On 20/12/2020 20.45, Per Jessen wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
For the English language users/support lists, they were only split about two years ago, whereas the single 'users' list worked flawlessly some eighteen years prior to that. Also, by looking at the traffic on 'support', there appears to be more user chat than support.
'flawlessly' is a matter of opinion, the board received many many complaints about the list in that time
Hi Simon,
I certainly agree it is a matter of opinion, my own coming from having been a list member for that long. I think that eighteen years is a long time for a dysfunctional mailing list.
My point was rather than the other language-specific lists do not have an issue with combining users and support, so maybe the English language groups ought to revert to that scheme too.
My opinion here is that the volume on the english list maybe makes it special compared to most of the other language lists.
Agree, there is no doubt the volume of traffic is a lot higher, but I don't know how that should make it special. Why do you think so? I think a high-volume list is a good sign, a sign of a community that is alive and kicking.
Maybe it would be less confusing if we had a "Support" and "Discussion" list.
If I may suggest - the reason "discussion" will occasionally become more prevalent is simply that "support" is not forthcoming. The English-language 'users.list' is a list with a large number of members, presumably most better qualified for offering discussion than support. That cannot be helped, at least I don't know how.
I believe having a well functioning support list is vital to the project,
Agree. The issue is, as Felix and others have pointed out, that we appear to have some confusion about which list is good for that.
if we were to merge the lists then we would need moderate the solresulting list reasonably heavily to ensure it stays as a functional support platform that keeps all the people willing to provide support happy.
Why is that ? We don't need moderation, we need qualified people who can support others, that is all.
Simon, as your stance does not seem to correspond well to the current Board position, I assume you are speaking as a community member ?
I think there are many people on the users list who would be rather unhappy with that solution however, we fundamentally have 2 different groups of people who want and expect two very different things and i'm not sure how we can resolve that into 1 list
For eighteen years it worked quite well. I do not think that splitting our user community has improved on that.
I have been subscribed since January 2002 or earlier. The list had 40000 messages a year back then (compared to 12000 on 2019). That includes a lot of noise, methinks, not every post can be strictly on topic and supportive. But the thing is, with so much activity, someone finds the tidbit that finally helps the OP. Problem is, IMHO, that the list has to compete with other resources that are more popular, like a webforum - and that doesn't mean the list is doing anything wrong. Only that there are fewer people and that the person that knows the answer doesn't participate "here". Besides... I suspect that the second mail list has fewer subscribers, so posting there has the actual risk of not getting "support". To me, the support mail list only serves a purpose if the people capable of giving support read and write there. And I'm thinking specifically of the developers and maintainers.
I'll repeat from my earlier post:
I think the real question to ask - to see if re-merging is warranted - is if the new support list has achieved its declared purpose.
Surely the advocates from back then can answer that question.
-- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar)