Hi, Excuse the top-posting. :)
When I first had to look at the FAQs and subscribe to this list to get some problems sorted, there were two FAQs. There may will still be. It appeared to me that the much shorter one was by far the more visible, and I only found the main WIKI-based FAQ when I went to look in the WIKI, which seemed to me an obvious thing to do but might not to people less familiar with open source projects and their methodologies. I think that two things would cut down on the "see the FAQ" type questions: 1. Get rid of the non-WIKI FAQ, merging any content that's not already in the WIKI, then point everyone there. The WIKI FAQ is an excellent resource, and I'm sure many people would find the answers to their questions if they knew to look there. 2. In the places where this list is mentioned, make it clear that this list, which is given as the main support address for Mailman, is a mailing list, that it's a moderated list so posts may take a day or two to be sent, and that we cannot reset your password for you or other types of things that specific hosting providers need to do. A comment about the various forks of Mailman which can't really be supported might also be a good idea. Just my 2c as a person who's come on board here in the past couple of months. Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <step...@xemacs.org> To: <fmo...@fmp.com> Cc: <mailman-users@python.org> Sent: Friday, 18 December, 2009 3:09 PM Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] Meta: bringing along the newcomers Lindsay Haisley writes: > Stephen, with all due respect for the work you put into your post, I > think it goes a bit overboard in the other direction. If I can pose a > question in 6 or 7 lines of text, do I really need to read a couple of > hundred lines of instruction? It's under 100 lines, of which almost half were cut-and-pasted from the existing FAQ 1.22. > - or dig through a FAQ and write a critique of it - just to get a > simple answer? Yup, that's exactly the stuff I cut and pasted. Anyway, you're entirely missing the point. I don't expect anybody to read FAQ 1.22 in advance of comitting a faux pas; this particular FAQ is mostly for pointing to *afterward*. > I recently posted a question to this list in about 7 lines > inquiring as to what file is the source document in a Mailman > Pipermail archive. I asked on the list precisely _because_ I > didn't want to spend the time searching through FAQs and other > documentation for a simple answer to a simple question. Er, that's precisely what FAQs and documentation in general are for, so I suggest you go read the current version of FAQ 1.22, then. It was written for people like you.<wink> More seriously, you've been around long enough (and have presumably actually perused the FAQ once or twice) to have a sense of what's *not* in there. You're obviously not the audience for FAQ 1.22, and the question you describe is not one of the ones that Mark should make a New Year's resolution to stop answering. ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/geoff%40quitelikely.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4698 (20091218) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4698 (20091218) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org
