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
She/Her/Hers
