I have recently taken on shared admin responsibilities for an open source
software product's "user's list".
The list's owner (the major author of the open-source software in question)
has only recently agreed to put the list into "posting restricted to
sub$cribers only, all other posts are sent to moderators for approval", and
only made this change as a result of numerous complaints when the list
started receiving a lot of spam.
When reviewing the posts that were sent by non-sub$cribers (people who get
the list submission address from the software's website and IMHO don't read
enough of the website to see that they really should sub$cribe to the list
and then utilize their sub$cription to learn more about the software), I
find that many (perhaps even most) of these posts don't have any value *to
the list's present sub$cribers*. I tend to be a strong advocate for list
sub$cribers and feel that the list should be of more value to those who are
on it day in and day out and that letting non-sub$cribers post FAQs etc.
hurts those who *contribute* most to the list by being sub$cribers.
Since the moderated non-sub$criber post policy is new, I haven't yet
approached the list owner about considering a further change in
policy. Apparently another admin has a policy that as long as a post isn't
outright spam (is, in some way, about the software in question), it should
be approved and sent on to the list. So when I defer making a decision
regarding the posts that I have questions about, I see that they get
approved and sent on shortly afterwards.
So... several questions for this list:
A) How important is it that a "software user's list" accept and distribute
all posts (including posts from non-sub$cribers) that are remotely
"on-topic" and about the software in question?
B) Is it reasonable to expect/require the software's users sub$cribe to
the list and to read a FAQ before accepting their posts? (To no longer
approve non-member posts and strictly limit posting to sub$cribers, and to
include the FAQ (or a pointer to a URL that contains the FAQ and a strongly
worded suggestion that they read it before postin) in the welcome message.)
C) Is it reasonable to expect the admins to answer *some* of the
non-member posts outright, rather than forwarding the post to the list (to
be distributed to several hundred sub$cribers, and then not answered, and
then be asked again)? I believe a simple solution is for the admin to
reject the post with an reply to the sender on why it's inappropriate, or
supplying the FAQ url where the answer lies, or just answering the question
("no, you can't do that") when this can be done with a minimum of effort.
I'd like to hear what other list managers think about this before I
approach the list owner on the matter. If people think I'm nuts, I may
stay silent or just request that I be removed from the shared admin
duties. If people think I have a valid point on some of these items, but
not on others, I'll take that into consideration when I make my comments to
the owner, etc.
Thanks!
jc
p.s. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that I had to munge sub$criber (a
total of 15 times) to get this post sent on to a list where the main topic
of discussion is mailing list management and thus sub$criber is a common
word? I really think this list doesn't need a bozo filter to sideline
posts to "unsub$cribe me" nearly as much as it needs to process valid
messages about mailing list management issues. I initially sent this post
3 weeks ago, (twice), and the list owner apparently never bothered to look
at the post that was sent on to the owner instead of to the list. IMHO, if
you aren't going to approve on-topic posts that your software yanks because
it *might* be an administrative request, you shouldn't be yanking them in
the first place (or perhaps you need better software that can tell the
difference between a listserver request and a discussion post).
jc
