Puppet users - Mar 2012 - Puppet Beginners: New list suggestion?

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.

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 

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> 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
[snip]

Without wanting to pigeon hole or stereotype anyone, my experience from 
the IRC channel in particular is that "dumb questions" that get asked 
often show that the poster has not read through the online documentation 
and has jumped straight into the community support channels instead. 
No-one minds helping a struggling beginner, but the old "him who helps 
himself" saying applies and I think for most people, if they genuinely 
read the excellent language guide properly they would answer the 
majority of beginner questions on their own.  Some people take offense 
when told on IRC to RTFM, or given an anchor link to the docs in 
response to a question, but it simply is the best source of information 
to their issues.

Providing a beginners mailing list IMO would only encourage people to 
bypass the docs even more.

2p/w :)

Craig

-- 
Craig Dunn | http://www.craigdunn.org
Yahoo/Skype: craigrdunn | Twitter: @crayfishX

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Craig Dunn <craig@craigdunn.org>
wrote:
>
>> 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
>
>
> [snip]
>
> Without wanting to pigeon hole or stereotype anyone, my experience from the
> IRC channel in particular is that "dumb questions" that get asked
often show
> that the poster has not read through the online documentation and has
jumped
> straight into the community support channels instead. No-one minds helping
a
> struggling beginner, but the old "him who helps himself" saying
applies and
> I think for most people, if they genuinely read the excellent language
guide
> properly they would answer the majority of beginner questions on their own.
>  Some people take offense when told on IRC to RTFM, or given an anchor link
> to the docs in response to a question, but it simply is the best source of
> information to their issues.
>
> Providing a beginners mailing list IMO would only encourage people to
bypass
> the docs even more.
I do not agree with this sentiment.  The docs are a great reference,
but they can certainly be overwhelming to a beginner.  We all should
definitely make folks feel comfortable asking whatever questions they
have.  If the fear is that the IRC channel and mailing list would get
bogged down with folks asking the same beginner questions over and
over, I offer a couple thoughts:
   * we can aways go with the OP''s suggestions and start new avenues
for such questions
   * answering easy questions scales: that is, the easier a question
is, the more people that can answer it.
   * The corollary to the previous point is that if you find answering
easy questions tedious, you do not have to; someone else can most
likely pick it up
   * Opening the floodgates to the easy questions makes it very
obvious what needs to go in the FAQ :-)

I have been helped out so much by the fine folks on IRC that I love it
when I get a chance to help someone out with any problem. ;-)


-- 
Chad M. Huneycutt

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 8:56 AM, Chad Huneycutt <chad.huneycutt@gmail.com>
wrote:
>   * Opening the floodgates to the easy questions makes it very
> obvious what needs to go in the FAQ :-)
As a slight aside, I think that a list of frequently asked questions
is a statement that the documentation is incomplete. If those
questions are so frequently asked, why isn''t the documentation updated
to account for them in the first place?

See also Rich Bowen''s "Write a better FM" book:
   http://betterfm.org/

Cheers,
Scott

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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 <misteritguru@gmx.com>
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
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>
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How about a ''serverfault'' or ''stackoverflow''
or the like site? One of the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in
mail lists and hard to search for. IRC isn''t much help for searching
previous answers either.

-1 for separate lists.

Den

On 03/04/2012, at 14:30, Michael Stahnke <stahnma@puppetlabs.com> wrote:
> 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
<misteritguru@gmx.com> 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 puppet-users@googlegroups.com.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
puppet-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>> For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
>> 
> 
> -- 
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> 
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Michael,

Would you guys consider standing up a shapado instance?
http://shapado.com/(It''s basically an FLOSS clone of stackoverflow,
and is great for Q&A type
stuff.) You could stand it up as ask.puppetlabs.com, and point new users
there for questions. One of the big issues of puppet-users, is simple the
volume of emails that are blasted into ones inbox. (Ignoring the diverse
nature of the various discussions.) In addition, I have a sense that IRC
and mailing lists are a bit old-school, and can be intimidating to new
users.

Personally, I don''t love mailing lists, in that I don''t want
to have to
subscribe to EVERYTHING, to get the answer to a single question.

I''d also like to address Scott''s critique of FAQs. I think
that no matter
how good and complete the documentation, there will be frequently asked
questions. It''s just the nature of the beast.

Thanks,
Brian

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Michael Stahnke
<stahnma@puppetlabs.com>wrote:
> 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
<misteritguru@gmx.com>
> 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 puppet-users@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> puppet-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> > 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 puppet-users@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> puppet-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
>
>

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http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.

I am personally completely against splitting the list. It will basically 
force everyone to be in the two lists, and even worse, those with a 
question that does not get an answer, will try with the second list.

Besides, when you have a question, how do you know if it''s a difficult 
one? Sometimes you just hit a bug when you are newby, and sometimes you 
are missing a comma when you are expert.

Then, for people like me that are learning, it is very useful to see all 
those questions getting answer, you learn really a lot from other''s 
questions.

I would really focus on the documentation. Maybe going through it, 
checking which paragraphs are more confusing or hide not-so-easy 
concepts or common misconceptions, and back up with better real-life 
examples, together with a FAQ, would probably remove 30% of the 
questions there are here.

Thanks for this list!
Pablo

On 04/03/2012 07:56 AM, Brian Gupta wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Would you guys consider standing up a shapado instance? 
> http://shapado.com/ (It''s basically an FLOSS clone of
stackoverflow,
> and is great for Q&A type stuff.) You could stand it up as 
> ask.puppetlabs.com <http://ask.puppetlabs.com>, and point new users 
> there for questions. One of the big issues of puppet-users, is simple 
> the volume of emails that are blasted into ones inbox. (Ignoring the 
> diverse nature of the various discussions.) In addition, I have a 
> sense that IRC and mailing lists are a bit old-school, and can be 
> intimidating to new users.
>
> Personally, I don''t love mailing lists, in that I don''t
want to have
> to subscribe to EVERYTHING, to get the answer to a single question.
>
> I''d also like to address Scott''s critique of FAQs. I
think that no
> matter how good and complete the documentation, there will be 
> frequently asked questions. It''s just the nature of the beast.
>
> Thanks,
> Brian
>
> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Michael Stahnke 
> <stahnma@puppetlabs.com <mailto:stahnma@puppetlabs.com>> wrote:
>
>     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
>     <http://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
>     <misteritguru@gmx.com <mailto:misteritguru@gmx.com>> 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.
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>     >
>
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>
>
>
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But I concur

-1 for separation

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the
universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes)

----- Denmat <tu2bgone@gmail.com> wrote:
> How about a ''serverfault'' or
''stackoverflow'' or the like site? One of the issues I find is
that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard to search for. IRC
isn''t much help for searching previous answers either.
> 
> -1 for separate lists.
>
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On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Michael Stahnke <stahnma@puppetlabs.com>
wrote:
> 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
I''m -1 on separating the list. While there''s a lot of
discussion that
isn''t relevant or interesting to me on the list, there''s been
a
non-trivial number of posts that have directly addressed issues I was
researching, or have helped me work through stumbling blocks. Some of
it is simple serendipity, but I''d have lost out on those things if I
was only subscribed to the -newbie list.
> 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.
For what it''s worth, my experiences in the IRC channel have been
nothing but positive. Yes, my questions have been sometimes answered
with a simple link to existing documentation, but in most cases thus
far those links have been exactly what I needed. And it''s worth
pointing out that the links were not provided with aggression or
derision, but a matter-of-fact "here''s what you need."


Because there are multiple ways to use Puppet to resolve the problems
of configuration management, there seems to me to be a gulf between
what''s documented and what people are using in production. Stated
another way, there''s a gap between the "how" and the
"why".

Cheers,
Scott

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 10:56 PM, Brian Gupta
<brian.gupta@brandorr.com>wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Would you guys consider standing up a shapado instance?
> http://shapado.com/ (It''s basically an FLOSS clone of
stackoverflow, and
> is great for Q&A type stuff.) You could stand it up as
ask.puppetlabs.com,
> and point new users there for questions. One of the big issues of
> puppet-users, is simple the volume of emails that are blasted into ones
> inbox. (Ignoring the diverse nature of the various discussions.) In
> addition, I have a sense that IRC and mailing lists are a bit old-school,
> and can be intimidating to new users.
>
We''ve had similar thoughts about accessibility and a Q&A site, and
have
been thinking seriously about a FLOSS clone of stackoverflow.

Last time we had a look around OSQA <http://www.osqa.net/> seemed to be
the
best candidate, thanks for the Shapado link Brian.



>
> Personally, I don''t love mailing lists, in that I don''t
want to have to
> subscribe to EVERYTHING, to get the answer to a single question.
>
> I''d also like to address Scott''s critique of FAQs. I
think that no matter
> how good and complete the documentation, there will be frequently asked
> questions. It''s just the nature of the beast.
>
> Thanks,
> Brian
>
> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Michael Stahnke
<stahnma@puppetlabs.com>wrote:
>
>> 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
<misteritguru@gmx.com>
>> 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
puppet-users@googlegroups.com.
>> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> puppet-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>> > 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.
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>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> puppet-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
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>> http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
>>
>>
>
>
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>
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-- 
Nigel Kersten
Product Manager, Puppet Labs

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 22:53, Denmat <tu2bgone@gmail.com>
wrote:
> How about a ''serverfault'' or
''stackoverflow'' or the like site? One of the issues I find is
that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard to search for. IRC
isn''t much help for searching previous answers either.
I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
configuration management or something going.  What it really needs is
someone to drive that forward - you can''t just ask for one, it needs a
community.

-- 
Daniel Pittman
⎋ Puppet Labs Developer – http://puppetlabs.com
♲ Made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons

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On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Daniel Pittman
<daniel@puppetlabs.com>wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 22:53, Denmat <tu2bgone@gmail.com> wrote:
> > How about a ''serverfault'' or
''stackoverflow'' or the like site? One of
> the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard
> to search for. IRC isn''t much help for searching previous answers
either.
>
> I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
> configuration management or something going.  What it really needs is
> someone to drive that forward - you can''t just ask for one, it
needs a
> community.
>
Daniel, mmm.. do we want a general purpose configuration management site or
a puppet specific one? I''d be willing to help host and setup a puppet
specific one, however, I''d have thought that would be something that
puppetlabs would want to own/run. Feel free to discuss internally, and let
me know which way you guys want to go.

Thanks,
Brian

> --
> Daniel Pittman
> ⎋ Puppet Labs Developer – http://puppetlabs.com
> ♲ Made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons
>
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>
>

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On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Brian Gupta
<brian.gupta@brandorr.com>wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Daniel Pittman
<daniel@puppetlabs.com>wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 22:53, Denmat <tu2bgone@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > How about a ''serverfault'' or
''stackoverflow'' or the like site? One of
>> the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in mail lists and
hard
>> to search for. IRC isn''t much help for searching previous
answers either.
>>
>> I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
>> configuration management or something going.  What it really needs is
>> someone to drive that forward - you can''t just ask for one, it
needs a
>> community.
>>
>
> Daniel, mmm.. do we want a general purpose configuration management site
> or a puppet specific one? I''d be willing to help host and setup a
puppet
> specific one, however, I''d have thought that would be something
that
> puppetlabs would want to own/run. Feel free to discuss internally, and let
> me know which way you guys want to go.
>
Hey Brian, thanks for the offer, it''s much appreciated.

We do want to be running this, primarily because we want to provide an
integrated platform that includes a bit more than just the Q&A site itself.
We''d like to be able to integrate profiles across the Forge, a Q&A
site and
even the bug tracker.

It would be great if you were on a Q&A site, asking questions about
developing modules, and to be able to see that the person answering your
question has published several awesome Puppet modules that are really
popular. Vice versa, it would be great to be able to look at a module and
see that the author is a highly engaged member of the community.

So all in all, we do want to provide this as a service by us, and it''s
difficult to get that level of integration with StackExchange.

I would like to point out that we''ve got a growing ServerFault
community
under the ''puppet'' tag, and there are some great people
answering Puppet
questions there.

This is clearly an even more pressing need than we''d been thinking, so
we''re going to try and accelerate this.


-- 
Nigel Kersten
Product Manager, Puppet Labs

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On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Nigel Kersten <nigel@puppetlabs.com>
wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Brian Gupta
<brian.gupta@brandorr.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Daniel Pittman
<daniel@puppetlabs.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 22:53, Denmat <tu2bgone@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>> > How about a ''serverfault'' or
''stackoverflow'' or the like site? One of
>>> > the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in mail
lists and hard
>>> > to search for. IRC isn''t much help for searching
previous answers either.
>>>
>>> I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
>>> configuration management or something going.  What it really needs
is
>>> someone to drive that forward - you can''t just ask for
one, it needs a
>>> community.
>>
>>
>> Daniel, mmm.. do we want a general purpose configuration management
site
>> or a puppet specific one? I''d be willing to help host and
setup a puppet
>> specific one, however, I''d have thought that would be
something that
>> puppetlabs would want to own/run. Feel free to discuss internally, and
let
>> me know which way you guys want to go.
>
>
> Hey Brian, thanks for the offer, it''s much appreciated.
>
> We do want to be running this, primarily because we want to provide an
> integrated platform that includes a bit more than just the Q&A site
itself.
> We''d like to be able to integrate profiles across the Forge, a
Q&A site and
> even the bug tracker.
>
> It would be great if you were on a Q&A site, asking questions about
> developing modules, and to be able to see that the person answering your
> question has published several awesome Puppet modules that are really
> popular. Vice versa, it would be great to be able to look at a module and
> see that the author is a highly engaged member of the community.
>
> So all in all, we do want to provide this as a service by us, and
it''s
> difficult to get that level of integration with StackExchange.
>
> I would like to point out that we''ve got a growing ServerFault
community
> under the ''puppet'' tag, and there are some great people
answering Puppet
> questions there.
>
> This is clearly an even more pressing need than we''d been
thinking, so we''re
> going to try and accelerate this.
And to post the actual ServerFault link:

http://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/puppet





-- 
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Product Manager, Puppet Labs

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I just started using puppet about 4 months ago and I have to say, it was a 
lot to take in. I read through the documentation, downloaded the VM to play 
with, etc. What I found was the documentation was almost overwhelming. Part 
of the problem was I didn''t know what I wanted to know. After having
gotten
used to puppet, I don''t think the current documentation is in need of 
review - it is exactly what I need and use now. But for a beginner, it was 
difficult to stay on the learning curve, even the getting started section 
seemed to be tons of information. Luckily I had expert puppet users helping 
me but I couldn''t imagine trying to learn this without someone to
bounce
"silly" questions off of. 

What I think could help beginners the most would be maybe an "example 
network" where a small network with a master and several clients are set up
and you can see all the files and how they interact. Essentially have a 
description of what the different clients "do" (apache, dhcp, ntp, 
database, etc) and then have the folder structure of the manifests 
available to look at. The reason I bring this up was because I was reading 
the "Learning Puppet" material and thinking to myself, "Ok, I get
that but
*how* should I do this?" The hardest part I think for a beginner is making 
the leap from understanding the concepts to how those concepts are commonly 
executed in real world manifests. I think a simple demo network would be 
great. Just my thoughts having just come from the "beginners" camp.

On Friday, March 30, 2012 3:00:54 PM UTC-5, Mister IT Guru
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.
>
> 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 
>
>
On Friday, March 30, 2012 3:00:54 PM UTC-5, Mister IT Guru
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.
>
> 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 
>
>
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On 2 Apr 2012, at 10:12, Craig Dunn wrote:
> 
>> 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
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Without wanting to pigeon hole or stereotype anyone, my experience from the
IRC channel in particular is that "dumb questions" that get asked
often show that the poster has not read through the online documentation and has
jumped straight into the community support channels instead. No-one minds
helping a struggling beginner, but the old "him who helps himself"
saying applies and I think for most people, if they genuinely read the excellent
language guide properly they would answer the majority of beginner questions on
their own.  Some people take offense when told on IRC to RTFM, or given an
anchor link to the docs in response to a question, but it simply is the best
source of information to their issues.
> 
> Providing a beginners mailing list IMO would only encourage people to
bypass the docs even more.
> 
> 2p/w :)
> 
> Craig
> 
> -- 
> Craig Dunn | http://www.craigdunn.org
> Yahoo/Skype: craigrdunn | Twitter: @crayfishX
Good Evening Craig, and thanks for your reply! I appreciate your comments, but
having reflected more on the point
 "Providing a beginners mailing list IMO would only encourage people to
bypass the docs even more"

While this may be true, the number of people searching, finding links via
twitter, or  having a casual intrest, is only going to go up. And the docs are
written from the perspective of a technical manual. Docs are great and I applaud
the effort that goes into it. But it''s still just documentation. When
your in school, college, university, <insert place of education here>, a
massive text book is not dropped in your lap on day one, and then your sent off
into the world.

Every FOSS project pretty much comes with documentation these days - yet we have
support forums. The same for a lot of technical products that are sold in our
shops, but everyone has support lines. If documentation worked, most of us will
be out of work.

I think the community aspect is the key.


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+1 For Dens idea. I use the stack exchange and a few related linked sites, and
it''s awesome! Google it, sign up, find some puppet questions that have
been posted there. You guys might be able to help :)


On 3 Apr 2012, at 06:53, Denmat wrote:
> How about a ''serverfault'' or
''stackoverflow'' or the like site? One of the issues I find is
that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard to search for. IRC
isn''t much help for searching previous answers either.
> 
> -1 for separate lists.
> 
> Den
> 
> On 03/04/2012, at 14:30, Michael Stahnke <stahnma@puppetlabs.com>
wrote:
> 
>> 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
<misteritguru@gmx.com> 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 puppet-users@googlegroups.com.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
puppet-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>>> For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
>>> 
>> 
>> -- 
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> 
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Thanks for the replies from all the puppet lab guys, and the members of this
list. It really brighten my day to read all the responses. I''ve learnt
that maybe I''m not so stupid after all! Ah yes, and that a second list
is a no no!! (It wasn''t my best suggestion, but the community helped me
see the light)

I am really looking forward to Integrated Platform Team Puppet are currently
working on.

It goes without saying that the more content that gets gobbled up by google and
indexed, the more lonely newbies that will be rescued by that search bar.

I do have a more confidence puppet. I hope I didn''t panic any of Team
Puppet, you guys are doing a great job, honestly, I''ve had my butt
pulled out the fire a good few times because of my basic of the most basic
puppet setup, so I''m a fan

On 3 Apr 2012, at 21:13, Nigel Kersten wrote:
> 
> We do want to be running this, primarily because we want to provide an
integrated platform that includes a bit more than just the Q&A site itself.
We''d like to be able to integrate profiles across the Forge, a Q&A
site and even the bug tracker.
> 
> It would be great if you were on a Q&A site, asking questions about
developing modules, and to be able to see that the person answering your
question has published several awesome Puppet modules that are really popular.
Vice versa, it would be great to be able to look at a module and see that the
author is a highly engaged member of the community.
> 
> So all in all, we do want to provide this as a service by us, and
it''s difficult to get that level of integration with StackExchange.
> 
> I would like to point out that we''ve got a growing ServerFault
community under the ''puppet'' tag, and there are some great
people answering Puppet questions there.
> 
> This is clearly an even more pressing need than we''d been
thinking, so we''re going to try and accelerate this.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Nigel Kersten
> Product Manager, Puppet Labs
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On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Mister IT Guru <misteritguru@gmx.com>
wrote:
> Thanks for the replies from all the puppet lab guys, and the members of
this list. It really brighten my day to read all the responses. I''ve
learnt that maybe I''m not so stupid after all! Ah yes, and that a
second list is a no no!! (It wasn''t my best suggestion, but the
community helped me see the light)
>
> I am really looking forward to Integrated Platform Team Puppet are
currently working on.
>
> It goes without saying that the more content that gets gobbled up by google
and indexed, the more lonely newbies that will be rescued by that search bar.
>
> I do have a more confidence puppet. I hope I didn''t panic any of
Team Puppet, you guys are doing a great job, honestly, I''ve had my butt
pulled out the fire a good few times because of my basic of the most basic
puppet setup, so I''m a fan
No apologies necessary at all, and certainly no panic :)

We also love hearing stories about Puppet pulling butts out of fires :)
>
> On 3 Apr 2012, at 21:13, Nigel Kersten wrote:
>
>>
>> We do want to be running this, primarily because we want to provide an
integrated platform that includes a bit more than just the Q&A site itself.
We''d like to be able to integrate profiles across the Forge, a Q&A
site and even the bug tracker.
>>
>> It would be great if you were on a Q&A site, asking questions about
developing modules, and to be able to see that the person answering your
question has published several awesome Puppet modules that are really popular.
Vice versa, it would be great to be able to look at a module and see that the
author is a highly engaged member of the community.
>>
>> So all in all, we do want to provide this as a service by us, and
it''s difficult to get that level of integration with StackExchange.
>>
>> I would like to point out that we''ve got a growing ServerFault
community under the ''puppet'' tag, and there are some great
people answering Puppet questions there.
>>
>> This is clearly an even more pressing need than we''d been
thinking, so we''re going to try and accelerate this.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Nigel Kersten
>> Product Manager, Puppet Labs
>
> --
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>


-- 
Nigel Kersten
Product Manager, Puppet Labs

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