Perhaps it would be useful to split the mailing list into core/contrib
and support lists?  I would be happy to help out answering questions -
a lot of them come directly to me anyhow because of the gitcasts site
and such.

Scott

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
quoted text
> "Scott Chacon" <schacon@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> ...
>>> These two are directly related.  They might be friendly and well-meaning
>>> folks, but I agree that they haven't earned our trust yet.
>>>
>>> But I do not think it matters that much.
>>> ...
>>> It's also somewhat interesting to observe that several people I have never
>>> heard of in the git circle are simultaneously doing new git books,
>>> apparently never asking for much technical advice from core git people, by
>>> the way.
>>
>> To be honest, I have asked for a fair amount of technical advice from
>> many helpful people in the IRC channel over the past few years.  In my
>> case, one of my best friends - the guy I've been working with for the
>> last 4 years - is Nick Hengeveld, who has something like 50 commits in
>> there - why email the list when I can yell a question over the cube
>> wall?  I'm sure you all have more important things to do than review
>> my book for newbies - I asked Nick to do it.
>
> Ah, Nick.  We haven't heard from him for quite some time.  I've actually
> been missed him from time to time whenever http related issues came up.
> Please say hello to him for me ;-).
>
>> If I could code C worth a lick, I'm sure I would have contributed more
>> to this list, but since I have nothing that I feel would be helpful to
>> you, I've passively followed the list.  I'm sorry that you do not
>> consider me a "git community member" just because I don't code C, and
>> so I can't contribute helpfully to core.
>
> I realize I may have sounded somewhat harsh, but that was not my
> intention.  And I do not think what you said is fair, either.
>
> We have had quite a few end user questions on this list, but I do not seem
> to recall any of the names of the book writers, whose books are presumably
> aimed at these people, answering them.  Granted, core coders may be busy
> bunch of people, and the questions and comments from new people sometimes
> tend to be lost in flurry of patch floods.  I and other core coders would
> have greatly appreciated if non-coder experts like yourself helped these
> threads that have never panned out.
>
> I am not complaining.  This cuts both ways.  The patch floods do tend to
> discourage new people from asking basic questions, and lack of answers
> even more so.  But it is not healthy for people who design and code not to
> hear end user feedback.  I personally would want to see the list traffic
> to be inclusive.
>
> The people who design the new features and write code should have easy
> access to the issues the users of all levels have with the software and
> the documentation (and what they find useful as well).  What I am most
> afraid of is that both "We do not bother the coders" and "We are too busy
> to answer every newbie question" mentalities would lead to a fractured
> community.
>
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