Re: Mail missing from lists.apache.org (Fwd: Confessions, excuses and [pretend] recruitment advice from a serial bugger)

I did not see it so I think it must be in moderation. I'll try to figure
out who are moderators on the list.

Rich

On Wed, May 6, 2026, 19:59 Philippe Cloutier <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Rich,
>
> I sent the following to [email protected] a few days ago, but can't
> see it in the archives yet, and I didn't receive any kind of reply. Yet,
> multiple much newer emails show.
> I don't see that this is tracked. This could correspond to
> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-23353 but this is hard to
> tell without some understanding of the problem's nature.
> I am sorry to bother you, but did you receive my email? In case you did
> not, please Cc the list when replying, I would like to see if your mail
> displays and whether that could be specific to my account/provider (I am
> not sure I ever wrote to an Apache mailing list before).
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: Confessions, excuses and [pretend] recruitment advice from a
> serial bugger
> Date: Sun, 3 May 2026 20:59:33 -0400
> From: Philippe Cloutier <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: Philippe Cloutier <[email protected]> <[email protected]>,
> Apache httpd documentation <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
> To: Apache httpd documentation <[email protected]>
> <[email protected]>
>
> Greetings―ahem―everyone―ahem―,
>
> I have been administering various httpd websites for a couple decades. As
> you may know, it's quite difficult to configure httpd without documentation
> unless you master it, so I consulted documentation many times over the
> years and thank you for your involvement.
>
> I have contributed to httpd during that time as I stumbled upon various
> issues, but all my contributions have been via issue tracking, which is not
> always so efficient. Someone pretty well known to this project suggested I
> join this mailing list, which I chose not to do. And reiterated after I
> filed more tickets.
>
> httpd and the Apache project in general have been fundamental in my life
> (as for many others) and it is an honor to contribute and to receive such
> an invitation. I think we can agree that the situation is not ideal:
>
>    - The rewriting documentation had/has a lot of issues.
>    - There have been very few people contributing to httpd documentation.
>    - Filing 1 ticket per (few) problem(s) is inefficient, both for me and
>    committers.
>    - Reviewing changes is complicated without an account/checkout (but
>    see https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=60377#c12)
>
> I am sorry if filing that many tickets is annoying. But as I explained,
> most of the httpd issues I reported so far came from various mandates where
> I administered httpd. Changes in my roles and in the landscape mean I am
> much less likely to be in charge of major services/applications based on
> httpd, and I expect both my interest in and my mastery of httpd to keep
> declining. I do not intend to abandon my rewriting crusade until I (and
> hopefully everyone) understand reasonably well how it works, but I am less
> likely to start new crusades, and I cannot win this one alone.
>
> It is not realistic for me to jump in and do all I can to advance this. In
> many cases, I am able to point out incorrect or confusing parts, but I lack
> the knowledge to do more than suggesting solutions. I also do not speak
> English natively; I could fix a few mistranslations in French, but these do
> not abound. I also never worked with the manualpages document type.
>
> I am already subscribed to too many mailing lists, some I should have
> unsubscribed from years/months ago, so I cannot afford to subscribe to this
> one; please Cc me in case you think this deserves a reply.
> Recruitment advice
>
> Of course, making proposals cheaper would help, but it is surely late to
> move rewriting documentation to the wiki, even if that was a good idea.
>
> The documentation index already has a clear call:
>
> We'd love to have your help to improve the docs.
>
>
> What else could be done so that more people with more experience and
> resources/interest than I do join, and are motivated to keep contributing?
>
>    1. Commenting on commits à la GitHub/GitLab would of course help, but
>    requires a huge effort.
>    2. Possibly reworking the "Report a bug" link? Just labelling "Report
>    an issue or propose an improvement" might be a start.
>    3. My perception is that the rewriting documentation is particularly
>    complicated. Perhaps adding a call for direct contribution specifically on
>    rewriting pages could help recruiting.
>    Thinking about this further, rewriting is probably one of the topics
>    which are themselves complicated, but one issue I *suspect* with its
>    *documentation* which may multiply this is that it was never fully reviewed
>    by a second person. Somehow conveying that to the reader could entice such
>    a person to get involved. I can think of 2 options:
>       1. Adding some warning on unreviewed pages
>       2. or just adding a list of authors and reviewers of each page.
>       When there are no reviewers, this could show display some “Be the
>       first.”-ish invitation. This option would have the benefit of crediting
>       those involved (yes, there is already a global page for that, but I only
>       saw it for the first time yesterday, and it is not complete).
>    4. The previous point got me thinking about credit. It was 2 decades
>    ago that 4 keystrokes/clicks from Firefox would allow one to see my name,
>    and I still remember the pride which the young adult I was felt from that.
>    Now, I fully agree that maintaining credits which gives everyone their due
>    share manually takes time, and automating is tricky. Something like what
>    displays at the top of
>    https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/HTTPD/RewriteRule is a
>    good start, without being too distracting.
>    Yes, I do realize this is likely to be brushed off as “would have been
>    great if today's (tomorrow's?🙄) CMSs had been available ~3 decades ago.😒
>
>
> Sorry for not being more helpful, and thank you for your involvement
>
> --
> 🅭🄍: https://www.philippecloutier.com/Common+infrastructure+licensing#list
>
> Philippe Cloutier
>
>