difficult to mark "progress" as a distribution; except progress as measured by our users. I'd like to see users pushing for these goals, as well as feedback on what needs work. |
So why not make some kind of roadmap. At least for the core packages which make up Gentoo. Just to give the users and idea when some major change is going to take place. For example the roadmap would have entries like "portage 3.0 is in the works and it's planned release date is d.m.y and it should have the following improvements...". Then include link to project page where one can find more information. |
I don't think that would be a wise thing to do. Putting aggressive time constraints on major feature updates for any software is a bad idea. And especially for software that is developed voluntarily.
More accessible information about current development and projects is always welcome, although I don't know if this is already the case, since I never seek it.
I am happy with the way Gentoo is right now. Thinking up improvements is not one of my strong points. |
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Icer
Guru
Joined: 26 Aug 2003
Posts: 395
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| runningwithscissors wrote: | | Icer wrote: |
| Quote: | | Gentoo project has no clear goals; we have this obscure statement of purpose but no milestones or fixed goals. Thus it is difficult to mark "progress" as a distribution; except progress as measured by our users. I'd like to see users pushing for these goals, as well as feedback on what needs work. |
So why not make some kind of roadmap. At least for the core packages which make up Gentoo. Just to give the users and idea when some major change is going to take place. For example the roadmap would have entries like "portage 3.0 is in the works and it's planned release date is d.m.y and it should have the following improvements...". Then include link to project page where one can find more information. |
I don't think that would be a wise thing to do. Putting aggressive time constraints on major feature updates for any software is a bad idea. And especially for software that is developed voluntarily.
More accessible information about current development and projects is always welcome, although I don't know if this is already the case, since I never seek it.
I am happy with the way Gentoo is right now. Thinking up improvements is not one of my strong points. |
I knew someone would play the no timetables card. There doesnt have to be dates set in stone.
Gentoo kind of lacks direction. When we have a roadmap it gives direction and helps to coordinate things. I know the nature of SW development. It's very hard to create schedules. However it doesnt mean that they should be discarded alltogether. If some project is behind schedule it's allright, just mention it in the roadmap or schedule. A date gives a goal for the project members where they can aim at.
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BlackEdder
Advocate
Joined: 26 Apr 2004
Posts: 2588
Location: Dutch enclave in Egham, UK
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 3:59 pm Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| cokehabit wrote: | | 1. From the user, saying what they expect from us, what role they would like the userreps to perform and how they would like to see us do it. |
I'd expect the userrep to be able to point users in the right direction if they want to help. For example if I want to help with documentation, where should I go. Furthermore, I'd expect him to have insight in what's going on in the developers community (for example if a developer is banned/thrown out). |
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cokey
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Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 8:52 pm Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| BlackEdder wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | | 1. From the user, saying what they expect from us, what role they would like the userreps to perform and how they would like to see us do it. |
I'd expect the userrep to be able to point users in the right direction if they want to help. For example if I want to help with documentation, where should I go. Furthermore, I'd expect him to have insight in what's going on in the developers community (for example if a developer is banned/thrown out). |
yup, i can do that but for more developer stuff see userrel
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loki99
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Joined: 10 Oct 2003
Posts: 2056
Location: Vienna, €urope
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:40 pm Post subject: Re: Userrep's Roles |
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| BlackEdder wrote: | | Furthermore, I'd expect him to have insight in what's going on in the developers community (for example if a developer is banned/thrown out). |
I wouldn't have a problem informing users about the developers community as far as I am aware of it. I think that it should be part of our job to improve the communication between both communities, so knowing what is going on in the other community, is kind of essential imo. |
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kopp
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Location: Grenoble, France
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Concerning the roadmap, I think this could be a good thing. No release date are needed, just goals, and charts showing progress of the work ( Like feature 1 has been implemented, feature 2 is in testing etc) This could help users to get to know what's going on. Because right now, it's not easy to find out what's going on in the dev process. |
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loki99
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Posts: 2056
Location: Vienna, €urope
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| kopp wrote: | | Concerning the roadmap, I think this could be a good thing. No release date are needed, just goals, and charts showing progress of the work ( Like feature 1 has been implemented, feature 2 is in testing etc) This could help users to get to know what's going on. Because right now, it's not easy to find out what's going on in the dev process. |
I agree with that.
Joshua Nichols a.k.a. nichoj made a nice summary of the java meeting and published it on Planet Gentoo. I think that this is a step in the right direction to get more infos out to the users. And I think this could be somehow institutionalized for all projects.
Reading http://planet.gentoo.org is a very nice way to keep in touch with what is going on in the dev community, btw. |
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kopp
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Posts: 2885
Location: Grenoble, France
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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Oh my, I had totally forgot Planet Gentoo ! This is indeed in good source for informations as you said. *add to bookmarks*
Articles in the like of nichoj's should be seen more often, because that's what keep us informed of what's going on. |
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cokey
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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i agree with the goals/targets approach. That way updates could be gived to see how much progress has been made at certain points
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richfish
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Joined: 03 Mar 2006
Posts: 202
Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:19 am Post subject: |
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I'm going to echo a lot of what ChrisWhite said, but I see our role being:
1. Keeping highly involved with the user community, so we know what kinds of problems users are having, what documentation is missing or confusing, etc.
2. Presenting good ideas for improvement. This includes both Gentoo as a distribution *and* the communications between devs and users.
3. Notifying developers of important trends in the user community. Example: anybody else notice a dramatic rise in the use of overlays, fex Xgl?
This is a bit short, but I don't have a lot of time at the moment to respond more fully. |
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tabanus
l33t
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 638
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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Erm...just how many user reps are there? Is there a list somewhere? I've wondered a bit about what's the point in them, and I can see lots of good stuff suggested here, but the only userreps I knew about were cokehabit and loki99, and I browse these forums several times a day.
I think the first stage might be a dedicated forum, or some other meeting place for us ordinary users to bitch to the reps
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SirYes
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Posts: 282
Location: Lodz, Poland
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richfish
Apprentice
Joined: 03 Mar 2006
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | At least that's the page I thought should be sufficient. But there's only (     ) an ugly section:
| Quote: | | Long Description blah blah |
And you call that user-friendly?
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We're working on the project page ATM. Should be something better in a week or two. |
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SirYes
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Posts: 282
Location: Lodz, Poland
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| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, I'm not rushing anyone. It will be done when considered done, obviously .
But I was shocked that the page in question was so simple, and didn't even have listed the names of current user representatives. That's why I overreacted a bit, and I apologize for that.
Luckily, the forums' search function was enough to discover the relevent threads (and I posted some answers there at the time), so no problem for me.
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tabanus
l33t
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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Wow...11 reps. That's almost like the Scottish Parliament
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cokey
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| Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:27 am Post subject: |
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| tabanus wrote: | | Wow...11 reps. That's almost like the Scottish Parliament |
yeah, but you know of 2 of us, thats far more than anyone will know in the scottish parliament
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tabanus
l33t
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:43 am Post subject: |
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| cokehabit wrote: | | tabanus wrote: | | Wow...11 reps. That's almost like the Scottish Parliament |
yeah, but you know of 2 of us, thats far more than anyone will know in the scottish parliament |
I think you're right actually 
But seriously, why 11 reps? It seems like a lot to me.
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