[TriLUG] Proposal for TriLUG List

[Jason Tower]

we've discussed this before (more than once in fact) and have come to 
the conclusion that the benefits of enabling topics in mailman do not 
offer any significant benefits that can not be achieved in other ways 
(procmail/sieve rules, client filtering, etc).  adding another "feature" 
to a system that is currently without a sysadmin is not something i'm 
willing to endorse at this point in time.  once the sysadmin role is 
established we'll reopen the idea for consideration on the SC.

the alternative is to ask everyone to keep their posts reasonable.  what 
is reasonable?  that's very difficult to define, and everyone will have 
their own unique definition.  but let me suggest a few basic guidelines 
for things that are not appropriate:

- totally non-FOSS or computer/technology related topics
- very long threads that have veered far off topic
- posts will no informational value (me too! posts, obscure inside 
jokes, etc)
- posts that are little more than a back and forth conversation between 
two people
- public replies to a post that specifically requests offlist replies 
(admittedly lots of people, myself included, have done this by accident)
- personal attacks, vulgarism, etc.

obviously these are subject to interpretation and not carved in stone, 
just a few things off the top of my head.  the reason our mailing list 
tends to "work" is that most people inherently understand these kinds of 
guidelines and generally abide by them.  and while we all have 
occational lapses, things can quickly degenerate into chaos unless the 
majority of posters adhere to these "unwritten" rules.

a popular refrain is "use your delete button if you don't like it".  i 
do not believe that attitude is appropriate for this list.  the trilug 
mailing list has a distinct theme - linux and open source, and to a 
lesser extent computers and technology in general.  it is not a free for 
all.  it is not thunderdome.  there are approx 600 subscribers, and it 
is NOT reasonable to expect most of them to take special action to 
filter out extraneous posts because a small minority are unable or 
unwilling to exhibit a modicum of self-restraint.  there are plenty of 
mailing lists, forums, newsgroups, and bulletin boards where anything 
(or almost anything) goes.  the trilug list is not one of them.

the trilug mailing list is unmoderated, and always has been.  i for one 
want to keep it that way, but that only works if we all are using the 
same rulebook and respect both the list guidelines and each other.

jason tower
trilug steering committee chairman


Tanner Lovelace wrote:

> Mailman can be setup to recognize messages labeled like this as
> "Topics" and can also be setup for the user to decide if they want to
> receive a particular topic.  I would be more than happy to set this up
> for the TriLUG list with the Steering Commitee's permission.
> 
> This would basically allow anyone subscribed to the list to go to
> their list configuration page and unclick a checkbox to indicate
> that they didn't want to receive messages with OT: in the subject.
> Besides making it easy for subscribers, it could also lessen the
> load on the mailman server and mail server, since those messages
> would be filtered out *before* being sent.