Too many mailing lists

Too many mailing lists

[Warren Young]

The Cygwin project has too many mailing lists.  This causes an 
unjustifiable amount of friction.

Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it can 
easily be read as "Go away."  The Cygwin project should only be pushing 
away toxic people, and multiple mailing lists do not have that happy 
side effect.

We're long past the days when server-side list traffic segregation made 
sense.  With today's powerful mailers and search engines, we no longer 
need lots of mailing lists to manage the flow.

I see real value in only 3 lists:

   1. User discussions
   2. Development of Cygwin-the-project (broader than the DLL)
   3. Talk

Specifically:

1. User discussions: Everything now allowed on the licensing and apps 
lists should be allowed on the main list.  Posts on use of Cygwin/X and 
Cygwin Ports should be welcome, too.  Nontechnical packaging questions 
should be allowed, if only to encourage more Cygwin users to adopt packages.

2. Development of Cygwin: I propose that the -devel list be the place 
for anything that affects -- or potentially *can* affect -- one of the 
Cygwin project's code repositories.  The only good reason to separate 
the Cygwin DLL traffic has to do with legal matters, and that cut 
doesn't have to be made at the mailing list level.  Legally, all that 
matters is what's checked into the winsup/cygwin section of the CVS 
repo, and that's covered by policy and permissions.  Discussions 
involving changes to setup.exe, the docs, the web pages, the scripts 
running things behind the scenes, etc. all should be allowed on -devel. 
  Patches and commit messages, too; they're easy to filter out.

3. Talk: I'm in favor of keeping this one as-is only because of 
restrictions in some work environments.  I'd prefer to live in a world 
where a little off-topic chatter was okay on the main list, but I will 
concede that it's worth segregating the "vulgar and unprofessional" 
threads if it keeps more people subscribed to the main list.

I am uncertain about -announce.  It echoes to the main list already; 
that part of its value could be replaced by asking package maintainers 
to prepend [ANNOUNCEMENT] to subject lines.  It may be the case that 
there are a large number of people who choose to subscribe to this list 
and not to any other Cygwin list.  Do the statistics bear this out?  If 
not, it is not providing much value.




More generally, I believe that threads should be allowed to continue 
where they started, no matter what a wall-of-text web page -- clearly in 
low regard -- says.  As long as the discussion is productive, does it 
really matter where it happens?  The purity of each list's archive has 
little value in this modern world.  I don't believe Google makes 
distinctions between pages it finds under cygwin.com/ml based on which 
list the post was sent to.



This proposal greatly simplifies the decision about where to post.  Is 
it completely off topic?  TITTL.  Does it affect the development of 
Cygwin the project?  Send it to -devel.  No to both?  It's probably of 
general interest, then, so it should go to the main list.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Steven Penny]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 4:07 PM, Warren Young wrote:
> I see real value in only 3 lists:
>
>   1. User discussions
>   2. Development of Cygwin-the-project (broader than the DLL)
>   3. Talk

Well said, I agree.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Adam Dinwoodie]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 03:07:37PM -0600, Warren Young wrote:
> Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it
> can easily be read as "Go away."  The Cygwin project should only be
> pushing away toxic people, and multiple mailing lists do not have
> that happy side effect.

I've never seen a reply saying "that's not on topic here, go away" that
could be read as you describe.  What I see is "please take this to the
correct list", with the occasional person who can't follow that explicit
instruction being unsubscribed or banned from the list in question.

> We're long past the days when server-side list traffic segregation
> made sense.  With today's powerful mailers and search engines, we no
> longer need lots of mailing lists to manage the flow.

We don't *need* lots of mailing lists, but relying on mailer filtering
and search engines means I need to set up the filtering myself and rely
on other users giving their emails easy-to-filter subject lines.  That's
much easier for people to get wrong than working out which mailing list
to use.

> I see real value in only 3 lists:
> 
>   1. User discussions
>   2. Development of Cygwin-the-project (broader than the DLL)
>   3. Talk
> 
> Specifically:
> 
> 1. User discussions: Everything now allowed on the licensing and
> apps lists should be allowed on the main list.  Posts on use of
> Cygwin/X and Cygwin Ports should be welcome, too.  Nontechnical
> packaging questions should be allowed, if only to encourage more
> Cygwin users to adopt packages.

I don't use X.  It's an easy and obvious thing to filter out, and it
means I don't have my inbox filled with posts about X when I simply
don't care about it.

Most users won't care about app packaging.  I do, so I'm subscribed to
that list.  When I post there about packaging apps, I'm not going to be
filling folks' inboxes with things they're not interested in, and I'm
also not going to be inviting the opinions of people who aren't involved
in it.

Cygwin Ports is officially not supported here.  That, by my
understanding, is pretty much the whole point of Cygwin Ports.  Offering
support for it here is only going to cause confusion.

> 2. Development of Cygwin: I propose that the -devel list be the
> place for anything that affects -- or potentially *can* affect --
> one of the Cygwin project's code repositories.  The only good reason
> to separate the Cygwin DLL traffic has to do with legal matters, and
> that cut doesn't have to be made at the mailing list level.
> Legally, all that matters is what's checked into the winsup/cygwin
> section of the CVS repo, and that's covered by policy and
> permissions.  Discussions involving changes to setup.exe, the docs,
> the web pages, the scripts running things behind the scenes, etc.
> all should be allowed on -devel.  Patches and commit messages, too;
> they're easy to filter out.

I don't use devel, but I suspect that has a whole bunch of similar
issues.

> 3. Talk: I'm in favor of keeping this one as-is only because of
> restrictions in some work environments.  I'd prefer to live in a
> world where a little off-topic chatter was okay on the main list,
> but I will concede that it's worth segregating the "vulgar and
> unprofessional" threads if it keeps more people subscribed to the
> main list.

Plus being able to filter out things on the mailing list that aren't
relevant to actually using Cygwin seems like a useful ability.

> I am uncertain about -announce.  It echoes to the main list already;
> that part of its value could be replaced by asking package
> maintainers to prepend [ANNOUNCEMENT] to subject lines.  It may be
> the case that there are a large number of people who choose to
> subscribe to this list and not to any other Cygwin list.  Do the
> statistics bear this out?  If not, it is not providing much value.

Even if nobody subscribes directly to it, I fail to see what harm it
does, and it gives a one-stop location for people who are interested in
updates to Cygwin packages but who have no interest in the discussions.

> More generally, I believe that threads should be allowed to continue
> where they started, no matter what a wall-of-text web page --
> clearly in low regard -- says.  As long as the discussion is
> productive, does it really matter where it happens?  The purity of
> each list's archive has little value in this modern world.  I don't
> believe Google makes distinctions between pages it finds under
> cygwin.com/ml based on which list the post was sent to.

I only have so many hours in each day, and I like to keep abreast of the
bits of Cygwin I'm interested in.  Amalgamating the lists would increase
the noise in my inbox without increasing the interesting content, or
would require me to set up complex filtering rules that would rely on
folk correctly describing their problems in their first email, which
seems like no less effort than picking the right mailing list in the
first place.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists(passing the buck)

[Linda Walsh]

Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 03:07:37PM -0600, Warren Young wrote:
>   
>> Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it
>> can easily be read as "Go away."  The Cygwin project should only be
>> pushing away toxic people, and multiple mailing lists do not have
>> that happy side effect.
>>     
>
> I've never seen a reply saying "that's not on topic here, go away" that
> could be read as you describe.  
----
   You didn't even bother to check google?
i settled on looking at bash:
bash cygwin "off-topic" -stackoverflow

But have seen similar for X11 related.

on the first page: (all talking about the topic being wrong for the list 
involved).
 
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-12/msg00252.html
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-03/msg00691.html
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2008-11/msg00423.html
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2013-02/msg00343.html


vs. the opposite problem where a cygwin devel yanked my prob
from a cp-bug-report and closed it:

bug was related to a case-bug using cp -a and being
told it was a cygwin bug unless I could recreate it
on linux (even though the bad code was in 'cp'.)

(had to do with ignoring case, and creating it with a case
ignoring FS on linux would have been too much of a pain
(like XFS has such an option) .

project owners constantly like to pass the buck in hopes the
user will give up...usually project owners win because reporting
bugs is too much trouble.




--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists(passing the buck)

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 02:21:49PM -0700, Linda Walsh wrote:
>Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 03:07:37PM -0600, Warren Young wrote:
>>   
>>> Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it
>>> can easily be read as "Go away."  The Cygwin project should only be
>>> pushing away toxic people, and multiple mailing lists do not have
>>> that happy side effect.
>>>     
>>
>> I've never seen a reply saying "that's not on topic here, go away" that
>> could be read as you describe.  
>----
>   You didn't even bother to check google?
>i settled on looking at bash:
>bash cygwin "off-topic" -stackoverflow
>
>But have seen similar for X11 related.
>
>on the first page: (all talking about the topic being wrong for the list 
>involved).
> 
>https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-12/msg00252.html
>https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-03/msg00691.html
>https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2008-11/msg00423.html
>https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2013-02/msg00343.html
>
>vs.  the opposite problem where a cygwin devel yanked my prob from a
>cp-bug-report and closed it:
>
>bug was related to a case-bug using cp -a and being told it was a
>cygwin bug unless I could recreate it on linux (even though the bad
>code was in 'cp'.)
>
>(had to do with ignoring case, and creating it with a case ignoring FS
>on linux would have been too much of a pain (like XFS has such an
>option) .
>
>project owners constantly like to pass the buck in hopes the user will
>give up...usually project owners win because reporting bugs is too much
>trouble.

But, then, I know of cygwin devs who feed orphans, rescues kittens, and
work to prevent global warming.  So, as long as we're making
unsubtantiated allegations, it all works out in the end.

cgf

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists(passing the buck)

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 06/22/2014 05:38 PM, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 02:21:49PM -0700, Linda Walsh wrote:
>> Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 03:07:37PM -0600, Warren Young wrote:
>>>
>>>> Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it
>>>> can easily be read as "Go away."  The Cygwin project should only be
>>>> pushing away toxic people, and multiple mailing lists do not have
>>>> that happy side effect.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I've never seen a reply saying "that's not on topic here, go away" that
>>> could be read as you describe.
>> ----
>>    You didn't even bother to check google?
>> i settled on looking at bash:
>> bash cygwin "off-topic" -stackoverflow
>>
>> But have seen similar for X11 related.
>>
>> on the first page: (all talking about the topic being wrong for the list
>> involved).
>>
>> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-12/msg00252.html
>> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-03/msg00691.html
>> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2008-11/msg00423.html
>> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2013-02/msg00343.html
>>
>> vs.  the opposite problem where a cygwin devel yanked my prob from a
>> cp-bug-report and closed it:
>>
>> bug was related to a case-bug using cp -a and being told it was a
>> cygwin bug unless I could recreate it on linux (even though the bad
>> code was in 'cp'.)
>>
>> (had to do with ignoring case, and creating it with a case ignoring FS
>> on linux would have been too much of a pain (like XFS has such an
>> option) .
>>
>> project owners constantly like to pass the buck in hopes the user will
>> give up...usually project owners win because reporting bugs is too much
>> trouble.
>
> But, then, I know of cygwin devs who feed orphans, rescues kittens, and
> work to prevent global warming.  So, as long as we're making
> unsubtantiated allegations, it all works out in the end.

Would it be wrong of me to point out that we may have gone off-topic with
all this talk of passing the buck and feeding orphans?  Oh, the irony
of it all!

OK, sorry.  I just couldn't resist. ;-)


-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists(passing the buck)

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 09:10:06PM -0400, Larry Hall (Cygwin) wrote:
>On 06/22/2014 05:38 PM, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> But, then, I know of cygwin devs who feed orphans, rescues kittens, and
>> work to prevent global warming.  So, as long as we're making
>> unsubtantiated allegations, it all works out in the end.
>
>Would it be wrong of me to point out that we may have gone off-topic with
>all this talk of passing the buck and feeding orphans?  Oh, the irony
>of it all!
>
>OK, sorry.  I just couldn't resist. ;-)

It's a good point though.  I think I might have to set up a
cygwin-orphans-etc mailing list.

cgf

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Warren Young]

On 6/21/2014 05:51, Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 03:07:37PM -0600, Warren Young wrote:
>> Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it
>> can easily be read as "Go away."
>
> I've never seen a reply saying "that's not on topic here, go away"

I said "go elsewhere," with the *implication* of "go away."

As for an example, here you go:

     https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-patches/2014-q2/msg00027.html

> What I see is "please take this to the
> correct list", with the occasional person who can't follow that explicit
> instruction being unsubscribed or banned from the list in question.

I've been on the Cygwin mailing lists since 2001 and I *still* haven't 
fully internalized all the rules, which should tell you something about 
how clear and easy to apply they are.

There's about 1,800 words on the page laying out the rules for posting. 
  That's two or three newspaper articles' worth.  Do you have that 
memorized, or do you just re-read it before posting each time?

> rely
> on other users giving their emails easy-to-filter subject lines.  That's
> much easier for people to get wrong than working out which mailing list
> to use.

You're already relying on people to post to the right mailing list 
today, which also has problems.

> I don't use X.  It's an easy and obvious thing to filter out, and it
> means I don't have my inbox filled with posts about X when I simply
> don't care about it.

Shall we segregate discussions of Emacs, too, since Vim is a bit more 
popular? [1]  How about TeX, on the theory that most people use word 
processors instead?  Maybe slice off development tool user discussions, 
since most Cygwin users are not developers?

There are about 5,800 packages in Cygwin today. [2]  How fine do you 
want to dice it?

> Most users won't care about app packaging.

Yes, and most of those will be developers of some stripe or another, so 
if we all go off to the Cygwin developer list, those regular users will 
continue to not be bothered.

> I only have so many hours in each day, and I like to keep abreast of the
> bits of Cygwin I'm interested in.  Amalgamating the lists would increase
> the noise in my inbox without increasing the interesting content, or
> would require me to set up complex filtering rules that would rely on
> folk correctly describing their problems in their first email, which
> seems like no less effort than picking the right mailing list in the
> first place.

I subscribe to most of the Cygwin mailing lists, and I can tear through 
the uninteresting bits in about 10 seconds a day by pressing 'n' in my 
mail reader a bunch of times.


[1] http://www.moolenaar.net/vim.html#awards
[2]  http://goo.gl/LGzusr


--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Warren Young!

> The Cygwin project has too many mailing lists.  This causes an 
> unjustifiable amount of friction.

Eh? Wait a second, please. Let me pull my fingers up and count.
So far, barring automatic mailing lists like -announce, we have:
1. cygwin (this exact one)
A common mailing list for all things Cygwin. Frankly, very, VERY few things
are off-topic here. With exception of /X stuff, for which there's a clearly
separated, specific list (who you are, if you did not find it from browsing
the website?), about everything cygwin-related goes here.
2. cygwin-xfree (for all things related to the version of X on Cygwin)
As mentioned above, this is the end point for all things/X that is
Cygwin-related. As vast as it can be, not everyone's interested in intricacies
of setting up and using X environment under Cygwin. I, for one, don't.
3. cygwin-talk (a non-technical barely-cygwin related list)
Smokers' room, if you allow me this association.
4. cygwin-apps (a list for PACKAGE MAINTAINERS)
Clearly labelled, this list is for questions about packaging and distribution
of applications under cygwin banner. Nobody have any interested in it, except
active package maintainers.
5. cygwin-patches
This one's going to be missing as soon as the Cygwin repo is migrated to Git,
IMO.
6. cygwin-developers
I think it's clear from the name. The list for developers of Cygwin itself.
7. cygwin-licensing a list for people who need some lawe.
I have no interest in this kind of questions, but I see them popping around
every now and then. I don't understand them, but it seems, they are rather
important for some people.

> Every time someone says "That's not on topic here, go elsewhere," it can
> easily be read as "Go away." 
Every time I remember a reply similar to this, it was not "go elsewhere", but
rather "go to <insert the name of a specific list>". Which looks far from "go
away", to my untrained eye.
(Of course, I'm not including the results from late... erm... "discussion"...
you know, which one I mean... where it was explicitly stated to "go away", and
explained, why.)

> The Cygwin project should only be pushing away toxic people, and multiple
> mailing lists do not have that happy side effect.

I can only see seven lists, of which one is barely cygwin-related, one is
unrelated, and three are developers-only mailing lists.
What's left? Two lists? Hooray, we have ALOT of two mailing lists, where a
question can misdirect!
/shame


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@yandex.ru) 22.06.2014, <05:01>

Sorry for my terrible english...


--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Warren Young]

On 6/21/2014 19:23, Andrey Repin wrote:
> 5. cygwin-patches
> This one's going to be missing as soon as the Cygwin repo is migrated to Git,
> IMO.

Are you imagining Github style managed pull requests here?  I expect 
Cygwin will be using their own hosting, which means you don't get that 
feature.  That means you still need somewhere to email pull requests or 
patches, since we can predict in advance private email won't be allowed.

> 6. cygwin-developers
> I think it's clear from the name. The list for developers of Cygwin itself.

Are you sure it isn't for developers who use Cygwin?

Or for people contributing patches for Cygwin?

Or for people working on the docs, or the web pages, or setup.exe?

Yes, I know all of these questions are answered on the 1,800 word list 
of rules about which list is for what.  This is exactly the problem: 
that we need 1,800 words to direct traffic to 7 interactive lists.

My proposal takes only 36 words to direct traffic to 3 lists:

"Is it completely off topic?  TITTL.  Does it affect the development of 
Cygwin the project?  Send it to -devel.  No to both?  It's probably of 
general interest, then, so it should go to the main list."

Simple.

> 7. cygwin-licensing a list for people who need some lawe.
> I have no interest in this kind of questions, but I see them popping around
> every now and then. I don't understand them, but it seems, they are rather
> important for some people.

There's about one new thread a year on that list.  Shall we move 
discussion of...oh, I don't know....Cygwin's lilypond package off onto 
its own mailing list, too?

(Not picking on lilypond, just trying to think of another package with 
about one thread per year worth of interest here.)

> (Of course, I'm not including the results from late... erm... "discussion"...
> you know, which one I mean... where it was explicitly stated to "go away", and
> explained, why.)

I started this thread as a result of a different discussion than the one 
I think you mean:

     https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-patches/2014-q2/msg00027.html

> I can only see seven lists,

About 4 too many, IMO.

 > of which one is barely cygwin-related,

Which one is that?

-talk?  I already proposed keeping that separate.

-xfree?  It's separate only because it started off as a side project, 
and is still run that way.  Shall we create other lists for TeX, Emacs, 
and GCC, too, just because they are also large and of interest to only 
part of the community?

The other 5 you have identified all seem entirely Cygwin-related to me.

> one is unrelated,

Which one is that?

> and three are developers-only mailing lists.

Are you sure that three is better than one?

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Cliff Hones]

I for one am finding this discussion rather boring and would prefer it be moved elsewhere.

I can't see any changes happening - only one vote in favour apart from the OP, and that's someone
who's views, as a result of his earlier behaviour, are likely to receive less weight than he'd like.

I'm mildly against making any change - but I don't want or expect my view to be considered.

-- Cliff



--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Warren Young!

>> 5. cygwin-patches
>> This one's going to be missing as soon as the Cygwin repo is migrated to Git,
>> IMO.

> Are you imagining Github style managed pull requests here?  I expect 
> Cygwin will be using their own hosting, which means you don't get that 
> feature.  That means you still need somewhere to email pull requests or 
> patches, since we can predict in advance private email won't be allowed.

I'm not imagining anything, I'm just relaying my very own opinion.

>> 6. cygwin-developers
>> I think it's clear from the name. The list for developers of Cygwin itself.

> Are you sure it isn't for developers who use Cygwin?

Yes, i'm sure. May be because 1800 words isn't much for me, or anyone, who can
actually read?
I didn't even read it thoroughly. A quick diagonal reading is enough to grasp
the basic idea.

> Yes, I know all of these questions are answered on the 1,800 word list
> of rules about which list is for what.  This is exactly the problem: 
> that we need 1,800 words to direct traffic to 7 interactive lists.

The problem is that people don't know how to f'n read... and that it's
required to actually hammer some simple ideas into their thick heads.
Don't take it personally, it's just... I've seen it many times, and I
perfectly understand the reasoning behind the lengthy explanation of each
mailing list intended audience. You read it once, and even if you only read
every second or third word, it will still sink into your brain, that this or
that list is NOT the right list for idle chatter.

> My proposal takes only 36 words to direct traffic to 3 lists:

> "Is it completely off topic?  TITTL.  Does it affect the development of 
> Cygwin the project?  Send it to -devel.  No to both?  It's probably of 
> general interest, then, so it should go to the main list."

> Simple.

Many people already subscribed to the list in digest mode. Which makes it
a headache to follow, when they start posting to the list, breaking threads
into many tiny pieces. Your proposal will only increase this issue.
That aside other concerns raised by people in response to your suggestion.

>> 7. cygwin-licensing a list for people who need some lawe.
>> I have no interest in this kind of questions, but I see them popping around
>> every now and then. I don't understand them, but it seems, they are rather
>> important for some people.

> There's about one new thread a year on that list.  Shall we move 
> discussion of...oh, I don't know....Cygwin's lilypond package off onto 
> its own mailing list, too?

> (Not picking on lilypond, just trying to think of another package with 
> about one thread per year worth of interest here.)

I said I don't understand, neither care for it's existence.
If you are picking on me, it's a futile effort. I'm nearly impervious to
taunts.

>> (Of course, I'm not including the results from late... erm... "discussion"...
>> you know, which one I mean... where it was explicitly stated to "go away", and
>> explained, why.)

> I started this thread as a result of a different discussion than the one 
> I think you mean:

>      https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-patches/2014-q2/msg00027.html

I won't be the one to judge here. I have my own ****load of "fixes" on hand
right now, that I did not asked for. God bless, it'll be finished this week,
and I could return to a normal life.

>> I can only see seven lists,

> About 4 too many, IMO.

It's okay. Having a private opinion is what differentiate an individual from
the crowd.

>> of which one is barely cygwin-related,

> Which one is that?

Licensing.

> The other 5 you have identified all seem entirely Cygwin-related to me.

>> one is unrelated,

> Which one is that?

Talk, of course.

>> and three are developers-only mailing lists.

> Are you sure that three is better than one?

If developers see it convenient to keep discussions on separate topics
separately, I see no reason to judge them.
If it was for me, I'd probably did the same separation, as the current one.
For the same reasons we have it the way it is. It's just convenient.


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@yandex.ru) 25.06.2014, <03:55>

Sorry for my terrible english...


--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

Re: Too many mailing lists

[Eric Blake]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 654 bytes --]

On 06/20/2014 03:07 PM, Warren Young wrote:
> The Cygwin project has too many mailing lists.  This causes an
> unjustifiable amount of friction.

I tend to disagree; I'm happy with the current division of lists.  None
of the lists are high-volume except for the main cygwin and X lists, and
it is already usually safe to post to the main list for all but X
questions (posting to any of the side lists where you are more likely to
be off-topic is where you are most likely to be told to shift the
conversation back to the main list).

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 604 bytes --]

Re: Too many mailing lists

[KIMURA Masaru]

Hi,

> The Cygwin project has too many mailing lists.

+1

> I see real value in only 3 lists:
>
>   1. User discussions
>   2. Development of Cygwin-the-project (broader than the DLL)
>   3. Talk

-1
just unify only 1 ML is simple.
the cygwin ML flow looks not so massive.
we know using well composed subject can split them in local box.
filtering announcement and other unintended info at local is also easy.
splitting non-massive flow to many MLs looks totally meaningless.
it only help bluffing "our project is big."

just my 2 cents.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple