[mythtv-users] Why has no one implemented subtext commercial filtering?

[Robert McNamara]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> wrote:
> The only disagreement I have with Robert McNamara's "Idea
> men->Developers" scale is that he thinks that mythtv-users is daily
> filled with invective against the besieged, oppressed, unthanked
> developers for not getting on implementing the unwashed masses' flood
> of great new ideas straightaway. That's nonsense.

Meh, I wouldn't say it's that way *every* day, it's the few and far
between days that *are* like that that make it hard to see the wheat
from the chaff sometimes.  It's no joke to say that most of the core
devs avoid this list like the plague because they've gotten burned by
responding to it or irritated by some of the entitled attitude of some
people thought.  It *is* a shame, because not everyone here is like
that by a long shot.  It does, though, make this the wrong place to
float an idea, because it's avoided by the people doing the work and
generally speaking when people decide to "vote" on features without a
single body to do the work, that gets frustrating to the people giving
their free time to work on the project.  When the list decides to get
together and "vote in" an idea, it's easy to see why someone would get
frustrated at being presented with what feels like a list of demands.
I'm not speaking for anyone else, just for myself and maybe sharing a
bit of the complaint about this list that has been shared with me.

That's not a solicitation for praise of the devs, but maybe just a
gently expressed version of how some of the people writing new
features see this list.  FWIW I don't have commit access, but my
contributions to the project have grown gradually over the last year
or to from some pretty scary beginning stuff to some features that
(IMO) are some of the "fun" stuff in .22.  In that time I've learned
what a great group of guys the core devs are, and that the best way to
gradually sidle into the project is by, as you said, listening first.
God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.  :)  I also found
that the *best* way to get your feature request implemented is by
getting to know the maintainer for the module you're interested in and
genuinely soliciting their opinion on how something should be
approached.  Then, take a stab at it.  Even if it's the ugliest, most
hacked-up piece of nonsense ever, take a shot.  This will earn one
*major* points for not expecting someone else to come along and do it
for you.  My first patch to Myth was ewwwwwwwwww!  But it was closed
"fixed" (with a substantially better patch from the maintainer) in
large part due to the fact that I was serious enough about my desire
for it to take an (ugly) stab at it.  In the process I made some
friends, got in good with a few of the devs, and found taht suddenly
my opinion meant a tiny bit more in the project than it did the day
before.  My contributions improved, and I think, so did the value of
my opinion.

Yeechang, note I'm not lecturing at you, by the way, this is more for
posterity.  I know you know this stuff.  :)

Robert