Actually, this is worth going back to, because your initial email said that the group was "stagnant" and has plateaued with the number of new users and questions. Except your reason for bringing it up is that the traffic has gotten too much for you to read every message. So clearly the level of traffic isn't stagnant. Unless what you're saying is that about 6 months ago the traffic reached a critical level where you couldn't deal with the traffic but then it stopped growing.
So I guess I'm saying I question the claim that this list is "stagnant". Almost 10,000 members and an average of 100 messages a day. Are you saying that these stats have been the same for the past 6 months? And even if that is true (although I'd like to see numbers before I accept that) then I don't even necessarily think that this indicates that there's a problem. There's a simple fact that a ton of questions have already been accurately answered by this list. I would hope that the archived knowledge of the list serves to answer more and more questions that newcomers have, meaning they don't need to post the questions over and over. What is the real problem? I haven't heard anyone say that the traffic on this single list has stopped them from asking any questions (although I'm open to the possibility that this is true, and just hasn't been voiced). And largely I think that the number of people answering questions has remained high and the response times are still good. I have heard that the traffic level has stopped people from reading the questions that others ask (I certainly skim and sometimes skip entire days). I'd argue that a combination of self-moderated subject tagging, as well as more aggressive pointing repeat questions to cached answered (and then tagging the entire thread as a repeat) will largely solve this problem. So do you have numbers that indicate the stagnation you are worried about? Doug On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Anatole Tartakovsky < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Matt, > Let us review the goal - in the original post I explained that single > group causes stagnation. If you agree with the numbers and reasoning behind > it, let us look at the proposition in that light. IMHO, the mentioned > measures while staying within the same single group would probably extend > the number of users by 20-30% byhoping to reduce number of posted messages > by the same percentage - but it is hardly the goal we are trying to achieve > here. > > Realistically Adobe should be looking for place public pace to exchange > ideas and networking as well as getting trivial help. The product and > community are just too big for one group. Let us split it up and let each > subgroup speak their own language. I would gladly moderate standalone > enterprise/j2ee/best practices track. But looking few times a day @ the > whole stream to fish out what might be related to the topic and having some > messages falling through the cracks might be not the recommended "best > practices" solution. > > Sincerely, > Anatole > > > > > On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Matt Chotin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hey folks, let's calm down a little here, K? >> >> Alright, based on what I've been seeing people say, here's my suggestion. >> >> 1) Let's get an FAQ going that can be edited by moderators or members of >> the community. This will be about common problems that folks run into. One >> suggestion of course from me would be that we use the Cookbook for "how-to" >> type questions. But for things that don't seem like they're cookbook >> appropriate, we can put them in the FAQ. I like the idea of doing it in >> Buzzword, though Buzzword docs won't come up in Google. Long-term I think >> the right place might be in whatever we set up in the Adobe Developer >> Center. But for now how about we just allocate a page off of the opensource >> wiki. We can pick some moderators who can edit the page and I will get them >> added so they can take care of it. We can also add the link to the FAQ to >> the bottom of every email. >> >> 2) Some folks suggested that you either mark in the body or in the subject >> something that indicates what you're talking about. Seems reasonable. We >> could use some of the topics that were being suggested. [UX], [Enterprise], >> [Data Services] [Announce], etc. We don't need to limit this, but by >> following a convention of placing the general area of discussion, folks will >> know if they're going to be capable of getting involved in the thread. The >> more people follow this convention, the more efficient it will become. >> >> 3) We can get aggressive on the moderation. Rather than just scanning for >> spam, moderators can actually look at the posts by new users and decide if >> they meet the general criteria for asking a question. If they don't, the >> moderator can reject the post and point the user to the forum FAQ which has >> posting guidelines. >> >> 4) We can update the flexcoders FAQ (which is actually linked at the >> bottom of every single post) to include the updated posting guidelines and >> remove the common questions section so that the forum FAQ is only about >> forum etiquette and the coding FAQ is about the actual problems. >> >> If this sounds OK then what we need are the two kinds of moderators: >> >> 1. moderators for the forum itself who are willing to really look at all >> posts that are in moderation and analyze whether they should be passed >> through. If it is a poorly formed question, the post should be rejected with >> a pointer to the forum FAQ. >> 2. moderators for the FAQ who can pay attention to common questions and >> update the FAQ as appropriate. >> >> If we're all on board, send those moderators to me and we can get things >> set up. And folks can start following the tagging convention instantly in >> the meantime. >> >> Matt >> > > >
