[mythtv-users] Mailing List Volume

Scott Blomfield ScottB at Cavps.com
Thu Jul 10 09:58:59 EDT 2003


The forum idea comes up about once every two months or so. Just like the
"let's make a distribution" idea, the "who wants to sell MythBoxen!"
idea, the "I can write a better installation doc than you!" idea and the
"You HAVE to add DVD playback by default!" idea. Actually, the
installation doc idea doesn't come up too often. I just wanted to have
poke a little fun at Ray and Robert... for those not involved, that
thread got a little amusing, Cheers =)

The response has been (and probably always will be) that the people who
give the support don't like forums as much as mailing lists (for
various, very valid reasons) and by virtue of that, the mailing list is
here to stay.

Personally, I hold the some of same reasons as them:
1. Email is unobtrusive... I already have my email open all day anyway.
I can answer email as it comes in, and it doesn't amount to too much.

2. Forums require another application to be open or opened each time.
Because of the nature of this, this tends to mean that it only gets
checked once a day, and requires a larger chunk of time. (nb: not any
more time, just more time at once).

3. There is already a threaded copy of the mailing list at
gossamer-threads that works exactly the way a forum would. It is also
fully searchable, and quite fast.

4. The above does not seem to cut down on list volume, but this is very
hard to quantify. (i.e. I have no idea how many people actually *do* go
to gossamer-threads and find their answer without posting)

5. Isaac doesn't want it. I like Isaac to be happy! Happy Isaac means
Happy Releases, Happily Often. =D

Let's end this thread here, hey?

Happy to help.

Scott


-----Original Message-----
From: mojo [mailto:mojospam at thegeekclub.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 5:07 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Mailing List Volume



Brian Lalor wrote:
> Matt Marsh wrote:
> 
>> Is it time to consider splitting the mailing list into
>> a few more focussed lists? I for example am mainly interested in the 
>> frontend side of things and I can't
>> really offer anything to the discussion of tuner cards
>> that often goes on here. Perhaps splitting discussion
>> of frontend/backend would be a start?
> 
> 
> I don't really think so.  There's already a (very quiet) dev list.  
> Perhaps its time more folks used it?
> 

no way would we want to split the lists... it would only lead to greater

confusion and lots of people posting "im not sure which list this 
belongs in"... besides most people would join both so for most of us 
there would be little decrease in mail...

if we had to attempt to alleviate the mail volume somehow i would 
reccommend moving slowly over to a web based forum... its searchable, 
separated by topic and in threads and easier to manage and read (you 
wouldnt have people screamin at you to bottom post your replies)... also

i think a #mythtv-users irc channel would be nice... maybe on 
freenode.net or something... for realtime help and chatting... that 
should cut down on quite a few mailing list posts like the ones that go 
"hey i cant get xmltv to get listings" re: "yeah if you'd read the last 
1600 posts you'd know no one else can either" and so on and so on...

i think with a forum, an irc chan, and maybe a bug tracker (if the dev 
team even wants one) we could almost eliminate the mailing lists...

but thats probably just me ;-)

Sean

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