Folks,
Traffic on the Haskell mailing list has jumped dramatically of late.
In many ways that's a good thing: I take it a symptomatic that Haskell is
getting used for more things by more people.
But it has a bad side: if traffic is too heavy, large numbers of people will
unsubscribe (indeed, many have). So in the end, heavy traffic is self
defeating: either people drop off, or they move to a new list.
So we can decide to do one of two things:
1. Try to keep the Haskell mailing list as a low-traffic list, to which
many, many people subscribe. Under this model, one might *start*
a discussion on the Haskell list; but after a few exchanges, move the
discussion to comp.lang.functional, or perhaps a high-traffic Haskell
list (haskell-discuss?). Rather like coastguard radio, where one starts
on Channel 16, but moves to another channel to converse.
2. Accept (even rejoice) that the Haskell mailing list is becomming a
high traffic list, and accept that people will drop off. I, for one, will
probably drop off soon. Maybe another low-traffic list will start.
I'm not trying to force a particular outcome here. Personally I would
prefer (1), but if it is to be (2) that is fine by me. What I'd like to
avoid
is choosing (2) by accident, which is what seems to be happening.
Let's make a conscious choice.
I stress that I am *not* implying that the recent discussions have been
frivolous or
uninteresting. Quite the reverse. But *no matter how interesting* there
is a large constitutency that we will lose if the traffic is too high.
Simon
PS: a possible (3) is to make the list moderated. But in my view that
puts an undue burden on the moderator. No one likes to say "your
message is not important enough to broadcast". It's a non-solution.
