Very well addressed. I look forward to the focus the new lists should bring!
Reggie > -----Original Message----- > From: The DOTNET list will be retired 7/1/02 > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Mike Woodring > Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 2:48 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [DOTNET] Administrative Announcement - Reasoning > > Hi Everyone, > > Based on the replies we've received in regards to our decision to > partition > the DOTNET list (some of which have been sent privately), I thought I'd > post > a little information on the history & motiviations of the decision, as > well > as a few replies to specific comments people have made (in FAQ format)... > > * Who was involved in the decision? > > Everyone at DM participated in the debate about what to do based on > feedback > we received from our own DM instructor, students, Microsoft dev leads & > PMs, > current list subscribers, and former list subscribers whose contributions > were valued. This discussion was a long, intense debate that spanned at > least 3 months. After weighing all of the feedback, and realizing that no > one decision is perfect, we arrived at this decision; which we felt was > (all > things considered) the best option. > > * Why was the list split? > > The key issue is degradation due to increased *on-topic* traffic, not > off-topic traffic. Certainly, this list (like any other) suffers from > occassional off-topic posts, which I'll address separately below. > > - Degradation due to increased on-topic posts. > > This is the form of the degradation that worried us the most - primarily > because it has resulted in the list losing subscribers that previously > contributed to the list in a valuable fashion, but that have since left > the > list due to the traffic volume. These people include DM instructors, > Microsoft devs & PMs, and numerous other individuals that previously > contributed in a valuable manner; but that left the list due to increased > traffic. > > Brad hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that the quality of the > list is a function of the participants, and not the list host. > Unfortunately, we've seen valuable contributors leave the list due to the > increased traffic. That indicator carried a lot of weight in the decision > making process. > > As just one example, one of the things that made this list so valuable in > the early days was the contribution of members of the various .NET > development teams. This list was effectively a direct pipeline into those > teams. Participants could pose questions or bug notes and get replies > directly from the dev in charge of that area. But as traffic has soard, > MSFT involvement has diminished. Please note that Microsoft's involvement > isn't the only involvement we're interested in - it's just a typical > example > of something we've seen and heard about from many people we come into > contact with at conferences, in classes, and through email. > > By partitioning the list into more focused communities, we hope to > encourage > those wayward participants to rejoin and further increase the value of the > list to the entire subscriber base. For their part, Microsoft has > committed > to rejoining our new communities as active contributors under the new > split. > We hope that everyone else that has left the list will also be encouraged > to > resubscribe for the benefit of all of us. > > - Degradation due to increased off-topic posts. > > Any list will suffer some amount of off-topic posts. Options for dealing > with this include do-nothing, hard moderation, or what I call community > policing; where list participants ask people to take off-topic discussions > somewhere else. Hard moderation requires a significant amount of effort, > as > has been pointed out. It's simply not feasible to dedicate one or more > individuals with reading every single post before approving it for pass- > thru > to the list. By partitioning this list into more focused communities, > we're > hoping to find a middle ground by allowing us to task designated DM > individuals with community policing of a specific list so that a minimum > level of monitoring & oversight is ensured. > > * What kinds of options were considered? > > We considered doing nothing, switching this list to a moderated forum, > splitting the list, and switching to an NNTP solution. As for splitting > the > list, we debated quite extensively what the 'right' amount of lists would > be. We felt one list was deemed unsustainable moving forward, but neither > did we want to create 16 new lists like > DOTNET-WINFORMS, -WEBSERVICES, -WEBAPPS, -XML, -DATA, -SECURITY, - > REMOTING, > etc, etc, etc. So when we decided on splitting the list, we spent a fair > amount of time wrangling over the right initial approach. > > * The list shouldn't be repartitioned because it wasn't originally. > > Actually, the original charter post to this list (by Don Box) indicated > that > we would likely split the list as traffic dicated. Refer to [1] for the > actual post. > > * Splitting the list will cause increased traffic due to cross-posts. > Also > phrased as "how will people know which list to post to"? > > First, DM list monitors will discourage cross-posting to more than one > list. > The entire community is encouraged to discourage cross-posting, but we'll > strive to make sure that there's always someone at DM responsible for > monitoring each list. > > Second, we believe there are basically two types of subscribers: those > that > will only subscribe to one list representing their area of interest (say, > WinForms apps); and those that want to subscribe to each of the 3 lists > and > that will think about which list to post to before doing so. > > For the subscriber that only subscribes to -WINFORMS or -WEB, they'll just > post their question to that forum. It doesn't matter if they have a > remoting, security, serialization, or data access question. In many > cases, > their problem is influenced in part by the environment they're developing > for, so the > answers differ accordingly. In this case, the community benefits from the > discussion. > > For the subscriber that subscribes to all 3 lists (including -CLR), the > choice should also be fairly straight forward. If you have an obvious web > page or web service question, post to -WEB. If you have an obvious > WinForms > question - post to -WINFORMS. If you have a question that you recognize > is > generic and applies to all areas of development (CAS, data access, etc), > or > where it's not so obvious about where the post should go, the -CLR list > was > specifically chartered for such conversations. (Please continue reading > the > next note about redundant discussion before replying to this item :-). > > * Splitting the list will cause increased traffic due to redundant > discussions. > > Although this might be true to some extent, we believe this is a moot > argument... > > First of all, it will not be considered redundant for people that only > subscribe to one list (which we believe will be a larger fraction of the > subscriber base compared to people that will subscribe to all 3 lists). > > Second, those subscribers that do participate in all 3 lists, and that > spot > a post that's been asked & answered elsewhere, are free to reply > indicating > that the question has been covered elsewhere, and to please check the > archives. This is no different that what happens today on the unified > DOTNET list when someone posts a question that's been discussed at length > in > the archives. "Check the archives" community policing will always be > necessary on an unmoderated list. Telling someone to check the archives > for > this list or another list is the same amount of work for the individual > involved. And because the charter for each of the new lists specifically > calls out "check the archives before posting" as part of the posting > guidelines [2], DM's list monitors will more actively enforce this policy. > > Finally, we'll be putting a unified multi-archive search engine in place > in > the very near future to make it as easy as possible to locate the answers > to > questions that have been previously discussed - no matter which list the > discussion took place in (including the archives for this list, which will > remain forever). > > We hope that everyone will recognize that a fair amount of discussion took > place on this issue, that the decision was not made in a vaccuum, and that > it was not an easy decision to make by any means. However, given all of > pros & cons of each approach, we felt this decision was the best one in > order to sustain the continued participation of our current subscriber > base, > recapture the participation of our lost subscribers, and help manage the > future growth of each list -- all of which should increase the value to > our > collective community. > > -Mike > http://staff.develop.com/woodring > http://www.develop.com/devresources > > [1] > http://discuss.develop.com/archives/wa.exe?A2=ind0007&L=dotnet&F=&S=&P=1 29 > > [2] For example, see > http://discuss.develop.com/archives/wa.exe?A2=ind0205e&L=dotnetweb&F=&S= &P > =5 > 2 > > You can read messages from the DOTNET archive, unsubscribe from DOTNET, or > subscribe to other DevelopMentor lists at http://discuss.develop.com. You can read messages from the DOTNET archive, unsubscribe from DOTNET, or subscribe to other DevelopMentor lists at http://discuss.develop.com.
