On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 11:03:42PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi> wrote:
> > ask.debian.net is not taking anything away from you. You can ignore it
> > the way you ignore Debian web forums, for example. ask.debian.net is not
> > there to replace mailing lists, it is there to add to them, for those
> > who want to use it.
AOL.
> It makes us look bad if there are bad answers or no answers there.
> ask.debian.net seems unconnected to the lists - it adds nothing to them
> and that's disappointing.
I wonder if you forget a "at least for me" in the last sentence or not.
It's a triviality that, for the mail only user, ask.d.n adds
nothing. But it adds a lot for the web user. Luckily, it also gets
nothing away from the mail only users—as Lars commented above—since I'm
confident not a single mail only user will move from a mailing list to a
web-based system like ask.d.n.
[ Interestingly enough, I find that it adds something for people like
me. I've never been into user-support for Debian up to now, simply
because subscribing to a mailing list like debian-user is a commitment
I find too high in terms of traffic, even if I divert it away to a
separate mailbox. On the other hand, I can't stand web forums. ask.d.n
offers me a nice way in-between as I can subscribe to RSS feeds and
easily ignore what I don't care about, without committing too much to
the medium. Net result: I've answered a couple of questions on
ask.d.n, questions who I would have never answered on debian-user or
forums.d.n. ]
But all in all, it's just about choice. Here we just have a couple of
people (who, by the way, are from the broader Debian community: I'm the
only DD among the current admins and I've hardly done anything more than
setting up the d.n DNS entry) who wanted to experiment with a new way of
providing user support.
Do-ocracy is still the main thrust in the Debian community: if there are
volunteers to set-up and maintain something like ask.d.n, it's only
*their* choice to do that. I'm sure many others are not interested into
it and that's fair enough. They can simply ignore that ask.d.n exists in
the first place as, say, I've ignored that forums.d.n has existed thus
far.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, | . |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Caposella .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams
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