Re: anatomy of Gnus as a project and as a community

[Doug Alcorn <doug@lathi.net>]

Michael Totschnig <totschnig.michael@courrier.uqam.ca> writes:

> 0) statistics (optional)
> 
> 0.1) your age

30

> 0.2) your sex

male

> 0.3) your profession

computer programmer

> 0.4) your country

USA

> 1) usage
>  
> 1.1) Which version of Gnus do you use, which version of Emacs, on what
>      operating system

XEmacs 21.4 (patch 2) "Developer-Friendly Unix APIs" [Lucid] (i686-pc-linux)
Gnus v5.8.8

> 1.2) Do you use Gnus on your own computer, or on a system controlled and
>      administered by an institution?

I use gnus at home on my own computer and at work (same versions as
1.1) which is a dedicate linux box to me (company owned, self
administered)

> 1.3) For how long have you been using Gnus?

four years

> 1.4) In what context did you hear about Gnus the first time?

Don't remember

> 1.5) How would you describe the original incentive for starting to use
>      Gnus?

integration with xemacs

> 1.6) Is Gnus your only mail user agent (MUA) / news-reader? If no,
>      which others do you use?

Gnus is my oly mua.

> 1.7) How often did you upgrade to a new version of Gnus until today?

I always upgrade to latest stable and once or twice to a development
version for specific features.

> 1.8) how much time do you spend using Gnus (absolute and relative to
>      whole time spent working on computers)?

> 1.9) What are the features of Gnus you appreciate most?

group based posting parameters, multiple server accounts, familiarity

> 1.10) What are the aspects of Gnus you dislike?

complexity to setup, complexity to learn new features

> 1.11) Has using Gnus an influence on the form or content of messages
>       you send?

not sure i understand the question.  my mail content isn't determined
by Gnus.  I guess you might say that using gnus has helped me have rfc
compliant messages.

> 1.12) Has using Gnus an influence on your relationship with the
>       persons or groups with whom you communicate by email or news? 

I know a small subset of the gnus developers and correspond via the
gnus mailing list that i wouldn't have done otherwise.

> 1.13) What are the most important impacts of using Gnus on your work
>       practices (leisure practices)?

email

> 1.14) Did using Gnus change the way you perceive electronic mail and
>       Usenet (or any other systems you are using Gnus for)?

treating email and usenet the same was a smart thing.  it's seems
strange to treat them differently now.

> 1.15) How is your use of Gnus integrated with other applications in your
>       computing environment?

I do all of my work (application development) in xemacs.  Gnus let's
me read and answer mail without having to leave that app.

> 1.16) customisation:
> 
> 1.16.1) How much time do you spend on configuring Gnus?

at first, a log.  now almost no time.  occationally i will see a new
trick and use it.

> 1.16.2) What is the size of your .gnus.el file? 

130 lines

> 	Is your .gnus.el file publicly accessible?

not at the present

> 	Would you be willing to attach it to your answer 
> 	(after editing it to delete personal information)?

sure.  my .gnus.el isn't that interesting though.

> 1.16.3) What in your way of using Gnus differs most from the default
> 	setting?

i've a pretty standard setup

> 1.16.4) To what degree does your way of using Gnus realize the way an
> 	ideal MUA/news-reader should work for you?
> 
> 1.16.5) To what degree do you see Gnus primarily as a tool helping you
> 	to do your work and to communicate, or as a toy to experiment with?
> 
>   
> 2) development
> 
> 2.1) would you say that you have been "programming" Gnus?
>      If yes, has the result been kept for your own use, posted
>      publicly, or integrated in the official release? 

no

> 2.2) Do you actively play a role in the Gnus community, for example as
>      active contributor (with CVS write access), by occasionally
>      submitting bug reports, contributing to discussions about
>      features and problems, submitting patches, helping users, or
>      maintaining other resources?

I'm a sideline participant.  I go to the newsgroups/mailing lists when
I have specific problems.  I read most of the posts at other times.
When I feel I have something to add to the discussion I do.

> 2.3) If you contribute to Gnus on a regular basis, how much time do you
>      invest per week in these tasks?
> 
> 2.4) Can you describe you motivations for engaging in these tasks?
> 
> 2.5) Name some of your contributions to the Gnus community, that you
>      consider are most relevant for other users?
> 
> 2.6) With how much of Gnus' source code are you approximately
> familiar?

 none

> 2.7) Is your engagement for Gnus acknowledged and/or recompensed by your
>      family, your school, your employer, or any other institution?

no

> 3) knowledge
> 
> 3.1) How would you describe the knowledge you had to acquire in order to
>      use Gnus, can you describe how this knowledge evolved, from what
>      sources it was built?

At first, it took me a lot of time to just get a functional setup.
Over time I've evolved into using more and more sources.  Originally I
used gnus for sorting mail.  A big step was when I switched to
procmail for filtering.  Another big step was when I switched over to
imap.  Most of the knowlege came directly from the Gnus info pages
with questions getting answered on the newsgroup or mailing list.

> 3.2) How often in the course of using Gnus are you confronted with
>      situations where you have to look for information before succeeding to
>      do what you want? Can you describe one such situation?

Most of what I do in Gnus is pretty standard.  Every few months I hear
of some trick that seems like it would be cool.  I then spend anywhere
up to a day or so figuring it out.  Recently on the #emacs irc channel
I learned about doing adaptive scoring from someone there.  They
shared their .gnus.el and I pirated their settings.  After discussing
with them how it worked, I've been happily using it for a week or so.

> 3.3) Did you apply the knowledge you gained from studying the workings
>      of Gnus and from using it in other contexts? Can you describe one such
>      context and the kind of knowledge you applied?

not really

> 4) community
> 
> 4.1) Do you conceive of the users and developers of Gnus as one
>      community, two different communities, no community at all?

I think there's a division between developers and users.  Although,
there's no real barrier between them.  The users are encouraged and
free to join the developer community at any time.  As primarily a
users, I have not found any "snubbing" by the developers.


> 4.2) How would you qualify this community (these communities)?
> 
> 4.3) How would you describe the relation between users and developers? 
> 
> 4.4) What would be the values shared by this community (these
> communities)? 

flexibility, conformance to standards, and flexibility

> 4.5) What is the place of the Gnus community with respect to wider 
>      online communities (Emacs, free software, Usenet, Internet)? 

i think of the gnus community as a subset of the emacs community.  as
far as the internet at large, we are a very small subset.

> 4.6) Can you think of any links between these communities and offline
>      institutions or communities?
> 
> 5) infrastructure
> 
> 5.1) Which of the following resources do you use? Specify how often, and
>      give any commentary you consider important about how they affect the
>      way you use Gnus:

i primarly use the ding mailing list.  i used to use one of the news
groups, but my nntp servers were too unreliable.  i also go to
www.gnus.org on occation.

> Please indicate if you'd let me ask you some additional questions by
> email. Please indicate if you do not mind information you disclosed
> being attributed to you in publications resulting from this
> research. Thank you very much for your time!

sure, you can email me directly.  although as a mostly generic user i
don't know how much help i'll be.
-- 
 (__) Doug Alcorn (mailto:doug@lathi.net http://www.lathi.net)
 oo / PGP 02B3 1E26 BCF2 9AAF 93F1  61D7 450C B264 3E63 D543
 |_/  If you're a capitalist and you have the best goods and they're
      free, you don't have to proselytize, you just have to wait.