[IAEP] [support-gang] Suggestion to close some mailing lists

[Yamaplos .]

Let me share MHO about one example: the OLPC-Bolivia list

I'd say with no objective evidence :-) that 80-90% is cross postings
with Sur. However, that smaller percent left is very much "us" talk,
which I've unsuccessfully :-) tried to corral into the OLE-Bolivia
list. Moreover, the few people who have complained when quitting do so
because of the "excessive" mailings that are crossposted from Sur,
thus there is a small but very meaningful number of people who really
prefer to keep a national-focused list.

IMHO any list with more than a couple postings per month should be
left alive, no additional questions asked.  Their members could be
invited to larger lists, but there's a reason and a link that unites
them that is missing elsewhere.  For example I follow the Indonesia
list, with maybe 3 posts in all of this year, and even there at least
the archives should remain accessible, and I would err on the side of
leaving it be rather than merging.

Now, why ever the Coleco list was created and why it was left so long,
who knows.  OTOH how hard it was to convince people to start Sur...

2011/5/11, Chris Leonard <cjlhomeaddress at gmail.com>:
> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 6:03 AM, Christoph Derndorfer
>
>> Briefly looking through your analysis and the lists I agree on most
>> counts.
>>
>> The one area where I'd probably be more lenient than you is allowing
>> local-/country-lists which are half-decently active to exist separately
>> and not be merged into grassroots@ or olpc-sur@ (examples here are most
>> of the South American country lists).
>>
>>
> Just to be clear, my suggestions to merge some of the country-specific
> lists  was not based on a judgement that they did not "deserve" their own
> list.  Rather, it was based on the notion that they share similar challenges
> (especially those in start-up mode) and they would benefit from "hanging
> out" on a list where others were facing similar issues.  Peru and Uruguay
> efforts have matured to the point where they are facing unique challenges in
> their deployments and coordinating efforts that they don't want to "bother"
> others with, and so I did not recommend merging them.
>
> We have over 100 languages/dialects represented on the Pootle server and we
> handle all communication via the single Localization list.  This provides
> great benefit where a Japanese localizer will answer a question posed by a
> localizer of an African language and vice versa.
>
> That said, I posted my recommendations as a strawman to move the discussion
> forward to more specifics and do not feel I have the right to make any
> merge/drop calls on behalf of the lists involved.  I firmly believe their
> feedback must be solicited before any action is taken, but my calls were
> based on the idea of doing something "for" them, not "to" them.
>
> The delicate balance is where joining a more general list would be
> discouraging because of the volume of non-specific discussion versus having
> a specific list that doesn't quite reach critical mass of activity.. It is
> not an easy determination to make.
>
> cjl
>