Though a newbie,
Have grown to love Fedora because of it's willing to lead with new "technology". Have contacted you as the User-list owners. (cc the list)
But like any organisation public\private wahtever, some guidelines are necessary otherwise nothing gets done. In this case http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Coming from windows I understand some of the *workflow habits* But learned.
You are possible going to lose a number of seasoned user troubleshooters, if mailing list guidelines continue to be pushed back in peoples faces, for attempting to do the correct thing.
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
Frank
Hi Frank,
Frank Murphy wrote:
But like any organisation public\private wahtever, some guidelines are necessary otherwise nothing gets done. In this case http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
[...]
You are possible going to lose a number of seasoned user troubleshooters, if mailing list guidelines continue to be pushed back in peoples faces, for attempting to do the correct thing.
I am not very fond of replying to any message just to point out that the list guidelines are not being followed. I tend to either ignore the message entirely or reply with some amount of help for the original poster and add a note that the list guidelines should be followed. Truly egregious violations of the guidelines should be taken up with the list administrators directly to avoid cluttering the list, IMO.
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
As you said at the start of your message, some guidelines are necessary in any group. I agree with that. The guidelines allow us to have some common expectations for the list. Without some basic guidelines and norms, the list would likely turn into a mish-mash of off-topic and/or terribly formatted gibberish. I have no doubt that if, for example, everone began posting to the list in HTML, top posted, didn't trim their quotes, and hijacked threads, we would lose far more valuable list contributors that we will by having some reasonable guidelines.
So I think the answer to your question is a very resounding "Yes, the list guidelines are needed."
Whether the guidelines need to be adjusted or whether they are being "enforced" improperly (either too strictly or not strictly enough) is a separate question. It's also a question that should be taken up directly with the list administrators and not on the list, IMO. Having a potentially never-ending thread debating all of the list guidelines is not something I'd look forward to in my fedora-list mailbox. :)
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 5:52 AM, Todd Zullinger tmz@pobox.com wrote:
Hi Frank,
Frank Murphy wrote:
But like any organisation public\private wahtever, some guidelines are necessary otherwise nothing gets done. In this case http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
[...]
You are possible going to lose a number of seasoned user troubleshooters, if mailing list guidelines continue to be pushed back in peoples faces, for attempting to do the correct thing.
I am not very fond of replying to any message just to point out that the list guidelines are not being followed. I tend to either ignore the message entirely or reply with some amount of help for the original poster and add a note that the list guidelines should be followed. Truly egregious violations of the guidelines should be taken up with the list administrators directly to avoid cluttering the list, IMO.
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
As you said at the start of your message, some guidelines are necessary in any group. I agree with that. The guidelines allow us to have some common expectations for the list. Without some basic guidelines and norms, the list would likely turn into a mish-mash of off-topic and/or terribly formatted gibberish. I have no doubt that if, for example, everone began posting to the list in HTML, top posted, didn't trim their quotes, and hijacked threads, we would lose far more valuable list contributors that we will by having some reasonable guidelines.
So I think the answer to your question is a very resounding "Yes, the list guidelines are needed."
Whether the guidelines need to be adjusted or whether they are being "enforced" improperly (either too strictly or not strictly enough) is a separate question. It's also a question that should be taken up directly with the list administrators and not on the list, IMO. Having a potentially never-ending thread debating all of the list guidelines is not something I'd look forward to in my fedora-list mailbox. :)
-- Todd
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page. A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines. Perhaps the OP can file an RFE at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
Kam Leo wrote:
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page. A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines. Perhaps the OP can file an RFE at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list. Maybe in the monthly reminder the list manager sends out as well.
Mikkel
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:08 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Kam Leo wrote:
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page. A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines. Perhaps the OP can file an RFE at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list. Maybe in the monthly reminder the list manager sends out as well.
---- the link to the 'guidelines' are in the signature of every message.
Craig
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 7:20 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:08 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Kam Leo wrote:
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page. A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines. Perhaps the OP can file an RFE at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list. Maybe in the monthly reminder the list manager sends out as well.
the link to the 'guidelines' are in the signature of every message.
Craig
LOL. Check the archives for all the unsubscribe messages. Do people actually read the appendages? Lots of people ignore the flotsam after the signature.
Craig White wrote:
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:08 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Kam Leo wrote:
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page.
Agreed, I think this would be a good thing to add there.
A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines.
That's unlikely to happen. And it would be impossible to enforce.
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list.
Agreed as well. I'll ask the other list admins if adding a link to the list info page and welcome message would be okay.
the link to the 'guidelines' are in the signature of every message.
The only problem there is that folks are already signed up before they ever see the link to the list guidelines. (As much as I'd like to believe the guidelines are mostly common sense, the fact that it comes up so often shows otherwise. :)
Kam Leo:
A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines.
Todd Zullinger:
That's unlikely to happen. And it would be impossible to enforce.
Though, burying the confirmation to join the list links into the guidelines would help somewhat. Or at least, having a short summary page of the guidelines. That's more likely to get read than that rather huge page.
On Sun, 2008-09-14 at 15:44 +0930, Tim wrote:
Though, burying the confirmation to join the list links into the guidelines would help somewhat. Or at least, having a short summary page of the guidelines. That's more likely to get read than that rather huge page.
Don't know if this would help, but maybe including link(s) at the bottom of the emails pointing to guidelines, policies, fedoraproject.org, rules, or whatever might help.
I mean, why include the mailing list name itself, when your geting the email in the first place? You already *know* the email to the list, your getting it. To unsubscribe is fine, but you can link few helpful things at the bottom instead.
Just my $.02 :P
Mike Chambers wrote:
On Sun, 2008-09-14 at 15:44 +0930, Tim wrote:
Though, burying the confirmation to join the list links into the guidelines would help somewhat. Or at least, having a short summary page of the guidelines. That's more likely to get read than that rather huge page.
Don't know if this would help, but maybe including link(s) at the bottom of the emails pointing to guidelines, policies, fedoraproject.org, rules, or whatever might help.
You've not looked at the bottom of any of the list email recently?
I mean, why include the mailing list name itself, when your geting the email in the first place? You already *know* the email to the list, your getting it. To unsubscribe is fine, but you can link few helpful things at the bottom instead.
Just my $.02 :P
I wrote:
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:08 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list.
Agreed as well. I'll ask the other list admins if adding a link to the list info page and welcome message would be okay.
Just to follow-up, links to the list guidelines have been added to the new subscriber welcome message and to the list info page. So most folks should have a chance to see the link when they subscribe (as of a week or so ago). Whether that helps to gently nudge new subscribers to be considerate of the guidelines is another matter. :)
Craig White wrote:
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:08 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Kam Leo wrote:
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page. A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines. Perhaps the OP can file an RFE at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list. Maybe in the monthly reminder the list manager sends out as well.
the link to the 'guidelines' are in the signature of every message.
Craig
But it does not appear to be affective. I know Firefox does not display the list "footers" with the default setup.
Mikkel
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 7:08 AM, Mikkel L. Ellertson mikkel@infinity-ltd.com wrote:
Kam Leo wrote:
The OP found the guidelines at fedoraproject.org. The guidelines or a link should be posted on the list sign-up page. A condition of membership should be the reading of the guidelines. Perhaps the OP can file an RFE at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
A good place for it would be in the welcome message you are sent when you join the list. Maybe in the monthly reminder the list manager sends out as well.
Mikkel
+2
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:47 +0100, Frank Murphy wrote:
You are possible going to lose a number of seasoned user troubleshooters, if mailing list guidelines continue to be pushed back in peoples faces, for attempting to do the correct thing.
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
Guidelines are needed, else it becomes complete anarchy. The list is managed by those who use it as well as those who maintain it. Running to mummy to snitch that user so-and-so is top posting and would mummy please do something about it is a really bad way to manage things. The admin gets a deluge of complaints from one or two people about everything under the sun, and the rest of the list become passive victims just having to put up with it because they're told not to do anything about it.
I'll also point out that non-compliers are going to get the same set of instructions from an admin as they'd get from users (don't top post, trim quotes, read these guidelines, it'll only get fixed once it's entered into bugzilla, etc.), so there's little point in trying to advocate that someone in particular handles these matters. In general, you get a short reply about what was wrong, and what to do. Rarely do you see a non-compliant newcomer get told to go forth and multiply, unless they insist on being a continual nuisance.
On the whole, Linux requires learning, you won't get it handed to you on a plate. If newcomers are not prepared to learn, they're going to get nowhere. If they're going to dig their heals in and insist on being disruptive, they're only hurting themselves. Asking for help from a community involves becoming a part of it, not barging in and disrupting it, especially when you consider that the helpers are doing out of the kindness of their heart, not because they're paid to do it (very few list participants would be). My patience wears thin with people who are continually painful, and I'm not the only one who feels that way. It's not hard to fit in
I'm an ex-BBS-SysOp, believe me that the way things are run on here are best as they currently are. I think that we'd only lose, by insisting that participants play the game, would be those that we would be better off to lose. Yes, there are some people that we're better off without, it's a fact of life. It's their own choice to fit in, or find somewhere else that they fit in.
On Sun, 2008-09-14 at 00:24 +0930, Tim wrote:
The list is managed by those who use it as well as those who maintain it. Running to mummy to snitch that user so-and-so is top posting and would mummy please do something about it is a really bad way to manage things. The admin gets a deluge of complaints from one or two people about everything under the sun, and the rest of the list become passive victims just having to put up with it because they're told not to do anything about it.
Agreed, but it's nice to know whether peers can be encouraged to use guidelines, or it it just so much a waste of effort.
Frank
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 16:12 +0100, Frank Murphy wrote:
Agreed, but it's nice to know whether peers can be encouraged to use guidelines, or it it just so much a waste of effort.
I'd say it's generally effective. Of late I've seen a few people asked to fit in, and most have without getting narky about it. Some require a bit of help to figure out how to do so (particularly those using webmail services, to locate how to disable HTML posting).
Learning how to post better (no HTML, use threading properly, etc.), helps posters in the long run, and for more places than just this list.
Frank Murphy wrote:
Though a newbie,
Have grown to love Fedora because of it's willing to lead with new "technology". Have contacted you as the User-list owners. (cc the list)
But like any organisation public\private wahtever, some guidelines are necessary otherwise nothing gets done. In this case http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Coming from windows I understand some of the *workflow habits* But learned.
You are possible going to lose a number of seasoned user troubleshooters, if mailing list guidelines continue to be pushed back in peoples faces, for attempting to do the correct thing.
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
Frank
Yes, it needs guidelines. Otherwise you end up with messages like the one that started the discussion this time - a brief message is reply to the digest, quoting the entire digest, with no clue as to what message was being replied to.
The debate is more what to do about it. Do you point out the problem, or do you ignore all messages from the poster. Maybe give one warning, and put them in the kill file if they ignore it?
A good example of what happens when people are unwilling to follow the guidelines is what happened on the Mandriva lists a few years back. There was a newbie list, and an expert list. The most of the people that had providing answers on the newbie list got tired of people that were unwilling to follow the list guidelines, and left the newbie list. In short order, you could not get help with problems on the newbie list, and newbies started asking questions on the expert list. The problem was that they got expert level answers instead of newbie level answers, and unless someone took pity on them, they had a hard time using the help they were given. (It was the expert list, after all.)
This list has already driven away some of the more helpful people, and is in the process of driving away more. I have also noticed that a fair number of people have been limiting their help to people that follow the guidelines, and also have interesting questions.
As for myself, I have cut way back on answering questions, and I am more likely to point out where they can find the answers for themselves they to give them the answer. Unless a question really peeks my interest, I am not going to do much research to find the answer when I don't have it at the top of my head, but I know where to look for it. As for giving the background behind the answers, most of the time I don't bother any more.
Maybe after doing this for over 10 years, I am just getting burned out...
Mikkel
Maybe after doing this for over 10 years, I am just getting burned out...
Though not *nix\foss that long. I for one thank you for your patience and time.
And I love your sigs, always get a smile.
Frank
On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 10:47 +0100, Frank Murphy wrote:
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
Yes.
But Guidelines are just that, for guidance. They aren't laws. One hopes that people show some community spirit and attempt to follow community norms, e.g. many people have mixed feelings about top-posting because it's used in other contexts. I get it, but this community prefers not to have top-posting so I would hope people would either go along with it as a courtesy to others or give some rational argument for changing the Guidelines. What I wouldn't expect is for people to simply ignore it.
poc
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
You are possible going to lose a number of seasoned user troubleshooters, if mailing list guidelines continue to be pushed back in peoples faces, for attempting to do the correct thing.
Maybe once and for all decide does the list need guidelines, Yes or No?
Guidelines are needed. They have the purpose of establishing order.
A newcomer will do whatever unless he is made aware of the conventions used.
Some individuals have a sense of order and commitment and will try to bring the guidelines up to light. This actually helps because most people don't care about keeping order. I believe the approach is the key: the tone used to remind repeat offenders or made newcomers aware of the conventions.
Anarchy must be avoided.
Everything around us is an ordered chaos.
This list is *the* resource of help for many. Thanks to the few that share their years of experience with the rest of us.
~af
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Aldo Foot -
Craig White -
Ed Greshko -
Frank Murphy -
Kam Leo -
Mike Chambers -
Mikkel -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Tim -
Todd Zullinger