Brian C. White wrote:
>People love to complain about there being too much information, but they
>overlook the fact that the reason they can get information and fast
>responses is because there is so much going on there. If you split
>the list, many people will not subscribe to some of them and thus will
>not be available to answer questions. The result is a need to crosspost
>to all lists in order to get a decent response.
On the other hand, a little sorting saves a lot of time - time that can
be used to actively contribute. I voiced my support for Bruce's idea,
but also said that we could compromise by having at least a separate
debian-install list. There are several issues:
i. We are probably losing potential Debian users due to the size and
significant inaccessible technical content of debian-user. 60-70
messages
a day is a lot to cope with, especially when you have other
interests.
When much of it is Double Dutch, you tend to feel intimidated.
* we lose fewer fans
ii. Decreasing the amount of irrelevant or uninteresting traffic leaves
more
time to spend usefully contributing.
* we have more useful time
iii.Some people get a real kick out of helping a newbie into the fray.
Some
do some of the time. Others don't. If someone /wants/ to help,
they'll
subscribe. If they don't have time today, well they can just junk
all the
traffic in that list for today. Doing this manually is a bind.
I agree that we'll lose some help because people who would have been
able
to assist with a problem didn't subscribe to the debian-install
list, but
I also think that there'll still be sufficient altruism and
expertise
available. The trade-offs are worth it.
* we save effort
>I, for example, probably will not subscribe to the install and non-tech
>groups
I imagine that, in a similar vein, you also don't spend much time read
non-technical and installation-specific posts. More's the better for you
if the traffic isn't there in the first place.
>(maybe not even "technical" since I don't understand what each
>is for) and thus will not see questions regarding my packages.
>My personal opinion is that splitting the lists will add much confusion
>and help little.
I really don't see much difficulty is interpreting Bruce's categories.
Do you think the titles are confusing? Suppose we just had debian-user
and debian-install. Would this be okay?
After reading your posts, I'm coming around to the view that two groups
- debian-user and debian-install - would be best. There is perhaps
insufficient non-technical discussion to warrant a separate list.
Casper Boden-Cummins.
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