Hey, we've been having some mailing list discussion on and off inside of Puppet Labs too. Obviously we have a large community that we are trying to appeal to, and we keep doing our best to create the experience for the user-base.
Breaking the users list into two lists has its pros and cons. Pros: * Less code fragments in emails * Advanced users not bogged down with new user questions Cons: * Fragmentation of the user-base * Who will monitor/answer questions on a new user list? * New people may not learn from more experienced people, because the more experienced users may not subscribe to the new-users list What I really think we need, is a way to provide knowledge to new users in an efficient (and non fragmented) way. In the past we had a horrible problem with documentation all over the place, wiki issues, blogs from everybody and their brother, etc. Today, we have narrowed those problems with the Learning Puppet series. (http://docs.puppetlabs.com/learning/), and lots of other documentation improvements on docs.puppetlabs.com. The points about FAQ make complete sense. We'd like to address this with proper documentation and some other online presence that will be rolled out in the in the next quarter or so. As an interrum, could we have a wiki page where we place questions that get asked frequently and have no (or incomplete) associated documentation? http://projects.puppetlabs.com/projects/puppet/wiki/Frequent_Questions_Without_Answers We also hope that IRC is helpful and remains helpful. I don't often see RTFM comments coming out in #puppet. When I do, it's quite often because their exact question was already answered, with citations, and the user still didn't read it. Also in this thread somebody mentioned helping those willing to help themselves. That's a fair statement, but we really want to make this an accepting community to make everybody better at their workloads with Puppet. I hope I've attempted to answer some of the concerns. I am totally willing to revisit this in 90 days or so if the community thinks we should be handling this differently. This is also by no means designed to close this discussion, so please weigh in if you have opinions. Michael Stahnke Community Manager On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Mister IT Guru <[email protected]> wrote: > Good Evening Guys, > > Let me start by saying that I really admire how far puppet has come in the > last year or so, with the launch of the Enterprise version, Puppet Forge and > the other innovations from within Puppet Labs, and in particular the > community participation. I love the mailing list, even though I've been > lurking for over a year. It's this "inner shame" that compels me to raise > this issue. I apologise if this is not the place to mention this, but hey, > you've already got this far, so keep reading! > > I get stage fright looking at some of the "code fragments" that people post > to the list and then say "This is how far I've got and I'm trying to do X" > where X is something pretty complex/unique doesn't quite seem like best > practice or something that you'll find on a general use linux box. While I > have no problem or even issue with this, the problem I find is that when I > tell my admin geek friends about puppet, they go to google and switch off > when they see what they view as "buckets of work" to just get started. We have a lot of Puppet users on Mac, BSD, and now Windows too, so it's not just Linux. > > In a nutshell the perception and feedback I get and I feel this myself, is > that the competency level of those whose regularly participate in this list, > and in other internet forums may just be a bit too good. I feel as if puppet > is lacking a sort of "nursery area". After all, everyone here is already a > 'professional' or so we like to think! > > Would it be a good idea to have a puppet beginners list, where people can > post dumb questions, and maybe have some patient people posting links to blog > entries, you tube videos (something which I noticed is lacking for puppet, > again making it hard for me to evangelise about it, to even get clients to > look at it), and get up to speed with you guys. > > I would like a Puppet Nursery - Or failing that, can we get a puppet advance > list? :) > > I'm just saying - It worked for a different project, that's part of how > ubuntu started to take over the world, it just became accessible to the > casual user. Well, there are a bucket load of causal professional linux > admins, who I fear may dismiss taking up puppet because they just can't get > the time together to learn or keep up with those who puppet 24/7 > > It's just an observation, with a request thrown in - If I annoyed you, upset > you, hurt your ego or made you feel bad in any way, I'm sorry. If you wish to > take it up with me personally, no problem, have your people call my people, > and we'll set up the meet - I'm a big guy so bring backup! (just kidding, > love peace and all that!) - I'm hoping to stimulate some conversation and > debate - how can puppet be one of the first thoughts in the mind of someone > who wants to manage from a 2 to 2 thousands machines? - Reach a critical mass > amount casual users? Worked for Facebook, Twitter - not so much for Nokia but > you get the point. > > SO! Techie Admin Genius People!! Let's Debate > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Puppet Users" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
