Please separate technical and non-technical announcements

meta
1

Please separate technical and non-technical announcements to respect both technical readers and readers who want to hear from Rust about humanitarian concerns ("non-technical readers" I called it).

This is a suggestion summarized from my discussion in this post. This cannot represent everyone's opinion from that discussion, so for details, please see the post.

So, in summary, I think we should:

  • Separate technical and non-technical announcements
  • Set up specific official channels for non-technical purposes
  • Allow more clarity on making a non-technical announcement in terms of:
    • who should be the authors, who (people or groups) should sign their names on a non-technical announcement
    • whom is on behalf of
    • what is the non-technical announcement about
    • when and where to publish such non-technical announcements
    • how can related entities come to a consensus on above points
  • Practically, make separate PRs about technical and non-technical issues

And my reasoning is (taking Release Announcement 1.59 as an example):

  • Release Announcement, as its title suggests, is about a release of Rust language and thus is technical. Mixing technical contents with non-technical statements violates its purpose. Moreover, the most obvious entry to Release Announcement is the version number on Rust official website, and this emphasize its technical nature.
  • Mixing technical contents with non-technical statements does not respect technical readers nor non-technical readers nor technical contributors nor non-technical related entities.
    • For technical readers, non-technical statements are off topic in a technical blog. They may have their personal stances but maybe would rather not be disturbed when they do technical reading. Context switching is expensive!
    • For non-technical readers, a separate announcement is more meaningful. If anyone is deeply concerned about non-technical issues and want Rust to do something, I think they would want an official separate announcement, instead of a short paragraph in a technical blog. Serious and formal response is needed!
      • Don't you think people who are suffering deserve a more formal standalone statement?
    • For technical contributors, they deserve honoring in related technical posts. But a non-technical statement alongside their names may not be what they desire, especially when they have different stances from the inserted non-technical statement. Clear authorship is needed!
    • For non-technical contributors, they deserve separate honoring from technical honoring.

To avoid potential misinterpretation, I should emphasize that I am NOT asking anyone to shut up and I sympathize people who are suffering in a war.

In response on whataboutism on Rust 1.44 Release Announcement, I did not subscribe to Release Announcements back then. And I definitely hope that someone would suggest this separation before.

3 Likes
2

We do already have purely technical release notes.

2 Likes
3

Well, I will be fine if the main entry to release announcement points to that release note. The button with the text version 1.59.0 means purely technical information, don't you think? Another ad-hoc fix is to change the title of Release Announcement from "Announcing Rust 1.59.0" to "Announcements".

4

Honestly, it's very hard to understand what are you trying to advocate here. Even if you don't care about Ukraine or if you hate Ukraine, a short paragraph in release announcement of some programming language shouldn't be an issue if you call yourself a professional.

And if this is about politics, perhaps the single country in world where supporting Ukraine is prohibited would be Russia, and indeed some community members from there might be in trouble. However, I doubt that announcement note of Rust 1.59 may cause any serious trouble, unless Putin's regime completely lost their minds.

Maybe I just miss something, so more explicitness from you about such issues is certainly needed

3 Likes
5

What I advocate is very clear in my summary. This also benefits both worlds if you cannot see it, which is that technical issues stay technical and non-technical issues have more chances to be discussed more often and more thoroughly. What are the bad things if we can support people who are suffering in a dedicated channel instead of a shared channel? Please tell me if you have any ideas on that in mind.

6

And this is like saying "why so serious, it's not big deal. You should not be angry if you are a gentleman" when you make a small but inappropriate joke on a stranger. "a short paragraph" is not an excuse for its inappropriate placement.

1 Like
7

A better investment would be to donate to people in need

So, you basically ask this community to shut up and silently watch how Russian troops kills Ukrainian people

8

Well, why not publish a separate announcement for donation? Or do you want such a call for donation to a just a short paragraph in a technical reading? BTW, you did not understand my word.

Well you did not read my clarification and I have nothing more to comment on this.