[plug] List domains and netiquette

[Leon Brooks]

Christian wrote:
> Leon Brooks wrote:
> > 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.

> I quite like this idea in a lot of ways... however, there are a number
> of possible problems.  For example, a lot of people would probably want
> to be on both lists so the "low-traffic" list would just be adding to
> the current traffic (most of which I don't really mind).

For those who want to watch both, is this really a problem?

> The other
> thing is that, in my experience, low traffic lists often tend to die
> since people eventually lose interest in something that's frequently
> inactive.

The idea would be less that of starving the list and more of encouraging
people who don't have newbie-oriented patience to stay around on what is
to them a more interesting list.

> Finally, I've found that... well, sometimes (actually, quite
> often) when I have a technical question that I post to the list I don't
> really get an answer.  Sometimes there are answers but these often don't
> really help (well-intended though they are).

The intended nett effect would be to have more people around to answer
the harder questions for those people who _have_ harder questions.

> Let's face it, the PLUG list doesn't break too many
> technical boundaries.

That's the idea being a serious list.

> Another thing is, this technical list would require quasi-moderation,
> i.e., not moderation of each message but moderation of the current
> status of the behaviour of the subscribers.  Of course there are plenty
> of obvious cases but in the others, who decides when someone created a
> problem and when they're just getting passionate?

Easy: the nominal moderator doesn't take action until he receives
complaint email from three different list members.

> I think an FAQ is definitely in order (and, as I said before, I'm quite
> happy to maintain it...) but I don't like the message footers.

Not even a one-liner?