Are there any plans to shift over the mailing lists over to a newsserver? -- Andreas Håkansson Student of Software Engineering andreas (at) selfinflicted.org
>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=129 > >[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.
