Hi,
First, as I've stated below, I quite agree with Ross. Too many lists is not 
good, it's actually recipe for loneliness. It works against—very much 
against—precisely supra projects like Apache are meant to foster: 
cross-communication, discovery, serendipity.

Recall: Our policy at OOo was exactly the one that Raphael articulates. Less is 
better than more. I used to have to approve every new list proposed, and Stefan 
and I did this because we both felt—he more than I, at first, until I realized 
how right he was—that having fewer is better than more.

Comments inline…
 
On 2011-12-14, at 23:33 , Raphael Bircher wrote:

> Am 15.12.11 00:26, schrieb Ross Gardler:
>> I'm really concerned about the tendency of the AOO project to keep
>> proposing and seriously considering new lists (well that is probably
>> over stating it, but I am genuinely concerned).
>> 
>> Each time you create a list you separate the community from itself. It
>> should not happen until there is a proven need for it. Splitting the
>> community in this way leads to questions like "which list should this
>> be on" and subsequently "which list should I search to find the answer
>> to this".
> 

snip

> Sure the ASF has a load of experionce an building developer Communities. But 
> I think the OOo project has much more experience in local community building, 
> Translation and Localization, and Documentation. Please give us our space we 
> need to grow up here.

Raphael: As I mentioned, in fact, OOo's policy was exactly Apache's. If a new 
list is really demanded, and I can think of a couple of instances where it 
might be, then it ought to be created. But that comes *after the fact*. We went 
through this on OOo. The complaint was that moving archives was a  pain. But 
one does not have to move archives; and it's much less of a pain now than it 
used to be. (OOo and ASF use the same email application, btw.)

I would thus urge that we be as parsimonious as possible, when it comes to 
lists, and that, indeed, we do follow OOo's 11 year experience and realize that 
it's much better to have a few intense lists with some noise but a lot of great 
signal than to have many lists with little noise and even less signal worth the 
list.

best
Louis

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