Pasi Pirhonen upi@iki.fi wrote:
Hi, I have initiated discussion about arch specific list at least twice among out core people to no avail, so i did make something i can do about it and created few list on host that i do admin myself. The reason for this is that this list is far too high traffic for most of discussion. I've personally received questions about arch specific lists as this is just too high traffic and people has just unsubscribed from this. http://upi.iki.fi/mailman/listinfo/ I don't make any promises about how long those lists are hosted, but i try to keep those forever. Hope this makes some progress on discussion about problems with these 'out of mainstream' arches.
Since I've discussed this with many people off-list, I might as well post it on-list. I'm writing a FAQ first, which is a crucial pre-requisite.
You see, given the traffic and the common complaints about non-CentOS and, what I call, more "practies" questions, I've toyed with the idea of creating a "Sun Managers"/"Linux Managers"-like "Enterprise Linux Managers" ("ELManagers" for short) list. For those who have never heard of Sun or Linux Managers, understand it's a "reply to poster (not list)" type of list. In other words, someone posts a question, then people send responses _off-list_, then the original poster absorbs all that info, tries things, etc... and then posts a "SUMMARY" of what they found out.
This approach does several things: 1. Removes the ettique issue _entirely_ 2. Cuts down on the volume, massively 3. Completely avoids the "my way dammit" tangents (no one responds on-list except the original poster with the SUMMARY) 4. Forces the original poster to learn/try, not just wish (so they are seriously looking for an answer when they ask) 5. Builds a knowledge base of common Q&A -- the biggie!
The key to starting such is a good, detailed FAQ with a lot of things addresses. Then that FAQ is revisited and augmented with newer information from summaries and repeat questions. In fact, rule #1 of the "Managers" type list is to check for the answer in the FAQ -- including where to go for general questions better served by other groups (e.g., DNS, Directory Services, Samba, etc...).
Most of all, it would *NOT* replace this CentOS list. In fact, it would alleviate a lot of the non-CentOS questions. My primary focus is to create a group that pools a lot of the overlap between RHEL and CentOS (as well as the looser ties to Fedora Core), and give a common area for general questions to not only be asked, but to build SUMMARIES and, eventually, a Q&A pool from. God knows we see some of the same questions come up and up again on this list (among others), and I think this list could be augmented by a off-list response / Summary-only "Managers" list like this "ELManagers" I have been pondering.
I'm still writing the FAQ, but I could use a lot of input. If anyone is interested in discussing more, please contact me off-list. I probably won't get to this until the weekend, but I definitely am looking for input (just didn't know how to approach this before). Thanx for the consideration in advance.
-- Bryan
P.S. Why not just use LinuxManagers? It's too broad IMHO. We could really use a [Red Hat] Enterprise Linux focused "Managers" list that would be much lower traffic (let along a lot lower than the Red Hat lists ;-), a growing knowledgebase of common Q&A (especially non-CentOS questions), etc... But again, I need to get the initial FAQ finished before even creating the list.