ubuntu-devel moderation procedures

The charter of ubuntu-devel is as follows:

• Discussions among Ubuntu developers about their projects
• Developer questions about Ubuntu policies and procedures
• Discussions seeking consensus among Ubuntu developers
• Point of contact for upstream developers to reach Ubuntu developers
• Open to all to subscribe, posting moderated for non-developers

Compare this with the charter of ubuntu-devel-discuss:

• Sharing of experiences with the current development branch of Ubuntu
• Technical questions about new features in the development branch
• Ideas and suggestions about future development of Ubuntu
• Point of contact for Ubuntu users to reach Ubuntu developers
• Open to all to subscribe, posting moderated for non-subscribers

Since many people can moderate ubuntu-devel, this page attempts to serve as a central repository of ubuntu-devel moderation practices in order to ensure that moderation is reasonably consistent.

The listadmin package is useful for dealing with large moderation queues without having to go through the mailman web interface.

People who consistently post sensible, on-topic material should be added to the whitelist. To edit the whitelist, use the administrative interface (with the moderator password) and navigate to Privacy options... -> Sender filters -> accept_these_nonmembers. Please be careful when editing this field to avoid accidents of the select-all type that might lose the previous list contents; if you suffer such an accident, don't save your changes!

Inappropriate support request

This should be used when end users mail ubuntu-devel with problems which would be better handled as support requests or as bugs.

Thank you for your comments on Ubuntu. However, ubuntu-devel is meant to be for discussions among developers. I suggest asking ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com, https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu or http://ubuntuforums.org for help, or https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu if you wish to file a bug.

For less obvious matters regarding the development branch:

Thank you for your comments on the development branch of Ubuntu. However, ubuntu-devel is meant to be for discussions among developers. I suggest bringing this up on ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com, or https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu if you wish to file a bug.

For general commentary that would be better directed to the -discuss list:

Thank you for your comments on the development branch of Ubuntu. However, ubuntu-devel is meant to be for development discussion.  For general discussion about Ubuntu please send to ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com.

Bug report

Sometimes people recognize that a problem is a bug, but don't know where to send it and so mail ubuntu-devel.

Thank you for your bug report. However, we cannot effectively track bug reports sent to mailing lists. Please file this on the appropriate package at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu instead.

Similarly:

Feature requests

Thank you for your feature request. However, we cannot effectively track feature requests sent to the ubuntu-devel mailing list. Please file this on the appropriate package at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu instead, or use the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list if you would like to discuss it first.

Patches

Thank you for your patches. However, we cannot effectively track these when sent to mailing lists. Please file them on the appropriate packages at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu instead; if you would like to discuss them first, then the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list would be appropriate, but they should end up in the bug tracking system eventually.

'Is y a bug?'

Thank you for your comments on Ubuntu. However, ubuntu-devel is not really a good place to ask about whether something is a bug. I suggest bringing this up on ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com, which is unmoderated.

Package Requests

Thank you for your package request. However, we cannot effectively track package requests sent to the ubuntu-devel mailing list. Please review the documentation at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU, or use the ubuntu-motu mailing list if you would like to discuss it first.

Non-Ubuntu development help request

People sometimes mail ubuntu-devel for help with development on Ubuntu rather than development of Ubuntu: for example, help with shell scripting or C programming.

ubuntu-devel is not a general forum for discussion of developing programs on Ubuntu; it is only for developing Ubuntu itself. You will probably have better luck searching for documentation on the tool you're using, or for a forum devoted to it.

Getting started

Sometimes people mail ubuntu-devel to ask how to get started with developing Ubuntu. This is off-topic for ubuntu-devel, but we should nevertheless be welcoming and point them to useful resources.

The ubuntu-devel mailing list is really more for discussions of developing Ubuntu than helping new developers get started, although we do very much welcome new developers as a project. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu for all sorts of ways to contribute to Ubuntu, and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment for specific information on development.

Screenshots

Sometimes people post screenshots to ubuntu-devel in reply to a now-ancient email from Mark requesting them. A Launchpad project has been created to contain new screenshots, and users should be directed there.

Thank you for your screenshots.  However, as ubuntu-devel has already been flooded with posts of screenshots, and because such posts are very large, a Launchpad project has been set up to contain screenshot submissions.  Please see http://launchpad.net/desktop-screenshots for more information.

Cross-posting

It is generally not a good idea for threads to be cross-posted between ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-devel-discuss. Sometimes it makes sense for the first post in a thread to be cross-posted, but replies should generally be directed to just one place; this avoids confusion due to moderation delays being applied to only part of the thread.

This post was sent to both ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-devel-discuss. This is generally not a good idea since moderation delays are applied to only one of those lists. Since the discussion is already active on ubuntu-devel-discuss, it would be best for it to remain there rather than being cross-posted.

Moderation Confusion

This is a moderated list, therefore posts are held for moderation and will not appear immediately.  See https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2006-December/000227.html for a more detailed explanation.

Packaging Request

Thank you for your packaging request.  However, the mailing list for packaging for the universe component is a more suitable location for such discussions, provided the changes needed do not touch so many parts of the distribution as to warrant a discussion that involves the entire development team.  I suggest reposting this email to that list, ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com.

Current moderation team

• Bryce Harrington
• Colin Watson
• Dave Walker
• Evan Dandrea
• Iain Lane
• Sarah Kowalik
• Soren Hansen