[CLUE-Admin] [Fwd: Cross-posting [was Re: [CLUE-Talk] Linux Fun-da-mentals details...]]

[Lynn Danielson]

Dave Anselmi wrote:
> Matt Gushee wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 10:01:15AM -0600, David Anselmi wrote:
>> 
>>>My preference is that nothing get cross posted, either.  Seems that our 
>>>membership doesn't support that concept so I won't rant (yet ;-).
>> 
>> You mean, doesn't support the concept of cross-posting, or doesn't
>> support not cross-posting?
> 
> Heh.  Doesn't support *not* cross-posting.
> 
> Most people are reasonable, especially if asked directly.  But here are 
> the numbers:
> 
> clue-talk: 106 subscribers, 22 not on clue-tech
> clue-tech: 163 subscribers, 79 not on clue-talk
> clue-announce: 52 subscribers (moderated)
> (by email address, not by actual person)
> 
> So if someone had an announcement for our members, clue-tech is the 
> place to put it (even though we could argue that announcements don't 
> belong on that list).
> 
> Since at least half the members of clue-talk and clue-tech overlap, I 
> think cross-posting is undesirable.  But I don't know what to tell 
> people who want to get the word out to 'all' of CLUE.


I see your point about the majority of list subscribers being on
CLUE-Tech.  But there's a reason for that.  It was a conscious choice
on the part of those subscribers to receive only technical discussions.
If some subscribers get left out of some announcement because they
chose not to subscribe to CLUE-Talk, that's they're problem.  Cross
posting should be discouraged.  Most announcements should be sent to
CLUE-Talk only.  Security, virus or OSS release/feautre announcements
would be OK on CLUE-Tech, but little else that I can think of off hand.

There was a time after setting up both lists that I privately chided
people when they used wrong list and I threatened to merge CLUE-Talk
and CLUE-Tech back together if they continued to be used interchangably.
I got especially irritated by people who only subscribed to CLUE-Tech
and then proceded to send announcements and news items there.  I'm no
longer in a position where I should be policing the lists and, frankly,
my level of caring about this issue isn't what it used be.

If there's an agreement amoung us that cross-posting and incorrect posting
is a bad thing, then we should write up a policy about that and put it on
our website and then agree to encourage those who break that policy to
correct thier ways.  Other than peer pressure, the only way I can think of
to fix this problem is to set up CLUE-Tech as a moderated list.  Since, I
don't believe any of us in the steering committee care enough about this
problem to volunteer to be a list moderator, I doubt this is a realistic
option.  Should we ask Jed if he's interested in the job? ;-)

Jed mentioned CLUE-Announce as the list people should subscribe to for
announcements.  I seem to recall Jeff made it clear that this moderated
list was primarily intended for his use to send out meeting reminders
and to announce events, such as installfests.  Again this is something
that could be clarified in a list policy page.  Nevermind that the policy
for each list is stated pretty clearly in Mailman.  (Although I believe
that CLUE-Talk still mentions job postings are ok and we should probably
be encouraging everyone to use CLUEJOBS for that.)

Fwiw,

Lynn