[ale] New Mailing List initiatives for ALE

[Brian MacLeod]

Byron's point here has been nagging at my head, but he put it succinctly:


On 9/27/06, Byron A Jeff <byron at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> I think that the moderators will have to take time to pay attention to
> the chat list and work on transferring topics that are relevant to the
> moderated list.


I think nearly ALL the traffic will end up on ALE-CHAT by default with
this moderation scheme.  A user who is unsure of the relevance of his
inquiry will post on -CHAT knowing that it won't be rejected there.
If the post is "worthy" of inclusion on ALE, then someone must take
the time to move it there.

Counterpoint: Cross-posting to both will take care of that (moderation
will kill it on ALE if "unworthy")

I'll agree with this to a point, but again, someone who is new is
going to worry that they shouldn't do that, and may not.

In addition to this, those of us who would potentially be on all the
lists would possibly now see several copies of messages.  Then, for
anyone replying via one of the lists, they may reply to a list where
the discussion has changed direction or has advanced farther along
than in another, or may not see the relevant answer.  Threading has a
pretty decent chance of being shot to hell in this case.  In the end,
we may see 5 reponses with the same answer, only because the members
of one list didn't see the answers come in before either because of
moderation delay, or because they weren't a part of the list where it
was answered.  I know this is unlikely, since 6/10 times we all post
solutions that work that take a different approach to a problem.

While the high-signal, low noise list will have a lot of gems,
sometimes the best resource I have found with you folks isn't just the
information, but the interactive processes to narrow a problem down
collectively to help someone resolve a problem.  If threading gets
messed up, it could ruin this part of the resource.

I know, I'm probably being a bit paranoid about the effect, but I
hadn't seen it get addressed up to now.


> But overall I feel that if we can find ways to attract serious folks
> to the discussion at any level, that it's a plan that should at least
> get some consideration.
>
> BAJ


I do have to agree with this.  The diverse experience of the list is
part of why it is so valuable.

Brian