Quoting Marc Haber (2025-06-04 17:44:52) > On Wed, Jun 04, 2025 at 08:31:09AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > >The most common (not the only) reason why packages file an RFH bug, in my > >experience, is that they are overwhelmed and unable to keep up with the > >packaging, which unfortunately is the same state that will lead them to > >not responed to MRs. Unfortunately, often the ideal response to an RFH bug > >is for an experienced Debian maintainer who wouldn't require much > >assistance to offer to be co-maintainer directly. It's hard for a newcomer > >to offer that type of help, through absolutely no fault of the newcomer. > > > >Often RFH bugs are not filed until the situation is already dire and the > >existing maintainers may not be able to mentor newcomers or perform a > >clean handoff to anyone other than an experienced Debian developer. This > >is very much not ideal, and I wish this were not the case, but I suspect > >that means that, at the moment, RFH is more useful as a flag for > >experienced developers, and newcomers will find it easier to contribute to > >packages that, paradoxically, are not tagged as needing help. > > Amen to that. Maybe we should not direct newcomers to wnpp but instead > to a list of wishlist bugs tagged help (for newbies), and optionally to > a list of RC bugs tagged help (with the warning "not for the faint of > the heart").
I suggest to instead more narrowly guide them towards *recent* *RFP* bugreports rather than WNPP bugreports in general. It will not surprise me if some newcomers find recent RFP bugreports a total waste of their time, but I know from experience that some do not. - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
