[plug] List domains and netiquette

[Leon Brooks]

> I personally thought Bret's post was justified in that it resolved a
> question raised earlier on the list - does iiNet munge From: headers
> (which had been causing problems for several list subscribers)

I thought Brett's response was useful, and Neil's comment on it
unwarranted. Brett's response to Neil's comment, however, really took
the cake.

There has been considerable off-list discussion of my previous comment,
and one proposal which was floated was to add another list to spark,
called something like "serious" or "technical", which would give people
who are irritated by total-newbie questions a forum to inhabit.

The idea behind the list is that it is reasonably low-traffic, and
either invitation only or read-only except for invitees. Questions that
would whizz comfortably over the head of the average newbie could expect
to return non-speculative answers and flamewars would cost you your
invitation. I prefer the public-read-only idea, as a newbie could then
monitor the technical list and ask consequent questions on the main
list.

The con of this is that some experts would eventually drop the main PLUG
list. The pro is that there would a be a list in which some who would
otherwise drift away from PLUG anyway would be interested enough to
participate.

Another idea which has been floated is the idea of a local FAQ; for
example, questions peculiar to this list or the iinet hegemony could be
answered there, and a distinctive link provided to it both on the
join-the-list page of the website and in a one-line message footer:

    *** Want to unsubscribe? Other questions? See
http://faq.plug.linux.org.au/ ***

I vote that the FAQ has a section summarising the One True Netiquette as
well. (-: