Re: [PATCH v2] MyFirstContribution: add avenues for getting help

On Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 12:05:45PM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Emily Shaffer [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

+[[getting-help]]
+=== Getting Help
+
+If you get stuck, you can seek help in the following places.

Is this list meant to be an exhaustive list of authoritative
sources?

To the best of my knowledge, as applicable, yeah.

IOW, are we reasonably sure that some of us would be
around and give useful help, and that we do not mind readers to
consider these places "officially endorsed by the project"?

Right. That's my hope. I worry that sending newbies to non-endorsed
places for help will lead to them getting incorrect or conflicting help.

Or is this meant to be a list of reasonably well-known places, but
may include places where the project does not want to be associated
with the quality of answers given there?  

No.

I am (implicitly) assuming that it is the former, but I think it is
better to clarify what this "list of places" is meant to be.

I'll try to fudge the language so that it implies these are official
channels for getting help.

I notice that stack overflow is missing in this list.  Intended?
Not that I visit there at all nor I would recommend it, but I recall
seeing questions asked by more than a few people after getting bad
pieces of advice there.

Hm. SO for getting help contributing to a specific project? That doesn't
sound like a likely avenue or a good idea to me, since my understanding
is that we don't consider it an "official presence" (some projects do, I
guess).

I suppose the kinds of questions I expect to see on StackOverflow
include "How do I write a mutex lock in C" or "How do I generate patches
with a cover letter", not "I'm stuck on this Git tutorial" or "Would the
Git project welcome X change". To me, this doesn't seem like the place
to bring it up one way or another.

quoted

+==== https://public-inbox.org/git[git@vger.kernel.org]
+
+This is the main Git project mailing list where code reviews, version
+announcements, design discussions, and more take place. If you fail to receive
+help via the channels above, you can ask your question here. The Git list
+requires plain-text-only emails and prefers inline and bottom-posting when
+replying to mail; you will be CC'd in all replies to you. Optionally, you can
+subscribe to the list by sending an email to majordomo@vger.kernel.org with
+"subscribe git" in the body.

Sounds good; I agree with Denton, especially with the mention of
"you must join" on the other mailing list, that it is a good idea to
explicitly say that subscription is optional in this entry.

You can ask questions even if you haven't tried other avenues and
failed, but this entry makes it sound as if an earlier failure
elsewhere is a prerequisite for asking for help here.

I envision an exchange sort of like this:

Newbie to git@vger.kernel.org: "I'm having trouble compiling Git and I
want to write a patch, I'm getting X error"

Veteran to Newbie, cc git-mentoring, bcc git@vger.kernel.org:
"Please build with blah flag and paste console output, plus let us know
system information blah blah blah"

I don't mind the idea of pushing folks to ask on the mentoring list
first. It's pretty well attended already - just now I count 16 list
members, a pretty significant majority of which are project veterans. I
have no problem suggesting newbies ask their questions, which others
probably had and solved before them, in a space separate from the main
mailing list.

Of course if you want to encourage newbies to ask in any of these three
venues, weighted equally, I can change the language. But suggesting the
main list as a last resort was intentional.

 - Emily