[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] The Future of Sugar on a Stick

[Bill Bogstad]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Martin Langhoff
<martin.langhoff at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>> We already have devel at lists.laptop.org for OLPC,
>> fedora-olpc-list at redhat.com and others for Fedora,
>> debian-olpc-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org for Debian,
>> ubuntu-sugarteam at lists.ubuntu.com for Ubuntu. Why SoaS would be
>> different and share the mailing list with the upstream developers?
>
> And I think it is wrong and counterproductive to have so many mailing lists.
>
>  - All have very modest subscription numbers, and very low traffic.
>
>  - Anyone has to follow a lot of them to keep track of things!
>
>  - But most importantly: *where the hell am I supposed to post
> anything*? We'll have even more cross-posting in lists where you have
> 90% overlap, and to make matters worse, some of the lists involved
> here have broken Reply-to settings that _break_ cross-list
> discussions. So replies to a crosspost that involves fedora-olpc for
> example _break_ the discussion.
>
> Human brains s are _excellent_ at filtering, and we are a small group.
> Yes, all of these are sub-projects of a grander Sugar (and Fedora, and
> Debian, and Ubuntu, and OLPC) vision. These subprojects deserve a
> separate identity -- but a separate identiy does not equal a separate
> forum of discussion. We all talk in one shared space, but retain our
> name and affiliation.
>
> We need to hear all the voices and we naturally filter the messages
> that are relevant.

You seem to respond with this same argument every single time someone suggests
a new mailing list whether about SugarLabs or previously about OLPC
lists.  I would like to suggest you consider the following:

Your definition of low traffic might not be the same as someone else's
definition.

Full time contributors are likely to have different needs/desires then
part time contributors
or just interested parties.

Your interests are not always the same as everyone else's interests.

Personally, a project doesn't have it's own identity unless it has a
separate mailing list.
Until then it's just some random mailing list threads.  My impression
is that some people feel similarly.

Your brain may be able to keep up with and separate relevant from
irrelevant messages  easily.  Personally, I would like some more from
technology to solve my human problem  For me, different lists is one
way to do this.  It also doesn't require me (and everyone else) to
remember to put funny things in their Subject line.

BTW, reply breakage is a REAL problem.  (I hate it myself.)  It's also
a technical problem.
It has a technical solution.  On the individual level, you could sign
up for every single SugarLabs, etc. list.   I've now done this for the
most common cross post lists at SugarLabs.  You could also set up an
email alias in your address book which would send every message you
send to every single one of those lists.  You would then have the
single community that you seem to desire.  Though, I suspect that a
lot of people would start objecting if you took that last step and
used it regularly.

Personally, I did the above and marked a number of lists 'no delivery'
since I'm not normally
interested in that topic unless it is crossposted.

On a more general level, I did some investigation and forwarded an
idea to Bernie that I got from the mailman support people which could
alleviate the problem for SugarLabs lists.  Basically the idea is that
if you are subscribed to any of a set of lists you can post to any of
them, but you won't get mail from them.  The advantage of this is that
as new lists are created, it would require no work on the part of
mailing list subscribers. It's is a bit hack  so we'll see if Bernie
and company decides it's feasible.

Finally, please consider all of the above for the sake of my overloaded brain.

Thanks,
Bill Bogstad