On Nov 28, 2007, at 10:56 AM, Nathan Nobbe wrote:
On Nov 28, 2007 10:48 AM, Daniel Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Good morning (/afternoon/evening) all;
This is more or less an RFC-type email, hence the subject line. I
would like to see your comments on this case, and maybe we can forge
some sort of agreement or unofficial treaty or something.
Oftentimes we see a user post a question to the list, with ongoing
discussion back-and-forth on a troublesome issue, and when a solution
is found, the subject line has an added [SOLVED] tag on it. While
this makes sense in a forum style arena, where posts are binded
statically in the same group, it defeats the purpose of mailing list
archives such as Nabble and GMANE. A recent email from this morning
illustrates the problem, as displayed presently at this page:
http://www.nabble.com/PHP---General-f140.html
The email with the subject "The PHP License" received commentary
from both Jochem Maas and myself, and the OP (AmirBehzad Eslami)
replied to the message, appending the [SOLVED] tag to the subject.
This is not a serious issue in this particular matter, as it was a
simple thank-you message out of politeness (which is greatly
appreciated, Amir!). However, using just a single example should
help
to emphasize my point exponentially when you consider the frequency
of
occurrences we see following the [SOLVED]-appended route.
On 12 September, 2007, Zbigniew Szalbot posted a message to the
list about a segmentation fault in PHP 5.2.3. Over the next 24
hours-plus, exactly sixty comments passed back-and-forth on the
thread. When a solution was found, it was posted in a separate email
with the [SOLVED] tag added to the subject line, and two additional
comments added to that (entirely new) thread.
Why is this such a critical issue? Because if we hope not to have
to answer the same questions over and over again, instructing people
to properly STFW, then we should at least be contributing to proper
archival and documentation of problems we've successfully solved.
Using the aforementioned example, we check Google for the same
problem:
http://www.google.com/search?q=php+5.2.3+segmentation+fault+core+dumped
Hooray! Someone else has had the exact same list of problems, and
now I can simply go through all of the responses and it should
(fingers crossed!) correct my issues as well.
Message 58.... 59.... getting close!.... sixty-one.... WHAT?!? No
solution? Back to Google.... only to find that each result is
exactly
the same discussion, never including the final three emails.
So the summary of my proposal is as follows:
1.) An issue has been identified with the list whereby
improper archival will likely lead to repeat questions and
unnecessary
traffic to the list.
2.) I propose that we discontinue the act of subject
modification to indicate a change in status of the issue (SOLVED,
ALSO, ANOTHER PROBLEM, etc.) unless a completely different problem is
reached or question is asked. This will allow a step-by-step
document
(of sorts) to be created and made "searchable" on the web.
i agree; [SOLVED] on a separate email is nonsense; it makes perfect
sense
in the
context of a forum, but not on a mailing list. this issue has been
annoying
me for sometime.
however the only problem with your proposal is the following:
new users will enter the list sporadically as they already do.
anybody who
enters the list
after this agreement is made (assuming it is universally accepted)
will not
be privy to the
agreement. also, anybody who hasnt bothered to keep up with the
list today
will probly
gloss over it and also ignore (inadvertently) the agreement.
its a good idea, but i doubt well ever see it come to fruition.
Wouldn't it be possible to add it to the Welcome message if we can get
the group to agree on it? :) Someone somewhere should have the admin
password for changing the welcome message.
--
Jason Pruim
Raoset Inc.
Technology Manager
MQC Specialist
3251 132nd ave
Holland, MI, 49424
www.raoset.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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