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

[John Dangler]

I am inclined to agree.

So, what level of technical support is now OT ?

If a kernel doesn't behave well with some drivers, is it an Ubuntu
kernel question, a Linux kernel question, a driver question, or some
other compartmentalized inquiry?

Why not have a _desktop_ technical support vs _desktop discussion_ ?
Why not have a _kernel_ technical support vs _kernel discussion_ ?

A lot of new users won't know the difference between technical issues
and discussion issues, so they'll only become confused.  However, I also
am not pleased with the way some other distro's have handled this, visa
vie sending people to irc channels only to be ignored or, worse, have
their hand slapped for asking a question that the channel core
eavesdroppers don't see fit to assist with.

More complication arises in having to subscribe to multiple lists and
make sure that you post your questions to the right one.  I'm sure this
is a preview of an awful large number of threads being answered with
'take that to sounder', and a re-reply of 'oh, sorry, i guess that
should have been asked over there, anyway', and a post to the discussion
list being answered with 'no, no, that's a legitimate technical issue,
re-post it there', etc., etc.

In the past, if something was really off the beaten path, it has been
responded to with a simple request to take the discussion off-line, and,
for the most part (except the 'OK, I'M REALLY THINKING OF...' and a
short list of others that should have been dealt with from the
administrators), was taken to another venue.

If strict compartmentalization is what you're after, why not drop the
list and have the entire subscriber community parked on the forums?

>>> sorry for the top post.  I just read this between meetings and got a
case of ass, so I thought I'd get this down.

JD

On Wed, 2006-08-30 at 05:23 +1000, Peter Garrett wrote:
> 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.
>