Re: Time to shut down this list?

From: Kevin Kinsey (kdk_at_daleco.biz)
Date: 12/23/04

  • Next message: Jay O'Brien: "Re: Time to shut down this list?" 
    Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:27:08 -0600
To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@freebsd.org>

    Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

    >Most (all?) of the traffic on -newbies lately has been of technical
    >nature. That's not surprising, but there are a number of reasons why
    >it's not a good idea:
    >
    >

    These reasons (though snipped) are correct, of course.

    The central issue, then, is that the list isn't living up
    to its charter. [?] That is not surprising to me either, because
    the charter has always seemed a bit confusing; or, maybe
    "confusing" isn't the proper term, but I, as many others,
    have often wondered, "if we can't talk about FreeBSD
    (with our concerns, generally, as most FreeBSD users
    are either creating FreeBSD or climbing up its learning
    curve), then what is this list for"?

    I think it's probably human nature; a thread on the
    topic of, say, "Happy Birthday 2 Me", doesn't garner
    a lot of responses. In searching my archives, however,
    I see very few threads here that aren't of a questions@
    nature. Indeed, the one I mention is about the only one
    I found (with the exception of a couple of cron jobs
    [Dan L's "Diary" and Auntie Sue's "FAK"]) that isn't
    asking a question. [Admittedly, my local archive starts
    on August 1, and `visual diff` isn't the great comparison
    tool.]

    >I'd suggest that we slowly disband this list (over a period of, say,
    >two weeks). There are plenty of other FreeBSD mailing lists, and it's
    >up to you to join them. If you're interested in technical issues,
    >-questions is the obvious one to join.
    >
    >Comments?
    >Greg
    >
    >

    I'm sure you're looking for a word from Sue, which
    you may have already received via private mail, but
    I'll contribute in the O.S. tradition ... ;-) Please understand
    that I'm thinking out loud, and I am not making demands
    (as I have no right to do so, and you are perfectly within
    your rights to discontinue the lists as you see fit.)

    Are there any other reasons for disbanding, or is it
    simply that the list and the charter don't mix?

    It's certainly true that there are many other lists
    that may be more appropriate; but I also think, as
    many other posters have mentioned, that a "point of
    entry" for questions that "might be dumb" isn't
    such a bad idea, precisely because human nature
    seems to indicate that people will ask a lot of FAQs
    and/or repetitive questions simply out of either laziness
    or a real lack of understanding, and because the same
    human nature seems to also indicate that they will certainly,
    on occasion, get flamed/RTFMed/belittled; it's not
    good "PR" for the Project, but I'm not sure what can
    be done about it.

    I resonated with phk@'s call (in Scott L's "Project wish-list
    for the next 12 months" thread over in hackers@) for
    "a band of happy 1st line responders ...." Granted, he
    was talking specifically about PR's, but I see the need
    for something similar on the lists. It might be desirable
    either to simply change the newbies charter (or list name)
    to something like "FreeBSD-FAQs" and allow people to
    ask their "might be dumb" questions, or else go ahead
    and drop newbies@ while making it *quite clear* (and I
    guess I'm suggesting with "core hat" on) to the community
    that people of all levels of skill, both technical and linguistic
    (and otherwise) use the questions@ list, and RTFMing/flaming/
    /belittling is not considered an acceptable use of the questions@
    list, and that the Right Thing(tm) in some cases would be to
    ignore those topics that "tend to offend" and let someone
    else with more patience and/or time on their hands handle
    the "why isn't there a `help` command?", "why does su say *sorry*?",
    and "why the devil is the devil on your web site?" type questions...

    Maybe that could be a new cron job, or added to your
    current one ("how to get the best results") although the
    nature of that post is a little different in that it attempts
    to raise the level of awareness and literacy of the user in
    preparation for "fitting in" to the acceptable social order
    (gosh, that's a terrible paragraph ... I apologize for not
    being able to get the right words for my thoughts on this,
    I don't intend to offend, if indeed I am).

    It appears to me there are three or four things that could be done:

       1. Have two "questions" type lists, one for the "easy/FAQ"
           type questions and another for more difficult ones, by
           either creating a new one or changing the charter of
           this one.

       2. Attempt to make "questions@" a bit more tolerant and
           "friendly."

       3. Maintain status quo (with newbies@ in existence).

       4. Maintain status quo (without newbies@ in existence).

    I don't envy you this/these decision(s). I suppose I'd welcome
    one less mail filter to maintain, but I don't want to bruise too
    many egos or black the Project's eye any more than necessary,
    either.

    Thank you for all you have done and are doing for FreeBSD,
    and for the mailing lists, as well.

    Kevin Kinsey
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  • Next message: Jay O'Brien: "Re: Time to shut down this list?"

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