Mailing List Archive

On Tue, 22 Feb 2000 23:14:37 +0200 (IST), Stas Bekman wrote:

>
>Pretty soon we will experience a split of the mod_perl list into embperl,
>asp, modperl and probably other lists. Based on the example of the
>advocacy list, I already see that the value of each list will go down the
>moment the split happens. For a single reason -- people will use different
>lists and the level of general expertise will go down.

I fear that this is exactly what would happen. For example, I don't use Embperl or Asp, but as a lurker I often learn from the
many and often excellent answers on those topics. This knowledge enables me to also address issues using mod_perl handlers
and the Registry/CGI environment. Knowing this, I *would* probably subscribe to all the lists, just to get these morsels of
knowledge. But others would not, and thus miss out.

I may just be stating the obvious, but keeping a high level of *both* general and specialized expertise on this list is critical to
its survival.

>I think that using proper subjects is a much wiser solution to the
>problem. Just use [embperl] [asp] [advocacy] [job] [news] [rfc] and
>similar tags to make your post clearly distinguishable and discarded by
>those who aren't delighted to read this or that topic.
>
>What do you think about the last para? Will educating users to use
>properly tags in subjects will make the list split idea obsolete?
>

I hope so ... A split would be detrimental, and lose the synergy I describe above. I like the tags idea, as it supplies context to
the discussion. But the tags need to be defined, and then do we need a modperl@apache.org FAQ? And of course the
cannot/should not be made mandatory, more of an etiquette thing.

--M.

I think use of a proper subject makes a world of difference.
I hate subjects such as Help, newbie, installation problems.
They do not tell you what the message is about. I do not
use ASP, but when I am not rushed, I read the posts just to
see how that app is doing so I can recommend it, or pick-up
tricks that are really mod_perl in nature. When I am busy,
I delete posts with ASP in the subject line.

A big part of this list is that I know who knows what they are
talking about - and who doesn't. It's a community. I don't want
to belong to a bunch of mod_perl lists, just this one.

cliff rayman
genwax.com

Stas Bekman wrote:

> *** Request For Comments [RFC] ***
>
> I think that using proper subjects is a much wiser solution to the
> problem. Just use [embperl] [asp] [advocacy] [job] [news] [rfc] and
> similar tags to make your post clearly distinguishable and discarded by
> those who aren't delighted to read this or that topic.
>
> What do you think about the last para? Will educating users to use
> properly tags in subjects will make the list split idea obsolete?
>

Hi,

Suddenly, Stas Bekman uttered:
> Salve J. Nilsen said:
> > Low traffic on a list does _not_ mean nobody reads it or cares. I'm sure
> > the people that have issues make themselves heard... (At least I hope! :)
>
> It's a false no-one-has-nothing-to-add feeling. People aren't there --
> therefore it's silent, there were a few attempts to discuss issues at
> the list, none has succeeded.

I read it all until the posts to the advocacy-list stopped. I'm sad to
hear that the advocacy-list was a failure (since so few bothered to join
the list).

> Crippled mod_perl site is a non-issue according to your beleive, this
> topic has sinked into a silence once again.

No, I believe it _is_ an issue worth discussion, but at the time I felt I
had nothing to add. :/ OTOH, I should have encouraged the fine work
everyone did in better ways than staying silent.... Oh well. :I

[Stas says we should have one list]
>
> *** Request For Comments [RFC] ***
>
> I think that using proper subjects is a much wiser solution to the
> problem. Just use [embperl] [asp] [advocacy] [job] [news] [rfc] and
> similar tags to make your post clearly distinguishable and discarded by
> those who aren't delighted to read this or that topic.
>
> What do you think about the last para?

It's a good idea! :)

> Will educating users to use properly tags in subjects will make the
> list split idea obsolete?

Sure, if we could make a working .procmailrc sample which sort different
topics into different folders, and make it (and similar tools) available
on the mod_perl website, then it might work!

My .procmailrc is rather primitive (all mod_perl mail goes into one
folder), and I have at the moment no clue about configuring MUAs like
mutt(1) or emacs(1)'s rmail/smail (or whatever) to cope with this. If
someone would send me working examples, I'd be more than glad to compile
these into a mini-HOWTO or FAQ-entry! :)

> *** Summaries Please ***
>
> On this note I also want to ask you folks, to post summaries back to the
> list, if someone answers your question in private (and this was an on-opic
> question). The biggest value of this list is it's archives, so the more
> information you put in there the better the infobase will be.

Good point. :)


- Salve

--
Salve J. Nilsen
sjn alfakrøll pvv dott org
http kolon skråstrek skråstrek sjn dott nvg dott org skråstrek

Hi all,

On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Stas Bekman wrote:

> *** Request For Comments [RFC] ***
>
> I think that using proper subjects is a much wiser solution to the
> problem. Just use [embperl] [asp] [advocacy] [job] [news] [rfc] and
> similar tags to make your post clearly distinguishable and discarded by
> those who aren't delighted to read this or that topic.

It's a fine idea, but in may cases the poster won't know whether it's
a [Config] or [Apache] or [Apache::Registry] problem. Do you propose
to create a list of acceptable tags? That might work, but you'd need
some like

[NEWBIE]
[DOESNT_FIT_ANY_TOPIC]
[NO_IDEA_WHATS_GOING_WRONG_HERE]

> Will educating users to use properly tags in subjects will make the
> list split idea obsolete?

I think it is not necessary to split it, at least not yet.

The biggest problem at the moment is the huge response to off-topic
stuff like the +/- of new newsgroups, as compared with (say) the
relative lack of interest in some newbie problems.

Although some are working in a second (or third:) language, and it is
not always easy at first to tell the technological problems from the
linguistic, many of those new to mod_perl are sound professionals. In
time some will turn into great assets, and we owe it to ourselves to
nurture them. I don't think that telling them to go to an inferior
resource for answers to simple questions sets the right tone.

73,
Ged.

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, G.W. Haywood wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Stas Bekman wrote:
>
> > *** Request For Comments [RFC] ***
> >
> > I think that using proper subjects is a much wiser solution to the
> > problem. Just use [embperl] [asp] [advocacy] [job] [news] [rfc] and
> > similar tags to make your post clearly distinguishable and discarded by
> > those who aren't delighted to read this or that topic.
>
> It's a fine idea, but in may cases the poster won't know whether it's
> a [Config] or [Apache] or [Apache::Registry] problem. Do you propose
> to create a list of acceptable tags? That might work, but you'd need
> some like
>
> [NEWBIE]
> [DOESNT_FIT_ANY_TOPIC]
> [NO_IDEA_WHATS_GOING_WRONG_HERE]

No the list is supposed to be split into asp, emberl, modperl. So in order
to prevent this split only for clearly known topic the tag should be used.
I didn't offer the [newbie], [config] or other tags.

> > Will educating users to use properly tags in subjects will make the
> > list split idea obsolete?
>
> I think it is not necessary to split it, at least not yet.
>
> The biggest problem at the moment is the huge response to off-topic
> stuff like the +/- of new newsgroups, as compared with (say) the
> relative lack of interest in some newbie problems.

This had been known as a sexy topic in the hackers/opensource community.
No one is interested in answering the dull (no-sexy) questions again and
again. So every time there is a controversial/fresh/interesting post many
people jump on it. Using a proper tag, like [RFC], for this thread
wouldn't make it offtopic. I won't add it now so the email clients who do
the threading based on the subject field would stuff it into a correct
thread. (and I myself had to use it in first place... shame on me)

> Although some are working in a second (or third:) language, and it is
> not always easy at first to tell the technological problems from the
> linguistic, many of those new to mod_perl are sound professionals. In
> time some will turn into great assets, and we owe it to ourselves to
> nurture them. I don't think that telling them to go to an inferior
> resource for answers to simple questions sets the right tone.

I agree. Well I have asked a few quite knowledgebale people why don't they
answer to the questions, and they all said that they were afraid to give
an incorrect answer. Please don't follow this excuse! If you think that
you know the answer but not 100% sure that the answer is the right one,
state this! For example:

<START_OF_EXAMPLE>
"I think that the answer to this problem is:
[follows the answer]
But I might be wrong so please check it before relying on it."
</START_OF_EXAMPLE>

No one will blame you of giving an incorrect answer if you clearly state
that you are in doubt. You saw me trying to answer many time and actually
being very wrong, I was corrected by others, learned myself and helped the
originator of the question. But be sure that most of the time you will
give a right answer because most of you are very very knowldgeable people
who just afraid to admit that they might make a mistake. Making mistakes
is the only way to learn things better, and I think that the popilation of
this list is a very frindly one.

Of course you shouldn't take my words explicitly and start sending junk to
the people who needs help. Let me reiterate this: my observation is based
on the conversations with people who told me that they think they know the
answer but afraid to respond.

When you answer someone question, even if you aren't sure about the answer
you achieve:

* From the posters point of view:

You've replied to the originator of the question! This is the most
important part of the magic!!! This leads the poster to start to
investigate the problem and not feel hurt because no one seems to care
about his question, while he sees that other questions are being
answered.

* As you've been seen by community:

This is a bit modified section I originally wrote for:
http://modperl.sourcegarden.org/garden/contributing.html

Being active and helpful on the mailing list / newsgroup

Why do you think certain persons are too active on newsgroups and
mailing lists? For many reasons -- here are some of them:

For a pure pleasure of helping. It's gives a lot of pleasure to help
people. Just ask yourself what do you feel, when you receive an email,
like ``You have saved my project. Thanks a million!''.

Because of a thinking process -- when you try to solve someone's else
problem you learn new things by yourself, clear out confusions you
might have. And most important, it gives you a feeling that you
actually know things. When people join some new project, they silently
listen to the traffic, then one day they awkwardly attempt to answer a
simple question, with time they answer more complex questions. And is
a short time, they gain this very important feeling of knowing how
things working. Try it yourself -- it works!

For a public acceptance -- people who are active on newsgroups and
mailing lists eventually become known, which helps either to sell
their books, or to promote their training sessions or just to get a
much better job offers. All these are generally consequences of the
contribution that is being done, but sometimes the opposite happens
when someone seems to be helpful just because he wants to get known :(
But for you and me it's good anyway, because we are getting helped.

For a good will and spirit of the first days of the Internet when
there was no commerce and people helped each other just because they
were helped by someone else in first place. I still have this feeling,
I still didn't have a chance to repay to all those people who gave me
a hand when I did my first steps through the Internet as a whole and
all the projects I've been involved in.

_______________________________________________________________________
Stas Bekman mailto:sbekman@iname.com http://www.stason.org/stas
Perl,CGI,Apache,Linux,Web,Java,PC http://www.stason.org/stas/TULARC
perl.apache.org modperl.sourcegarden.org perlmonth.com perl.org
single o-> + single o-+ = singlesheaven http://www.singlesheaven.com

At 23:14 22/02/2000 +0200, Stas Bekman wrote:
>*** Request For Comments [RFC] ***
>
>I think that using proper subjects is a much wiser solution to the
>problem. Just use [embperl] [asp] [advocacy] [job] [news] [rfc] and
>similar tags to make your post clearly distinguishable and discarded by
>those who aren't delighted to read this or that topic.

I totally agree. When we started the thread about the site last year we
clearly labelled it [site] so that people could filter it out if they
weren't interested.

I don't know if this can be done with the mailing-list software we have,
but rather than asking people for discipline, couldn't we simply alias
asp@, advocacy@ etc... to this list and have the soft insert the
appropriate [foo] in the subject ? Sounds like a two line Perl script if
there's an easy way to get at the subject in the process.

imho given the filtering power of most mail readers today, as well as the
visual ease of deleting message marked that clearly, it should be enough.



.Robin
Earth is a beta site.