Re: mailing list
On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
> It is also easy to start reading a newsgroup. Many more
> people read a newsgroup than an average mailing list.
[snip]
> Subscribing to a list takes much more effort, which
> reduces the number of participants.
[snip]
> linux.* aren't on
> everyone's news server, so fewer people can easily access
> them, but anyway who wants to can.
There seems to be a pattern here. What about people that hear about Linux
for the first time? They're likely to head directly to comp.* and read
the "Slackware vs. Red Hat" threads. I installed Slackware long before I
knew there was a Debian mailing list or newsgroup, and I assume that
a lot of Debian users are "converts" for the same reason. This might cut
down on the number of silly questions, but it probably also cuts down on
the number of Debian users. I would think that a prominent debian
newsgroup would get a lot more attention. I guess it depends on whether
you want debian to eventually become the major system, or used mainly by
people with prior Linux experience. (Am I correct in assuming that most
people start with Slackware or Red Hat because they're prominent?)
A few months ago, someone asked me to investigate debian. I looked in
comp.os.linux.*, and came up empty because the word "debian" did not appear
once in the 7 days of articles that my server still had. I searched for
any newsgroup with the word "debian" in it and there were none.
Eventually I found something, probably by doing a web search. Keeping
Linux discussion on a mailing list and a "hidden" newsgroup certainly
doesn't make it easy for newcomers looking for Debian info. And they have
no reason to try very hard, with people screaming "Slackware!" at them.
> * If you think reading news is easier than reading mail, get
> better software.
Some people don't have much control over their software, and some
people don't have sufficient disk quotas to use mailing lists. If I were
a student here I certainly wouldn't be on any mailing lists. (It's bad
enough having to fit a web page into 500K!)
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