Re: Concerns about community contributor support

[ian martins <ianxm@jhu.edu>]

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On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 9:27 AM Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, 21 Apr 2021 at 12:55, ian martins wrote:
> > 1. A patch looks useful to me, but I feel I don't know if it's a good
>
> [...]
>
> >    "Thanks for submitting this. I'd use it.  Hopefully a maintainer
> >    will take a look."
>
> Ian,
>
> I think you will find that a few of us do post answers like this every
> now and again.  I know that I do.
>

I didn't mean to imply that you or anyone else never does this. I actually
don't do it myself, and on reflection I believe it is for the reasons I
listed above (a patch may look helpful but I don't know for sure that it'll
be good overall, or it applies to a part of the code that I've not looked
at). I thought others might have the same reasons for not responding.

The lack of answers to cases 2 & 3 are essentially showing a lack of
> interest which is basically an (implicit) answer as well.  It may seem
> dismissive but, given the volume of email some of us have to deal with
> in our day job, it's just reality, I would suggest, without it meaning
> to be judgemental in any way.
>

Lack of interest /is/ an implicit answer. The question is if that is a good
way to answer. I agree with Timothy that ignoring newcomers' first attempt
at contribution is an effective way to drive people away. Is that worth it
in order to reduce email?

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