Re: Why discussions don't move from debian-private
Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org> writes:
> Someone complained about a lengthy off-topic discussion taking place on
> debian-private, and suggested to move it to a public mailing list.
A follow-up to this. In response to the question of why so many threads
start on debian-private in the first place, I proposed the following two
explanations:
* debian-private does not contain irritating trolls. That means that some
discussions can be had more easily on debian-private, or at least with
less frustration and annoyance, because the audience who can talk is
restricted to people who have some investment in the project. This
obviously has its downsides as well, but I think it's a frequent
explanation.
* Thread drift. Things start on debian-private for legitimately private
reasons and then drift into general discussions. Thread drift is a
universal in every communication forum I've used in the past 20 years.
I don't think there's any real way to stop it. There's rarely any good
break point where the discussion clearly goes from private to public in
a way that makes it easy to move.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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