Re: RFC: Create d-user-woody, d-user-sarge maillists, deactivate d-user
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
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