Here’s a positive email conversation to send you whistling about your day:
[Message 1]
[Message 2]
[Message 3]
The Ramblings
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. — E.F. Schumacher
The Ramblings 
Someone asked so I figured I better make sure I was clear:
I’m being serious here, not sarcastic. Too often, recently, large threads have spawned about hot-button issues in Fedora and resulted with people taking offense where none was meant or no longer listening to each other. I just felt that pointing out when a hot-button issue does not go off the rails and the participants continue to be exemplars of how we should interact should be rewarded with a “Hey, I appreciate that you’re doing what I expect everyone should be doing in an ideal world.”
I’m not a fedora contributor in the true sense of the word (only a user), but lately i’ve wasted a *lot* of time reading the fedora ml. I read about decisions/meetings/the eternal *target user* arguments/systemd/wayland blah blah.
What i’ve realized is that mailing lists are very inefficient:
* lots of repetitions
* topic diversions
* arbitrary flames + personal attacks
* no focus on arriving at decisions/opinions
* need to click hundreds of times to completely get the gist of a thread (i read on the web)
I this regard i think something google wave was a very viable substitute. If only it was bit faster and free software.
Playing devil’s adcovate again: Do you really consider these 3 messages a “positive email conversation”.
First of all conversation means to exchange information and opinions, but this discussion is a one-way street: Board member asks questions, contributor answers and asks questions in return. Board member does not respond to his questions. Is this successful communication?
Unfortunately this is typical for the board: When you want to do something have to answer a long list of questions. You reply and try to address all of their concerns, but the board members do not change their minds. Happened to Jeroen with the extended life cycle support, to me with the multi-desktop DVD and now to Simon with SQLninja.