On Thursday 05 February 2009 15:22:44 Steve Kemp wrote: > Alternatively we could just have a free-for-all and let everybody > post about anything they want, and the people that spend their > spare time reading Debian lists willing to offer help to strangers > will just get bored and stop doing so. > > The latter is the situation people are trying to prevent when > they suggest off-topic posting is fine for a little while, but > does need to be nipped in the bud at times.
Big +1. I subscribe to a few mailing lists, a few newsgroups, and idle in a number of irc channels. A lot of people mistakenly think it's okay to take these resources off-topic when things are slow, but I have to say: it's much easier to participate actively in a group conversation when the background noise is low. It may *seem* harmless, but in fact prolonged off-topic stuff endangers the relevance of the resource, because it just dramatically increases the chances that I right-click on the list's folder and select "Mark all as read." Lee -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
