D, while I don't want to reject the idea out of hand (noting that my only affiliation with Debian is enjoying it on my own computers, and spending far too much time helping people on the mail lists) I don't see any reason for changing our current system.
Perhaps if you would point out the faults of the current system, and why you think usenet will solve those faults, your suggestion may be taken more seriously. The positive points to our current system is that all information is currently located at one point: http://lists.debian.org. One can use the archives for historical research, seeing what problems have been solved recently and how, and participate in active communities. Changing to usenet would decentralize sources of information; a user would no longer know ``lists.debian.org has the answer'' -- instead, users would be reduced to trying the various usenet archives, which, despite trying, are never quite complete nor intuitive to use. Often attachments are stripped on such services. This is setting aside two of the worst problems of usenet -- not all users have easy access to usenet news, while email is ubiquitous. #2 is the horrors of spam. When on a debian-controlled server the email lists can be kept free of spam. On usenet, only moderated groups are free of spam, and being a moderator for the amount of traffic debian does in a day would quite simply be hell for the moderator. I just don't see how using a newsgroup could possibly be better than reading debian-user@lists.debian.org for typical user support. Debian is not like most distributions. It is a very close-knit group and while it may make it difficult to attract new users (I went four years running Linux before trying Debian) once a user is `converted' to the Debian way-of-doing-things, few want to go back. In my humble opinion the lists are the glue that cements the distribution into one cohesive body. * D. Stimits <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [010216 17:04]: > This suggestion could probably be sent to a number of different > departments of Debian, but it is most likely a general policy decision > on how to support your product. I am recommending to several > distribution packagers that the newsgroup comp.os.linux.* could benefit > from a comp.os.linux.distributions.*, among which > comp.os.linux.distributions.debian would be one. This would allow > reduction of support costs at the individual packagers while allowing > some of the users to better aid in helping each other with problems that > are specific to individual distributions. -- Earthlink: The #1 provider of unsolicited bulk email to the Internet.
