[ale] New Mailing List initiatives for ALE

[aaron]

Before adding my input to the Mailing List discussion, I want to
offer belated thanks to ALE founding member Chris Farris for
his past and continuing contributions to ALE, in particular his
several years of very attentive, patient and fair handed stewardship
of this list. It is my understanding that recent technical glitches in
the list server were difficult to track down and caused some frustration
at a time when some of our list traffic had (temporarily) devolved into
a silly string of bad attempts at humor. I hope no one needs to blow a
gasket in the future to restore a little thoughtful courtesy to our 
communications medium.

On Tuesday 26 September 2006 16:48, Jerald Sheets wrote:
> After much discussion, informal polling, email back and forth and  
> various generic conversation, Those of us charged with the  
> maintenance, care, and feeding of the ALE mailing list(s) will be  
> bringing about some changes in the near future.  Please allow me to  
> discourse below:

First, an appreciation for Jerald (and whoever else is now involved) for 
volunteering to help manage the ALE site and mailing lists. 

However, it sounds like the discussions about the care and feeding of 
community resources has been circling in a very closed loop to this point,
so I would ask and expect that you give equal weight to the input from other 
supporting volunteers and list members before implementing any significant 
changes.

In this light, I want to talk about the proposed solutions first and save the 
detailed thoughts on problem analysis and evaluation for follow up.

> ====> ** The Solution **
[snip] 
> currently, the ale suite of mailing lists is as follows:
>    [ale]
>    ...for general Linux questions, discussions and  information.
>    [unemployed]
>    ... discussion list for un-employed Techies in the Atlanta Area
       (and a job opening announce list for potential employers)

There was also...
    [ale-admin]
   ...a list for open discussions among active administrative volunteers
regarding management items like mailing lists and site hosting. The admin
list has been off-line for quite a while, but If we decide to expand our 
sub-lists, then [ale-admin] should probably be revived as well.

> ** The Layout **
> We will be undertaking to do some splitting of the lists to better  
> serve the varied interests of membership and simultaneously keep an  
> "enthusiast" air to our dealings.

Agreed on the basic principle, but not in the proposed forms.
My points are: 

> [ale-announce]   (ale-announce at ale.org)
> [snip]
I agree that this would be a good addition and is self explanatory.
I would suggest, though, that the rules for posting not be so rigid as
to disallow use of this resource for outreach and cooperation with
closely related events and organizations. Besides regular ALE info,
any announcements of special events that have direct connection to
ALE, LINUX and OSS should be welcomed, for instance the LUG at GT
Install Fest that was held last Saturday.  (I expect this would only
add a couple dozen announce messages a year at most.) 

> [ale]  (ale at ale.org)
> This is the original mailing list that defined [ale] membership.  
> Discussions should be (at least tangentially) relevant to systems  
> administration, or sysadmin issues in Atlanta.
[snip]

I'm sorry, but System Administrators, perhaps more so today than
ever, constitute a special interest sub group within the diverse ALE 
membership.

The main ALE list needs to retain it's diversity and open posting policies. In 
recognition of the principles of the OSS community, as well as the history of 
ALE and [ale], both the FORM and NAME of the [ale] list should be left alone.

If the main list traffic volume and topical diversity are not desirable for 
some, then create sub lists for special interests as needed. If there is a 
perceived need for a more technically sophisticated, lower traffic list that 
is politely moderated* via topic rules and reminders, then I would suggest
    [ale-sysadmin],   --or maybe just--   [ale-tech].
Let those who want to participate in more focused discussion topics subscribe 
as they desire.

*(I agree with the many opinions already expressed in this thread that rigidly 
moderated lists are both undesirable and generally disfunctional).

As to the proposed...
> [ale-chat]  (ale-chat at ale.org)

As I understood the offered plan, the general ALE list would have become 
re-branded under this labelling, so I strongly disagree with this part of the 
proposal.

The ALE list is not now and has never been a "chat" list. There is (and has 
been, and will continue to be) a lot of valuable information shared here, 
both on topic and, as often as not, off topic. I think the "chat" labelling 
is generally derogatory and innappropriate. Despite the volume of traffic, 
the majority of membership discussions here have never been idle "chatter".

Lastly, if we agree to the need for sub-lists, then the [ale-admin] group 
should be revived while we are at it, as I suggested above.

And now, backtracking to the why's and wherefor's:

> *************************************

> ** The Problem **
> There has been an increasing amount of "reaction" as our list becomes  
> more diverse and varied.  Unfortunately, due to the propensity of  
> some of us to blather on (raises hand..."Guilty!) regarding many  
> topics unrelated to linux, UNIX, technology, or other geekery, we  
> have lost some great personalities, talent, minds, and contributors  
> to this community.

I would agree that, compared to several years ago, the list membership
has become more diverse.  It may be that this is simply because the users
and usages of Linux and OSS have broadened, so along with that the
connections of Linux to farther reaching topics has increased as well.

On the other hand, I don't see where the added diversity has changed the 
volume of traffic on the list all that much. I've been here for several years 
now, and my sense of the traffic volume, as well as signal to noise, is that 
it has been fairly consistent from one month to the next. I don't think there 
is a consensu that there are any more or less problems with list traffic than
there have ever been.

I'm not sure there is much evidence of the evolving list traffic alienating 
valued contributors, either. Most of the founding members of ALE that I can 
name are still signed onto this list and still contribute to it regularly. 
With the recent single exception (however understandable it may have been), I 
don't recall any instances of someone venting wildly and denouncing the list 
in a firestorm.

> I started taking an informal poll around April (around when we  
> started doing ALE-NW at my offices) and got a startling congruity of  
> response.  My question:  How about joining the ALE list, we could  
> really use experience such as yours to contribute to the topics and  
> such.  Overwhelmingly, the answer has been that these persons  
> (sysadmins and speakers from all walks and from many companies that  
> make up the "top 10" of Atlanta) could not afford the sheer volume of  
> emails unrelated to their work.

Well... your "informal polling" never actually came to the list, so it seems 
safe to assume that the opinions were limited to like minded peers in the sys 
admin business.  It is no surprise that they would prefer a mailing list 
tailored to their needs and that their complaints might mirror your own.
Still, I think a tech list is a great idea! Lets provide it! Lets add a new 
list for sys admins, maybe one called [ale-tech]!

> [snip]
> ** Evaluation **
> [snip]

My contributions to **evaluation** are pretty well included above.

As to the practicalities of implementation... that doesn't change
much in any scenario of adding a couple new lists,  and actually
gets dead simple if we just start offering special interest sub lists
for interested subcribers and don't try to denigrate [ale] as [ale-chat].

> Well, that's it.  I'm sure there'll be a TON of opinions, both good  
> and bad, but at this time it just seems that these steps are the best  
> for the group.  It may succeed wildly, and it may fail miserably.   
> Point is, we will have tried, and will actually know.

And now you can incorporate what the group thinks is best for the group. ;-)
 
> Feel free to comment.  I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.

Thanks for inviting feedback and listening, and a repeat of the thanks for 
volunteering the effort. 
 
> Jerald Sheets
> Host, ALE-NW
> All around nice-guy.  No, really.
> Sysadmin, The Weather Channel