Brian C. White wrote: >People love to complain about there being too much information, but they >overlook the fact that the reason they can get information and fast >responses is because there is so much going on there. If you split >the list, many people will not subscribe to some of them and thus will >not be available to answer questions. The result is a need to crosspost >to all lists in order to get a decent response.
On the other hand, a little sorting saves a lot of time - time that can be used to actively contribute. I voiced my support for Bruce's idea, but also said that we could compromise by having at least a separate debian-install list. There are several issues: i. We are probably losing potential Debian users due to the size and significant inaccessible technical content of debian-user. 60-70 messages a day is a lot to cope with, especially when you have other interests. When much of it is Double Dutch, you tend to feel intimidated. * we lose fewer fans ii. Decreasing the amount of irrelevant or uninteresting traffic leaves more time to spend usefully contributing. * we have more useful time iii.Some people get a real kick out of helping a newbie into the fray. Some do some of the time. Others don't. If someone /wants/ to help, they'll subscribe. If they don't have time today, well they can just junk all the traffic in that list for today. Doing this manually is a bind. I agree that we'll lose some help because people who would have been able to assist with a problem didn't subscribe to the debian-install list, but I also think that there'll still be sufficient altruism and expertise available. The trade-offs are worth it. * we save effort >I, for example, probably will not subscribe to the install and non-tech >groups I imagine that, in a similar vein, you also don't spend much time read non-technical and installation-specific posts. More's the better for you if the traffic isn't there in the first place. >(maybe not even "technical" since I don't understand what each >is for) and thus will not see questions regarding my packages. >My personal opinion is that splitting the lists will add much confusion >and help little. I really don't see much difficulty is interpreting Bruce's categories. Do you think the titles are confusing? Suppose we just had debian-user and debian-install. Would this be okay? After reading your posts, I'm coming around to the view that two groups - debian-user and debian-install - would be best. There is perhaps insufficient non-technical discussion to warrant a separate list. Casper Boden-Cummins. -- Please do not cc: me when replying to the list