Re: Poll: debian-newcomer list [Was: Re: newbies needing help for graphic login]
On Sun, Jan 08, 2006 at 12:33:11PM +0200, Andrei Popescu wrote:
} On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:30:04 -0600
} Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote:
} > Andrei Popescu wrote:
} > >It has been suggested by several people in this thread to have a
} > >'debian-newcomer' list.
[...]
} > This gets asked on this list every six months or so; see the archives.
} >
} > In short, the general consensus is that having a newcomer list is a bad
} > idea (for several reasons, which can be found in the archives).
} >
} > --
} > Kent
}
} I guess i'm a pretty stubborn guy and i want to find this out the hard
} way :)
The arguments against a newcomers' list include (but are not limited to):
1) Who will subscribe to a newcomer list? Newcomers. Maybe a few altruistic
souls, but they won't be enough. An awful lot of questions get answered
not by gurus, but by ordinary users who simply happen to have run into
and solved the issue themselves. Restricting newcomers to their own list
is likely to result in more frustration, rather thn less, for the
newscomers as they find that their questions are not answered or are
answered slowly or, even better, they are referred to debian-user.
2) What sorts of questions are suitable for which list? If we could
anticipate all the newbie questions and list them as appropriate for
the list, wouldn't it make more sense to turn that list into a FAQ and
give the answers as well? There are certainly some categories of
questions that aren't quite that simple, but are they enough to warrant
a separate list?
3) If a question isn't appropriate to the newbie list, people will be told
to subscribe to debian-user and ask it there. As this happens more
often, people will simply get in the habit of sending their questions to
both lists at once, which will make the separation of the lists useless
and will double the traffic for the poor, altruistic souls who are
subscribed to both.
4) If a question is sent to debian-user that belongs to the newbie list, it
is likely to result in abuse toward the poster. In addition, even the
gentlest suggestion to ask on the newbie list is somewhat insulting.
This will not make new users feel any more welcome than they are now.
There are definitely other reasons, and they have been covered well in
previous archived email discussions. I am beginning to feel that we should
have, somewhere, a web page with discussion topics that have achieved dead
horse status and links to email threads in the archives covering them. At a
minimum, this would include:
1) a separate newbie list
2) mailing list reply-to mangling
3) getting rid of non-free
4) complaints about debian-user being too high-volume
5) munging email addresses for web archives and newsgroup gateways
} Andrei
--Greg
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