On Saturday 06 March 2004 14:57, Galen wrote: > From my earlier post, I've had a number of people email me, on and off > list, that there isn't much in the way of an "advanced" php mailing > list. It also sounds like at least a few people are quite interested in > the possibility.
The only way you can run more than one list on a similar topic is if: i) You have a clear distinction on what exactly should be discussed on which particular list ii) List members apply rigorous self-policing to (a) refuse to answer off-topic posts (b) ask posters of said posts to re-post on the appropriate list Otherwise one of two things will probably happen: 1) The people who are experienced and are most able to question the more "advanced" questions will be sick and tired of answering the FAQs and "newbie" questions and may only subscribe to the "advanced" list. This means the "newbie" list will be in the hands of newbies and thus newbies will be asking and answering "newbie" questions. 2) The more likely case would be that because it is pretty difficult to draw the line between "newbie" questions and "advanced" questions there will be even more cross-posting. Witness the amount of DB-related, solely Windows-related, and installation-related questions that appear on this list. That is despite the fact that those issues are covered by their own lists. > Who runs the php official mailing lists? Can we ask them to start a > php-advanced list? Give it a description like "Ready to take you coding > to the next level? Got questions about high-level PHP code? This is the > list for you." Redirect people asking questions like "What is SQL" and > "What's wrong with this code" or "How do I <insert simple task>" (which > a search in the manual would have found the function to do this) to the > php-general list. That would leave our group free to discuss meaty > things and really get somewhere. The crux of the matter is who decides what are "meaty", "advanced" things? IMO 99% of so called newbie questions are answered in the manual, user comments in the manual, FAQs, list archives, and Google. So to run a "newbie" list one would only have to auto-post the above list of resources to the list every few minutes, hopefully the newbies will get the idea very quickly and learn to solve the simple problems on their own. Then they can subscribe to the "advanced" list for discussions on problems not answered in the above list of resources. > Anybody else interested in this type of list? It will only work if there is: (a) a clear definition of "advanced" topics -- pretty difficult to define (b) some kind of moderation So if you can solve those two problems then yeah, maybe. -- Jason Wong -> Gremlins Associates -> www.gremlins.biz Open Source Software Systems Integrators * Web Design & Hosting * Internet & Intranet Applications Development * ------------------------------------------ Search the list archives before you post http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-general ------------------------------------------ /* Plus ,ca change, plus c'est la m^eme chose. [The more things change, the more they remain the same.] -- Alphonse Karr, "Les Gu^epes" */ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
