Please allow me to thank everybody for their feedback. So far, including the three private messages I have received, there have been the following responses on creating a new mailing list for Haskell:
Haskell-Beginner (or Haskell-Edu for beginners): 8 votes Haskell-Edu (for teaching): 2 votes No new mailing lists: 1 vote Undecided: 1 vote So, 8/12 of the responses have been in favor of creating some kind of new mailing list for education, with 8/10 of those being in favor of creating a new list for beginners, and 2/10 of those being in favor of creating a new list for teachers. Other than that, 1/12 of the votes has been in favor of not creating a new list unless "the perceived problem is the high-brow stuff scaring newbies off," and 1/12 of the votes has been undecided. It seems that the consensus is in favor of creating some kind of new list for beginners, with a less urgent possibility of creating another new list for teachers. I would be happy to spend the time to administer the new mailing list if that is acceptable. The only issue is the name of the new list, though: it would seem a better idea to keep the name mnemonic and short, with the suffix following "Haskell-" within three or four characters. Typing "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" seems a bit of a hassle; "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" seems much better. The only possible problem is that it would then make later creating a second list just for teachers more difficult, but this seems rather unlikely at the moment. Also, I doubt that a teachers-only list would be able to gather enough critical mass to stay alive, because then only teachers would participate. I don't see why teachers wouldn't be able to participate together with students in consulting each other as to what topics to offer in beginner courses. Therefore, I would suggest the following new mailing list. To save your time, may I suggest the following entries for the fields at "Create a haskell.org Mailing List" (http://haskell.org/mailman/create): Name of List: Haskell-Edu Initial list owner address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Auto-generate initial list password?: Yes Should new members be quarantined before they are allowed to post unmoderated to this list? No Initial list of supported languages. English (If possible, Japanese and French also, since I know several members of a local Haskell Category Theory user group in Tokyo who could also participate in such a list, and know the name of at least one professor in France who occasionally contributes to Haskell-related topics. Other relevant languages could also be welcome.) Send "list created" email to list owner? Yes In addition, for the "List" and "Description" columns at "haskell.org mailing lists - Admin Links", the following entries might be applicable: List: Haskell-Edu Description: Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell What do you think, Simon? -- Benjamin L. Russell (http://haskell.org/mailman/admin) On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:38:34 -0400, Paul Hudak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Simon Marlow wrote: >> My main concern here is that the remit for the new list is not clear >> enough. I can see a potential need for two lists: >> >> * a list for discussion related to teaching Haskell; >> >> * a list devoted to those learning Haskell, with a less research- >> oriented feel than haskell-cafe. >> >> it's not obvious to me that both of those needs should be served by a >> single list. I believe it's important that the mailing lists served >> by haskell.org should have clear non-overlapping topics. >> >> So I suggest that we add haskell-edu for the purposes of discussing >> the use and teaching of Haskell in education. For the second point >> above, I'd be inclined not to add a new list, but I don't feel that >> strongly - if there's a concensus in favour of adding >> haskell-beginners (for example), that would be fine. >> >> Cheers, >> Simon >Using Simon's names, I think that there is a greater need for >haskell-beginners than for haskell-edu. Despite the friendly people on >haskell-cafe, it is very intimidating, and very busy (sadly, I've mostly >stopped reading it for the latter reason). I don't think that >haskell-cafe serves well at all as a forum for beginners, whereas it >might serve just fine as a forum for instructors. > >In any case, these are two distinct purposes, and I agree with Simon >that it's probably unwise to have a single mailing list for both. I >would vote for starting a haskell-beginners list and see how it goes. I >think that a decent number of experienced people will chip in to answer >questions (they don't have to be experts -- just good at explaining >things), and in my experience beginners like to help fellow beginners -- >i.e. it will sustain itself. > >I would also be interested in a haskell-edu list, but as I said before I >don't think the demand for it is as great as that for haskell-beginners. > >By the way, the haskell-art mailing list is not very active, but it has >served a useful role. I wonder if it would help to have a description >of it (and any new lists that we create) to the descriptions at: > >http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists > > -Paul Hudak _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
