Mageia forum

Hi all

Some of you may be aware of the current shortage of contributors in QA. Since the release of Mageia 2 our workload has doubled and we are struggling to stay on top of it.

I'd like to appeal to you all, if you can find some time, to consider joining the QA team and helping to make Mageia!

You don't have to be a guru to do useful QA so it is a good way for people of all experience levels to contribute to the community. We are all ages and from all over the world, united by a common cause.

We have a documented procedure to follow and are more than willing to offer some informal mentoring until you feel comfortable with what you are doing. We have people of all abilities and it is a welcoming and friendly, albeit small, team - so please don't be shy or think your contribution would be meaningless. We need all the help we can get!

As you may know, the long rumoured backport medias will be opening before too long (hopefully!) and it will be our job in QA to test backported packages then, aswell as the regular updates. If you like to test new stuff before it is released or like to learn about old stuff you maybe never knew existed before then QA is definitely for you.

We want to ensure updates are processed in a timely fashion but our backlog is growing longer at the moment instead of shorter. So Please, if you would like to help, take a moment and read our wiki pages. There is a wealth of information there. If you do decide to join then please say Hi on the qa-discuss mailing list or on IRC, we'd be very grateful and glad to see you!

Wiki: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/QA_Team
IRC: #mageia-qa on irc.freenode.net

We will be holding regular meetings now on the IRC channel on Thursdays at 19UTC. You are more than welcome to come and join in.

If you need any more info or guidance then please don't hesitate to ask either on list or off.

Hope to see you soon!

Thanks
Claire (MrsB)

Since we are very much in need for new contributors, i give this topic a bump.

Mageia has made itself to an established distribution within the shortest of times.
This never would have been possible without the tremendous input by all those volunteering die-hards.
To have our great distribution in the spotlights is one thing, to keep it there is another.
Therefore we urgently are seeking for new magicians, for all of you who can bring some expertise in whatever way.

Please, read our site:
https://www.mageia.org/en/contribute/

.....and have a look at what could be your role in the makings of Mageia!!!

I only saw a group of people fighting. Some stay and some left.

Where did you saw people fighting, and who left what? QA team is rather constant with the active members, so far noone left AFAIK, but many joined.

viscosity wrote:I only saw a group of people fighting. Some stay and some left.

I've joined the QA group recently (1-2 month ago) and I did not see any 'fightings'? The only thing I can say that all members seems to be eager to help some 'newbies' to get insights into QA or iso testing

Why do you spread such rumours?

viscosity wrote:I only saw a group of people fighting. Some stay and some left.

I am not at all amused by tendentious messages.
Please explain your motivation, and refrain from doing so in future.

You can see those fight in the General discussions about Mageia section. This is how it reflect to me after see all those lock posts.

Of course i am aware of what is happening in and around the forum.
I don't need to be pointed by anyone.
And also, again you are talking about QA whereas the discussion in the other topic concerns something totally different.

Even so, what is the the advantage and profit to point at?

One more time: stop this non-sense and use time and energy for the better.

isadora wrote:Of course i am aware of what is happening in and around the forum.
I don't need to be pointed by anyone.
And also, again you are talking about QA whereas the discussion in the other topic concerns something totally different.

Even so, what is the the advantage and profit to point at?

One more time: stop this non-sense and use time and energy for the better.

Personally i just find that you just make no senses statement being a moderator. Down here is a nightmare as compare in Ubuntu forum. Likewise you cannot stop people how they feel/think. What you can control is within your own statement.

viscosity wrote:Down here is a nightmare as compare in Ubuntu forum.

And how exactly do you help?

I come here as a visitor. Likewise when i saw those fights and that put me away to contribute. Ubuntu are being conservative toward their security being a open book but at least they banned me with prompt respect. Good luck then. Peace.

viscosity wrote:Personally i just find that you just make no senses statement being a moderator. Down here is a nightmare as compare in Ubuntu forum. Likewise you cannot stop people how they feel/think. What you can control is within your own statement.

You're totally contradicting yourself there. Citing from an earlier post of yours:

Re: Does Mageia use Apparmor/ SElinux?
I just find that people here are more friendly than Ubuntu forum.

by viscosity
Oct 7th, '12, 14:57

So please make up your mind. Also by pointing fingers you improve nothing, so at least try to apply some constructive criticism.

doktor5000 wrote:

viscosity wrote:Personally i just find that you just make no senses statement being a moderator. Down here is a nightmare as compare in Ubuntu forum. Likewise you cannot stop people how they feel/think. What you can control is within your own statement.

You're totally contradicting yourself there. Citing from an earlier post of yours:

Re: Does Mageia use Apparmor/ SElinux?
I just find that people here are more friendly than Ubuntu forum.

by viscosity
Oct 7th, '12, 14:57

So please make up your mind. Also by pointing fingers you improve nothing, so at least try to apply some constructive criticism.

There is nothing to be contradicting as i come here for a visit and i open out my eyes after about 3 weeks saw those lock posts.No way, i going to stay here to contribute.Good luck.

viscosity wrote:There is nothing to be contradicting as i come here for a visit and i open out my eyes after about 3 weeks saw those lock posts.No way, i going to stay here to contribute.Good luck.

There is no "those locked posts", there is one. You look at a lively forum with more than 26,000 posts and point at 1 locked thread?
There is a little fighting in the most pieceful family. As one of the protagonists of that thread I can tell you that I seldomly visited a more pieceful platform than this one.

But of course, it's your choice and not worth further commenting.

viscosity wrote:

isadora wrote:Of course i am aware of what is happening in and around the forum.
I don't need to be pointed by anyone.
And also, again you are talking about QA whereas the discussion in the other topic concerns something totally different.

Even so, what is the the advantage and profit to point at?

One more time: stop this non-sense and use time and energy for the better.

Personally i just find that you just make no senses statement being a moderator. Down here is a nightmare as compare in Ubuntu forum. Likewise you cannot stop people how they feel/think. What you can control is within your own statement.

I think I may be able to help out here.

I started my Linux experience with Ubuntu 9.04.1. I was pointed in that direction by my son. He also recommended LinuxQuestions for support.

I joined LQ and then found the UFs. Was a tester for Ubuntu from the start of 9.10-testing to the end of 12.04-testing.

I had stopped using Ubuntu by that time for anything but testing. The reason for that was the atmosphere at the forums. It is very repressive to anyone with oppinions that do not reflect glowing admiration for anything done by Canonical/Ubuntu.

You will see very few "locked" threads there. This is because they remove them and ban the users that posted them.

Comparing that forum to the Mageia formum is silly. Here there is a healthy exchange of ideas.

In a healthy forum folks do not have to agree. They can have opposing oppinions and express them vigorously as long as they are not making personal attacks on the folks they are "debating". This is how people in the real world work things out. It is also how progress is made.

Mageia, if you read the website, wants to be a distro that delivers what the users want. This requires that folks express their oppinions.

As there are as many "user wants" as there are users there will be disagreement. This is how it should be.

There needs to be moderation on any forum. This can take the form found here, where things like this are discussed in open forum or by using jack booted thugs that simply remove posts and ban the poster as on the UFs.

The difference is between forums that respect the users and ones that don't.

Ubuntu wants people to use their OS and forum as long as they do not question anything. This is safe for the powers that be. It gives an appearance of friendliness. It is also dead culturally.

Mageia, and most distros, actually think that users have a choice, this being Linux after all, and that they should be respected if they choose to use Mageia. They should have the freedom to actually have their very own thoughts.

One thing you should concider is that in Ubuntu 10.04-testing we had about 125 experienced, good quality testers. In 12.04-testing it was down to about 12. I can give you links if you need them to back this up. One is a thread in 10.04-testing where bullies were allowed to drive one poster clear off the UFs for being pleasant, helpful and courteous but having questions, and a lot of experience, from using Fedora, about the use of Plymouth. The mods did nothing about this at all.

Here they actually seem to respect testers that think for themselves.

They can also defend themselves in public view on this forum as it should be in any healthy environment.

Stick around. You may find it less comfortable but a lot more interesting when it is not run by thought police.

WARNING
Differing oppinions may cause thought to happen.

I need, by the way, to appologise for disappearing from the QA world for a while now.

I don't do it often but I actually got pretty sick. When I do get sick I do not fool around.

Acually capable of what in me passes for coherent thought again rather than just kind of following the little animals around with a strange look on my face.

widget wrote:WARNING
Differing oppinions may cause thought to happen.

I am, in hind sight, somewhat embarrassed by my post about relative friendliness.

Might be hard for folks here to understand. There are some really nice folks posting on this thread from a small and over worked crew.

Canonical/Ubuntu have paid people to do the jobs of a couple of them.

Here is the banner at the top of the current dev release forum index page. This is the kind of thing that lets you know that the folks at the "top" are real interested in what the folks testing are doing and thinking. Please do not try this here.

"Ubuntu +1 (Raring Ringtail) This forum is for the discussion of the development of the next version of Ubuntu (Raring Ringtail). Raring is in development and will be released in April 2013. Please note: Ubuntu Developers do not usually read the forums, to report a problem found in Raring report the bug in Launchpad."

You have no idea how nice it is to have the opportunity to see comments from those high and might powerful folks (really need a sarcasm smiley) here. One could almost think that they cared about the people that use the product they work so hard on to put out.

Thanks.

I don't think that the quoted Ubuntu statement is particularly unfriendly - it is a statement of fact. Most dev's, including most of Mageia's, do not spend a lot of time reading the forums. Mageia's "Helpful tip" about the cauldron sub-forum states this, albeit less directly than Ubuntu:

For bugs tracking we use : https://bugs.mageia.org = The Mageia Bug Tracker
In this bug tracker you'll find already reported bugs and you'll be able to report those you have found

Jim

On the mention of lively debates in here, yes, we have them at times.

I have always felt that the ideas were clearly stated for most suggestions and when disagreement occurred the reason was to some extent related to the way different cultures use English since that is the common language we seem to use in here. I mention this part because I have traveled all over Europe for business in the past and constantly noticed subtle but real differences in the usage of English by groups that were making clear statements but in ways slightly different than a native speaker might have done. I mention this as a possible palliative, not as a statement to make folks feel like they are using language poorly. In a couple of instances in here and over in Mandriva in the past I was sure the main problem involved in trying to help someone was whether or not we actually understood what we attempted to say to each other. Just a thought...

Anyway, moving forward, I am usually interested in the desktop experience of new KDE users and also very critical of live disks that will not easily or almost automatically surf the web when folks are trying out a sample disk. I wonder if I can contribute in some fashion?

I have a great deal of experience with documentation, desk top publishing and writing and editing users manuals for audio video related products. I have been using Linux a long time as a user, not programmer and have used almost every major flavor of Linux over the last period of years. What does a QA person do?

Oh, when will live disks of the new release be available? I downloaded LXDE and it is install only.

cheers,

gcd

zxr250cc wrote: What does a QA person do?

https://wiki.mageia.org/en/What_Mageia_QA_does

when will live disks of the new release be available?

Live CD's and DVD's were produced for Alpha 2:
http://www.mageia.org/en/3/

Alpah 3 is in QA and should be generally available within a week or so.

Given your experience, you may be interested in helping the Documentation team:

https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Documentation_team

Jim