Re: splitting up the debian-user mailing list
In article <[🔎] m0wuPry-00IdTxC@golem.pixar.com> you write:
>It's getting kind of loud here. I've been thinking of splitting the
>debian-user list into several lists:
>
> debian-user: user discussion
> debian-install: installation problems
> debian-novice: newbies are intimidated by other lists, so here's
> one of their own.
not a good idea. i watched slipping news hirarchies (like german
de.comp.os.linux into 10 subgroups), and the doubter were right :
lot's of crosspostings, lot's of double posted mails, and much bigger
volume.
splitting mailing lists or newsgroups is a good thing for people, that
read only one special style of mails, and skip all others. these people
better use killfiles, that's easier. and for all other people, it's a
bad idea : crosspostings, double postings, more confusion, and much more
traffic.
splitting one group into 3 groups will double the total traffic,
so every group has 2/3 traffic of the original. if you read more than
one group ...
(you don't believe me ? try to find news statistics for groups that
splitted into subgroups, and oyu will see that this rule isn't far away
from reality).
better documentation, introductions etc. will help to reduce the
problems, and thus the postings. splitting will not help.
ok, the list is getting big. one way to handle this, is stricter use of
topics (4 years ago i read fido news. and there were newsgroups with a
requirement for "[TOPIC] ..." as subject, and it worked. it could also
work now, if we want).
summary :
don't split groups. it does not help and does not touch the problem, it
only splits to several problem. try to face the problem : many
questions, chaos thru free use of topics, etc.
andreas
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