Re: Wishing for an off-topic mail list with debian-user participants (or most of them) (was: Re: On improving mailing list [was: How to Boot Linux ISO Images Directly From Your Hard Drive Debian])
Hello,
On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 07:27:17AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> I think the primary use case of debian-user-offtopic would be to
> have a place for people on debian-user to tell others to move
> their threads.
It is technically feasible of course. That's not the bit I'd have
doubts about.
One of the common defences of the abundance of off-topic posting
here is that with proper use of a mail client they are easy to
ignore. I would also suggest that with proper use of a mail client
one can set followups to another place, i.e. the off-topic place. In
such a way, an experienced mail sender could diverge into off-topic
land for one mail but the replies would come to the other place, for
that audience.
What I don't believe though, is there there is any will amongst the
most prolific posters to do this. I think that they have decided
they are entitled to post that stuff here and absent any actual
enforced rule change they will not stop doing so.
It sounds sensible and polite to move the conversation, *if* you
believe that the conversation doesn't belong on debian-user. If you
don't believe that then one person's "sensible and polite" becomes
another's "unacceptably controlling and politically correct attempt
to destroy the community",
So I see a separate off-topic list as doomed to go the same way as
the previous effort, because hardly anyone will use it. I see it as
an easier task to get the support traffic off debian-user to a place
where it can be handled alone, than it would be at this point to get
the off-topic posts off of debian-user.
Thanks,
Andy
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