From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1IAZnq-00024y-2j for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:16:30 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with SMTP id l6GNFV8R022377; Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:15:31 GMT Received: from ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net (ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.214.141]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l6GNDI85019579 for ; Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:13:19 GMT X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.16,543,1175437800"; d="scan'208";a="153599732" Received: from ppp121-44-209-181.lns1.hba1.internode.on.net (HELO [192.168.0.252]) ([121.44.209.181]) by ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net with ESMTP; 17 Jul 2007 08:43:16 +0930 Message-ID: <469BFB8A.1010502@burnieanglican.org.au> Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:13:14 +1000 From: Will Briggs User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 (X11/20070619) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] ML changes References: <46968E00.4070202@gentoo.org> <1184536747.18353.55.camel@sputnik886.lnet> <469A9DD4.7090407@gentoo.org> <469AE28A.3050700@burnieanglican.org.au> <1184623580.7942.6.camel@inertia.twi-31o2.org> In-Reply-To: <1184623580.7942.6.camel@inertia.twi-31o2.org> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: e121d4e1-a72a-4222-a960-dfbec3e7238e X-Archives-Hash: 480a0a2f32386340e30277e4a8c7525c Chris Gianelloni wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-16 at 13:14 +1000, Will Briggs wrote: >> Oh dear. "slight delay" in an email list forum? That's like saying >> "you can take part in this face-to-face conversation but you have to >> wait 30 seconds before you can say anything" In effect you reduce that >> person to an on-looker who can throw in the occassional comment. The >> comments themselves are reduced in their relevance or impact because by >> the time they are heard, the conversation has moved on. > > On a mailing list? > > We're not talking IRC here. We're talking mailing lists. > > I can take a nap, a full 8 hour sleep, or many times even take the > WEEKEND OFF FROM GENTOO and still manage to come back and give useful > input. Email isn't exactly instant and nobody who runs a mail server > will even pretend that it is. Adding a, say, 3 hour delay between > posting and the timeout, doesn't seem to me like it would affect much of > anything. After all, I managed to not touch my email since Friday and I > am still managing to participate in this conversation. > 1) The smaller the moderation time, the smaller the benefit of having moderation at all. The greater the moderation time, the greater the "penalty" for not being one of the "in crowd." 3 hours is an interesting figure to consider in this light and I would love to see some justification as to why that is the "sweet spot" (if, in fact, a sweet spot exists) 2) I agree - I too sleep between reading gentoo-dev. But the difference is that you are talking about a delay in reading the list (like, for, yeah, sleep). The proposal, however, is a delay between between your awareness of the current state of the conversation (and your writing of a reply), and the actual distribution of your reply. So, for instance: someone asks a (technical) question, no-one has replied, so I reply. $moderation_delay later my answer is distributed, but in the mean time n other people have answered. I (or they depending on whether they were moderated as well) look like an idiot, and the end result is more noise on the list, not less. And you can throw in a whole other bunch of the sorts of thing that can happen in the delay between reading & writing, and the actual distribution of the email --> clarifications, retractions (Don't worry I've solved it emails), solutions, and even warnings from people that the thread is off-topic! This is only compounded when the thread needs a bit of "to and fro" (the "when you said X, did you mean X+Z?" type email). Email being what it is there are always posts that "pass in the night" and double-ups and delays. These, while minimal, are one of email's inherent frustrations. The proposal simply amplifies that frustration. Moderation delay is not the same thing as having a sleep between readings of the list. W. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list