Re: On improving mailing list [was: How to Boot Linux ISO Images Directly From Your Hard Drive Debian]
Hello,
On Sun, Aug 08, 2021 at 11:00:55PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 08, 2021 at 03:26:25PM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:
> > To be honest I don't think that mailing lists are a very good venue
> > for user support and I would these days prefer to direct people to a
> > Stack Overflow-like site [...]
>
> I stringly disagree on that one. There's tooling and there's
> politeness, and they are, IMO, uncorrelated variables.
A lack of politeness isn't really debian-user's biggest problem. I
think debian-user's biggest problem is the lack of restraint
prolific posters have on posting every thought that comes into their
heads and debating such into the ground.
That sort of thing is not really possible on a question-answer site
as conciseness is rewarded in both question and answer.
> Some people are rather wired towards "forum style", others more
> towards "mail style" -- and I think that's why this kind of
> discussion tends to come up time and again.
I haven't advocated for a forum. What I've suggested is that a
discussion list tends to promote discussion, not user support.
> > The main reason why I see mailing lists as inappropriate for user
> > support is that there is a severe signal to noise ratio problem.
>
> I think you'll get the same on unmoderated fora.
…which, again, I haven't suggested. I don't know why you keep going
back to the idea of web forums. It's obvious that a web discussion
forum would have the same problems as an email discussion list, if
it were unmoderated.
My only suggestion was a Stack Overflow-style question-answer site.
Those aren't discussion forums.
Off-topic discussion is specifically something which I suggest there
is too much of here.
Have a look at https://askubuntu.com/ to get some sort of idea,
since that is at least a Debian derivative. But as I said, it has
been tried before and I think won't/can't succeed without buy-in
from the project.
> I feel we aren't doing that bad, considering the volume.
It is perhaps not so bad for a general Debian community discussion
group, where you would go into it thinking that pretty much anything
goes, but the fact is that this is Debian's primary support venue
for users new and old.
I don't think that both audiences can be catered for in the same
place and I really think that we could and should do better.
Thanks,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Reply to: