On Monday 01 December 2003 11:28, Hereon wrote: > 1) The Debian user community is substantially suboptimally served > with the existence of the current debian-user list.
As some debian users post to debian-user without being subscribed, they request to be cc'ed by the helpers. As said users may not have a relation to how questions are best asked, It could be a solution to implement a very simple front-end to debian-user from the lists.debian.org. Said front-end could be implemented as a web page like the search on packages.debian.org thus offering the user a possibility to select the version that s/he uses, architecture and a fine selection of frequently used topics. The said user will also be offered a space to type an answer email address and a larger text area where s/he can write the question. Upon submit of the form, an email will be placed on the debian-user with propery formatted subject and keywords in the email body. This will happen only if a valid reply address i submitted. Replying to the email also send an email to the reply address that the user entered. If it is feasible, X-headers could be set to ease filtering. As a newcomer user it is always welcome to use a form that guide the process of asking a question. One can even take this idea further so that not only debian-user is the target: When the mail has been submitted, the server can route the email to, say debian-kde, due to selections that the user has made during the process of asking the question. An email confirming the question to be sent, to which list, and a possibility to cancel the post will then be sent to the person asking the question in order to avoid misuse of email adresses. If a person want to ask his question in a specific language other than English, he can be offered a list of languages to which the question will be routed. In order to support people who often want to use the form, a cookie with the last settings can be saved to ease the process of filling in the form. As a comment at the end: I have not thought very much about the extra load on the server. I have not thought very much about breaches and security risks. It is just a suggestion for a way to keep the number of debian mailing lists low, give supporters a possibility to filter and for the user a friendly start with debian. -- Svenn -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
