Transparency, Community? (was Re: List-Id Changed why? )

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 01:51:31 +1000
Adam Conrad <adconrad at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> Lea Gris wrote:
> > 
> > List-Id changed from:
> > Ubuntu Help and User Discussions
> > To: Ubuntu user technical support
> 
> You're better off filtering on X-Been-There, or if you insist on
> filtering on List-Id, don't include the descriptive text (ie: filter on
> "List-Id:.*<ubuntu-users.lists.ubuntu.com>")

What I find *much* more interesting (and disturbing) than technical
filtering details is this:

Who made this change, why was it made, and where is the discussion of the
implications?

Considering some of the discussions of the past few weeks, this looks
suspiciously like an imposed direction by someone, or some people, who
happen to have an opinion about the function of the list - and who
apparently don't care if anyone has a different opinion.

I ask: What are the implications of changing the list ID in this manner ?
Why was this not done in consultation with the list subscribers ?

Some person or persons unknown decided unilaterally to remove "
discussion" from the list description, without so much as a polite
question to the list itself. 

So, now any discussion can be immediately labelled "off topic". Nice little
power play ... You can be sure I will be sending a few "off topic" posts
about this and annoying the people who decided to make anything not
"technical support" magically and suddenly irrelevant. 

What happened to openness ? Yes, I'm annoyed, and I, and I hope others,
will object to this move - not because of objections to having a
"technical support only" list, but because of the way this was done.

For anyone who feels that this is a rant from someone who does not
participate in "technical support" - please grep through the archives...

Peter - concerned about the direction this implies, and against gagging
discussion without consulting people.