[TEAM] Mailinglist setup

[Pasi Lallinaho]

On 2014-05-16 19:18, Elizabeth K. Joseph wrote:
> On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 6:30 AM, Simon Steinbeiß <simon at xfce.org> wrote:
>> Hi Xubuntu team members,
>>
>> we started voting on Pasi's mailinglist-proposal (previously circulated on this list [1]) in today's community meeting [2]. So far, we haven't had enough votes for the motion to be carried or rejected, hence I'm asking you to vote here on the mailinglist. (As the topic isn't very controversial, I hope everyone is ok with public voting. If not, feel free to email me.)
>>
>> Just reply with +1, 0 or -1 to this thread - you can obviously also explain why you voted one or the other way.
>> So far, we have 6 votes for the proposal and 0 against (and 0 abstained).
> -1
>
> I don't see this devel list as actually *that* busy or that we get out
> of hand with off-topic/flamey topics that often. Plus, it's sad when I
> get a message from a list telling me my messages has been moderated
> and I don't like discouraging folks from participating.
>
> Also not thrilled with the idea of being a judge of what's "important"
> enough to let through, I tend to think it's nice that folks can use
> this list to give feedback on default apps or correspond with us here
> about bugs they find if they're having trouble using the tracker or
> launchpad. It helps us get a pulse from our users about what they find
> valuable enough to bring to the attention of developers, otherwise
> they just whinge on social media and in blogs and we don't have a
> great mechanism for collecting that data spread all over the place.

I understand and empathize these comments to a certain degree.

I do agree that the list itself isn't very high traffic, however, the 
amount of offtopic messages in percent is, as I see it, too high. This 
only doesn't take my (and others') time from contributing, it also 
distracts me from ontopic messages.

The possibility that people get discouraged from participating is the 
single biggest negative side of the moderating I'm suggesting. While the 
moderating will bring some exclusivity in any case, we can help make the 
first impression better by improving the "your mail is pending" email. 
Ultimately, all ontopic messages should get through with no problems, 
and with a good field record, people should get their moderation flag 
dropped.

I guess I see the moderating in a slightly different way than you do. I 
don't really conceive it as deciding what is "important", just what is 
ontopic. Of course the decision is not always easy, but in that case, 
you should probably approve the mail. Only obviously offtopic messages 
should be declined.

All that being said, and having made the proposal, I'm open for other 
options as well, as long as they enable us to cut down the percentage of 
the offtopic messages.

Finally, the moderation I'm proposing does not have to be permanent. The 
#xfce-dev IRC channel was moderated for some time because of the amount 
of noise. They have since dropped the moderation, but the situation is 
clearly better now. If a temporary moderation period helps us get the 
results we want, it would obviously be the best solution.

Cheers,
Pasi

-- 
Pasi Lallinaho (knome)                      » http://open.knome.fi/
Leader of Shimmer Project and Xubuntu       » http://shimmerproject.org/
Graphic artist, webdesigner, Ubuntu member  » http://xubuntu.org/