Dear all,
Following on from our discussions around communication regarding deprecating algorithms in Mantid I've added Communication as a discussion point under AOB on the agenda for the 22nd November.
From my point of view it is not just communicating about deprecating algorithms that needs working out. I'm mindful that both developers and users are making assumptions about how the other side are working with the communication channels currently available. Inevitably these assumptions are wrong.
One example of this is the error reporter. Did you know that very few of the error reports submitted provide developers with enough information to investigate? More often than not without enough contact details (i.e. an e-mail address) to ask for more information we cannot do anything with the reports. For example we received around 216 error reports in September. We are unable to quantify how many we were able to respond to (we currently don't have a way of recording this) however I would estimate it's likely to be less than 20% if not in fact lower.
I feel that if we don't get our communication right then users will continue to get frustrated by the lack of information, lack of progress with fixing/improving the software and ultimately stop using Mantid altogether.
I would very much value being able to discuss this further with you all on the 22nd November.
All the best
Sarah
Sarah Foxley
Mantid Team Leader and Mantid Project Manager
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Phone - 01235 446938
sarah.foxley(a)stfc.ukri.org<mailto:sarah.foxley@stfc.ukri.org>
She/Her/Hers
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Dear all,
Several of us are currently attending the Mantid Developer meeting at SNS. One of the things that has come up is deprecating algorithms that are no longer in use. The first step is to put together a policy for how we do it. This will include things like steps to take to ensure an algorithm is suitable for deprecation and how long we leave between initial deprecation notice and removal.
It strikes me that I don't feel I have an adequate grasp of how we are communicating with our users at ISIS. As far as I'm aware we have the announcements e-mail list (but not sure who looks at these e-mails), the forum (which is rarely used) and sub team leads meeting/e-mailing their contacts. I also know information like deprecations are in the release notes/help but are people seeing this and are these methods a little late in the process?
I'm wondering if there are other informal ways we've been communicating? Are there better ways we could get news out?
Rather than trying to discuss this via e-mail is this something we can discuss at our MPB meeting on 22nd November?
Thanks
Sarah
Sarah Foxley
Scientific Software Engineer & Mantid Project Manager
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Phone - 01235 446938
sarah.foxley(a)stfc.ukri.org<mailto:sarah.foxley@stfc.ukri.org>
She/Her/Hers
[stfc_logo]
