ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Kevin Godby <godbyk@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Jim Connett <jimandmarcy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> While protecting the work of the 500+ members is always a prudent thing to
> consider, I have to agree with Carsten and Hannie on this one. It hasn't
> been a problem yet (probably because the group IS moderated), and to
> "manage" 500 people bopping in and out of the group seems to be like a lot
> of extra work for very little return, especially since we can recover
> previous revs of a given manual if needed through SVN.

Interestingly, the Ubuntu Manual team used to be open on Launchpad so
that anyone could sign up and immediately have access to commit to the
bzr repository. We never encountered any problems with this (e.g.,
vandalism).

Unfortunately, new rules imposed by Launchpad forced me to switch the
team to "moderated".  Now, when someone wishes to join the team they
have to wait for me to approve them. Then they have access to the bzr
repository.  (So far, I've been approving everyone who requests to
join our team. I set a six-month expiration on the membership so that
they have to renew their membership every six months. This may help us
see who is actively involved in the team.)

My position on all this is that we should be as open as possible and
remove as many barriers as we can to new members getting involved in
our project.  I'm quite content to trust people not to be evil. It's
worked without fail for us so far.  If we do encounter problems in the
future, however, we can revisit the team membership rules, look at
restricting access to the bzr repository, etc.

—Kevin