-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 on 5/25/05 2:38 AM, Michael Marsh wrote: |>On Tue, 2005-05-24 at 23:15 +0200, Michelle Konzack wrote: |>The question here is what's less acceptable? A bunch-o-spam or not |>having non-list subscribers be able to ask questions. I think that |>the level of spam is annoying, but less annoying than having to have |>people subscribe to the list. So, I agree with you, but I do not |>feel as vehemently as you apparently do. | Requiring people to subscribe in order to post is worse than | annoying. If a mailing list requires subscription to post, and I'm | not generally interested in the list traffic, I won't post, because | the list traffic is unacceptable. In the case of one software | package I (...) | Your main avenue for communication with your user base *must* be | open, or there's little point in making your software open. It can | be a mailing list, a newsgroup, a comment address, or a web form, | but if users have to join a "club" to contact you, you've done | something wrong.
[sorry for replying a little bit late. i can't read this list every day but think that something of more general interest has started to surface in this thread.] i perfectly agree on the notion, that open/free software should be as open and welcoming to newbies as possible (community-wise that is). this requires some way of interacting with the supporters which is as simple and barrier-free as possible. but i strongly disagree on the idea, that said simple and barrier-free way necessarily consists of mailing lists like this one. quite in contrary. let me explain: 1) spam on a mailing list according to my experience strongly harms ~ its perceived quality (with trolls and noise being the other main ~ menaces). especially newbies might be more affected by this: if ~ they are really as uninformed as michelle thinks they are, they ~ don't know anything about spam, virii and how to deal with those. ~ which in the end could prove to be vastly counter-productive: ~ keeping the list as open as possible to not scare away newbies ~ might drive them away more profundly one step later because of the ~ spam on that list spilling into their mailboxes. further, the ~ latter might also lead said people to draw conclusions like ~ "freedom/openness (= gnu/linux) <=> spam/insecurity". not quite ~ what i and most propably you want. mind you that this is ~ speculation, but speculation drawn from some experience (like >15 ~ yrs. internet use and having been formally trained as a ~ communications & interaction designer with a focus on sociable ~ media - i'm currently preparing my MA in that field) 2) the newbie argument is IMHO far overrated: this problem has been ~ vastly discussed in the literature for interface & interaction ~ design (see e. g. cooper/reiman, about face 2.0 - the essentials of ~ interaction design, indanapolis: wiley, 2003 - very recommendable!) ~ the bottom line goes like: think of your main and most important ~ users as intermediate (neither rookies nor wizards) and ~ intelligent, but with limited time. this can be applied to nearly ~ every context. ~ => e.g. a decent and beginner-friendly _how-to-subscribe_ is more ~ helpful in the long run as the main users won't be impacted by ~ negative side-effects. 3) especially beginners normally don't get on mailing lists by chance ~ but through some web site. => if they have questions which can be ~ answered directly on this web site there is no need to post them to ~ a list (which in turn requires also more of their time and ~ attention to get the answers). => the better help there is at first ~ hand, the better their needs are taken care of. [this especially ~ applies to the type of questions that can be easily solved by ~ search/rtfm] 4) mailing list participants tend to be annoyed by spam and rtfm-type ~ noise which decreases their ability and motivation to read and ~ answer questions: more noise => less [cognitive] attention => less ~ answers => lower net value of the mailing list to all its users <=> ~ mailing lists should be as noise and spam free as possible. i hope it becomes evident, that there are several *stages of interaction* (with increasing user participation) involved and a mailing list is normally not the first of them. this means that posing a question like "should this mailing list be completely open or subscriber-only?" (see michelle's citation above) does not at all tackle the problem and furthermore blocks alternative (and better) solutions. therefore i think it is necessary to *reframe the whole discussion*. let me sum up the problem as i understand it: - - how to effectively answer beginner questions? (effectively in ~ _their_ eyes, mind you) - - how to generate useful feedback for authors and maintainers? - - how to get new and existing users to participate further? - - how to increase the value of community interaction means as a whole? ~ (i.e. mailing lists like debian-*. what else?) to draft my position on this, i favor: - - vastly improving the help resources on the web at debian.org (1st ~ stage) [maybe a simple expert system in addition to plain search, ~ definitely better navigation, ... ] - - adding a realtime intermediate communication & participation stage ~ there. think (maybe moderated) irc here w/out irc client software. ~ plainly adding a java-based irc client for dedicated help channnels ~ to the site might be problematic as working java browser plugins are ~ not available on every platform. but cgi-scripting or php combined ~ with auto-reload might just be sufficient. it is important to *not* ~ use normal forums for this purpose, as all forums i know tend to ~ attract too much with noise (and trolls) which vastly limits their ~ usefulness. dedicated chat is better there. (2nd stage) interesting ~ threads arising in a discussion could be directed to a wiki (e.g. by ~ moderators) to capture the information & there might be also a kind ~ of hint bots on each channel which could lead people to resources of ~ interest. - - mailing lists (3rd stage) should then primarily host in-depth ~ discussion of ideas and issues which cannot be dealt with on the ~ first two stages. which means: less but more substantial traffic. ~ and *no* spam at all. and, yes, subscriber-only, as well. best, sascha p.s.: i won't be able to elaborate on all of this further during the next 8-10 days, but will happily contribute more later on. - -- :: 01(a)brsma.de ::. :: .. :... . .... . . . . . . :: www.brsma.de :: ..: .:. . :.. ..: . . . . . . :: icq #121790750 ::.: .:. :. ::. .. . .. . . . . :: public key id 0x2EA549A0 ::.. :: . . . . .. . . . -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEARECAAYFAkKYrCgACgkQU/s4iC6lSaD5KACg2Nzmvm1I0BU0lCobwcfWKMpz w+kAoIbaemhOB6PzsaYk9rOb/go5E3Kb =Z7c/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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