From the perspective of someone who in his opinion is only just edging into the "advanced" category in Flex, I've been a lurker for many years but only just now gradually changing to a more active status on the list.
To me, the volume of emails to the list was intimidating, until I decided to manage my lists a little better through Thunderbird filtering, and be disciplined about the time I take every day to review the list, so it doesn't impact my productivity, much like I do every day with the MXNA. So I'm not convinced that splitting up the list simply to make things more efficient and the volume less intimidating for some people outweighs the potential risks. I agree with Tim Hoff (16/06/2008 10:53 PM) -- my concern is less for new users and lurkers than it is for frequent posters who are the lifeblood of this community, having to divide their precious attention from one list to however-many, which would dilute the quality of all lists, and could ultimately lead to abandonment by regular users on all lists. A community such as this must be a delicate balance between questions and answers, new users and advanced users, lurkers and frequent contributors. My concern is that for many, the formula works, our numbers are steady, and there is still a huge number of A-list participation. In attempting to improve the list, we could be killing it -- so we need to be very sure of our data before proceeding IMO. A FAQ would be very welcome, as would Doug's recommendation for most commonly asked threads, as would tags, regardless of what the decision is on the split. But I would request that FAQ links and tag keywords be indicated in the signature of each email from the list, so that the many users who don't use the yahoo list's web interface can easily find the info and know what tags to use without having to switch between their mail client and a browser, otherwise having a FAQ and anything else apart from the emails is pointless. In fact, just having a FAQ and encouraging the use of tags could help many with list post management, and provide this list the "boost" it needs without taking drastic measures. This would be my request, and my recommendation. In addition, we could even include in the FAQ some "post management strategies," such as filtering, tagging and colour-coding to help users manage the flow. And I would suggest an automated email generated by an algorithm with some text like "You have not posted in ___ months..." or "You have now unsubscribed..." followed by "please help us make flexcoders a better community experience by telling us why you have _____" This would be a far less intrusive and intimidating follow up and data collection method than an email personally send from a moderator, especially one from Adobe. Some people might perceive such attention as singling them out, and using an autogenerated email would eliminate the manpower necessary to collect data on infrequent/unsubscribed accounts. If we do decide to split the list at all, I would keep the number small just to make sure. My recommendation would be to split things into just three lists: flexcoders flexnewbie flexenterprise Even though the definitions are a little fuzzy, I think flexnewbie could be defined as not the difficulty of the question but the experience the user perceives themselves to be at, so there may very well be advanced and newbie questions on both lists, and that's okay. Likewise there will probably be some crossover into the flexenterprise list. I think it's fair to say that questions involving a substantial amount of "Java/data services/large teams/enterprise workflows" would qualify, without requiring the definition of "enterprise" be defined with scientific precision to participate. Too narrow a definition is a recipe for failure, any new the list needs to be defined without being too exclusive IMO. Thanks for listening, -- _______________________________________________________________________ Joseph Balderson | http://joeflash.ca Flex & Flash Platform Developer | Abobe Certified Developer & Trainer Author, Professional Flex 3 (coming Winter 2008) Staff Writer, Community MX | http://communitymx.com/author.cfm?cid=4674 Tom Chiverton wrote: > On Tuesday 17 Jun 2008, Matt Chotin wrote: >> Hey folks, let's calm down a little here, K? > > Aye. > >> 1) Let's get an FAQ going that can be edited by moderators or members of >> the community. > > This would be a huge bonus, esp. given #3. > >> Center. But for now how about we just allocate a page off of the >> opensource wiki. We can pick some moderators who can edit the page and I >> will get them added so they can take care of it. > > Happy to be added, drop me a note if you are not aware of my adobe.com ID > (it's not @halliwells). > >> 2) Some folks suggested that you either mark in the body or in the subject >> something that indicates what you're talking about. Seems reasonable. > ... >> involved in the thread. The more people follow this convention, the more >> efficient it will become. > > I would say that trying to tag the subject line is probably a good idea to > try > and encourage - new users should pick it up if they stay, and it'll help > the 'old hands' too. > I wouldn't suggest rejecting posts that lack a tag or anything though, before > anyone suggests that, and I'd not want the FAQ to try and define a definitive > list either - just see what people use. > >> 3) We can get aggressive on the moderation. Rather than just scanning for >> spam, moderators can actually look at the posts by new users and decide if >> they meet the general criteria for asking a question. If they don't, the >> moderator can reject the post and point the user to the forum FAQ which has >> posting guidelines. > > If the group agrees that we want to try and reduce first-post on-topic but > pointless messages, *and the FAQ is updated* I'd have no qualms about > pressing that big 'reject' button and sending the user a nice link. > Maybe the group/Adobe could agree a boilerplate response. > >> 4) We can update the flexcoders FAQ (which is actually linked at the bottom >> of every single post) to include the updated posting guidelines and remove >> the common questions section so that the forum FAQ is only about forum >> etiquette and the coding FAQ is about the actual problems. > > This is good separation. > CookBook if it merits an article to itself, FAQ on xxxx.adobe.com if it's a > few lines of code or non-code, and FAQ on Yahoo for using the group itself. > >> If we're all on board, send those moderators to me and we can get things >> set up. And folks can start following the tagging convention instantly in >> the meantime. > > Again, assuming the group is OK with harsher(?) moderation, I'm happy to > start > doing it as soon as the editable FAQ is up. > In the past I've occasionally made a post on my blog in answer to a question, > and then pointed the thread there, and I've certainly seen others doing the > same thing - if the group was really keen to do better(?) first-post > moderation and didn't want to wait for the FAQ changes. > ------------------------------------ -- Flexcoders Mailing List FAQ: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/files/flexcodersFAQ.txt Search Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexcoders%40yahoogroups.comYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/join (Yahoo! 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