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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: HCI Usability List
From:       Celeste Lyn Paul <celeste () kde ! org>
Date:       2009-02-06 14:04:10
Message-ID: 200902060904.10828.celeste () kde ! org
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On Friday 06 February 2009 07:56:39 am Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > Can we just drop this now? I think everyone has made their point and we
> > know where people stand. I think we've all learnt things and can now move
> > on from this.
>
> Agreed. We have come to the conclusion that Maciej's use of the
> mailing list is proportional to his use of BKO, and that his
> contributions to both are welcome. No more need for discussion.

You assume that useful contribution can be measures in quantity not quality. 
Developers would beg to differ. How many of those 3000 bugs have been closed 
FIXED? How much resolution and actual code commits have resulted to his 
activity on the list?

I don't mean to pick him out as he is not the only example of this, just 
simply the one presented. 

Everyone is missing the point that the list has become useless. Nothing is 
resulting from the conversations. The little work which does get done should 
have been much easier to accomplish. Conversations spiral out of control to 
where people debate minutae in issues instead of creating resolutions and 
paths to solutions. There is also a tendency to work on ideas that are simply 
too big to resolve on a mailing list, while there are thousands of tiny issues 
existent in the KDE environment which need fixed and do have an impact on the 
overall experience. Even if you did come up with a recommendation, do you have 
a strong enough relationship with developers to have them trust your 
recommendation so they actually do something about it? You may laugh at the 
last comment or not think it important but this is *very important* to getting 
usability in open source done. Anyone who has successfully contributed to 
usability in open source for a period of time would know this.. and probably a 
few other essential things to interpersonal communication.

The project is floundering. If talent exists, you aren't making it very easy to 
pick you out of the crowd, either because you aren't participating or you're 
being too annoying and no one wants to work with you. The project used to be 
much bigger and active with several good contributors who have gone away 
either because of life or because the project became annoying. There are a few 
people who periodically contribute, but they already have established 
relationships with developers and subprojects and just contribute through them 
because the project is too annoying. Project implies Team and if you aren't 
willing to work with other people then you shouldn't be here. I don't care how 
many bugs you've filed or how many threads you've participated in. The bottom 
line is we need to get stuff done. If you aren't helping get stuff done then you 
are no help at all and you shouldn't be here.

We're supposed to be a usability resource for developers. The developer speak 
out about the usefulness of the usability list and explain what might make it 
more useful and they get shot down. Tell me how that is productive? Tell me 
how that helps build relationships? Tell me what got accomplished with that? 
Nothing except wasted bits and wasted time. Now I'm wasting my time having to 
moderate a bunch of children because they can't seem to take criticism and 
play nice together. Oh by the way, did you realise that criticism is a part of 
the design process? It is impossible to improve a design without pointing out 
the negative and improving on it. Of course, since we're all adults and 
supposedly designers, if you are going to criticize someone's design, don't 
forget to explain *why* and provide a *solution*.

Seriously people, if you wake up tomorrow and the list has been nuked and is 
invite-only and highly-moderated or that there is no more usability mailing 
list, don't be surprised. I've been advised to keep the list simply as a 
honeypot because it reduced trolling in other places, but I think it hurts the 
project more than helps it.

-- 
Celeste Lyn Paul
KDE Usability Project
usability.kde.org
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