On Tuesday 30 November 2004 09:52, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Just opening a dialogue :-) not sending barbs at anyone - and I agree no > wrong doing... just seems that the guidelines of the mailing list need to > be broadened to include what to do with what is awaiting the moderator
It seems to me that we as a group are spending too much time talking about guidelines than other pertinent issues. <grins> While I agree that some guidelines are necessary, I feel that too much have a detrimental effect. We are starting to see that effect now. - Mr Pletch has just indicated that he is removing himself from the list, because (in part) it is no longer a helpful or enjoyable place. (Sorry to see you go Michael, all the best to you.) - I have just counted 56 messages received from the list since 12:00 am Monday morning (as of 10:49am today). Of these 55 messages, Only 11 (approx) are specific to Linux/open source. Of those 11, 3 are about the CLUG website, and 4 are about Suse 9.2 CDs, leaving only 4 that are of a technical nature. The remaining 44 messages are requests for help with hardware selection, software configuration (I didn't count the MetaDot emails in those 11, but maybe I should have? even so, that's only 3 more), and comments about the list and/or messages about items of interest (i.e. MS sues Linux). I have to agree that the nature of the list has changed. When I first joined (2 or 3 years ago now), I thought of the list as a great resource to get the technical help I needed learn to get Linux and other open source software running the way I needed. Now, the list is more of a social gathering where like minded folks (that would be all of us) keep in touch, and talk about the topic of the day. We still see some requests for help, but this does not constitute the bulk of the messages anymore. I feel that the list needs to be self moderating, and very "hands-off" by the executive. I only mean this from a point of view of issuing the "executive opinion" on some topics. If these topics and the resulting opinions are necessary, lets create a different list. I've participated in a number of other mailing lists, and the successful ones were the ones where the list administrator would only act in an "official" manner in exceptional cases (i.e. abuse of the system or other list members). These lists are successful and popular because they are focused, and do not dictate guidelines as to how the list should be used - they leave it to the list members to moderate themselves. The clug-talk list used to be focused on technical matters. This is not the case anymore. It's now focused on community matters, with a spattering of technical messages (IMO). The list should either be about being a technical resource for all of us, OR a community forum - but NOT both. We can (and should) create a new list to cover the other topic. I think the need for guidelines that keeps coming up lately is a result of this lack of focus. Again, some are needed (i.e. thread hijacking, etc.), but creating guidelines on what is a suitable message goes too far (IMO). Obviously, spam is spam and has no place on the list. But a judgement call on if a non-spam message is suitable for the list? or guidelines to help make that judgement? I say let the list decide that in way of whether or not we read and/respond to it. I'd also go as far to say that if we (me included) post to the list from an address not signed up on the list, then a notification message should be sent to the author - and leave it up to them to rectify the problem (i.e sign up that address, or send the message from another address already on the list). Any message posted from a non-member address should be sent the notification and then simply ignored and directed to /dev/null (protects us from spam). Of course, this is all just my opinion, and really, I'm not trying to offend anyone. I wanted to point out an issue I've seen developing, and maybe get some feedback from the list members (even if it's just to tell me to shut up and there is no problem..<grins>). (um, respectfully, can I ask the executive to NOT comment on this email in an executive capacity, until there is a consensus on it? <grins>) May I humbly propose a new mailing list called clug-community. Then all emails such as this one could be (politely) referred to that list, and keep clug-talk the technical resource that most of us signed up for. I think that initially most of our traffic would end up on the community list, but in a short while, the technical talk will far exceed the community talk (again), if we can keep the two mostly separate. My thoughts... Shawn (ps. Hopefully I used enough emoticons to express that I mean this in a light hearted manner) _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
