[CentOS] new list proposal

Thu Oct 16 15:09:26 UTC 2008
John Hinton <webmaster at ew3d.com>

Karanbir Singh wrote:
> Chris Geldenhuis wrote:
>> I agree with Jeff, in other forums where that I belong to the 
>> distinction between "tech" and "chat" quickly becomes blurred and 
>> many posts are cross posted to both (or all) lists, causing 
>> duplication in downloads and scanning.
>
> how about when the distinction is between Support/help and 
> technoglogy/best-practices ?

It would be easy enough to subscribe or not to a second list. I'm 
finding that more and more I'm just doing mass deletes from this mailing 
list and not really gaining anything.... it's a lack of time thing. Some 
of what creates the lack of time is drudging through 10 or 20 potential 
'outside' solutions to solve an issue with our systems. Try signing up 
for the Sendmail list, the mysql list, the php list, the apache list and 
then try to read them faster than they come in! And then within one of 
those other list, with lots of flavors of 'nix, try to come up with a 
solution that works best within Centos... So you get stuck in no where 
land... From the Centos side, it's not a Centos issue but instead a 
'insert software shipped with distro here' issue.... talk to them. And 
then from their side, it's a Centos issue and the way upstream does 
their stuff.

In all fairness, this list has been extremely good about allowing in 
many cases what gets out there on the edge of Centos topics. At the same 
time, when we have Centos users who just want to run a personal desktop 
or laptop... and we have full blown server farms running some of the 
most cutting edge and powerful systems in the world.... how can we 
expect to all live under the same roof with one mailing list?

Personally, I run webservers under Centos. One of the nuances that comes 
with this is spam. I think all on this list who are in the same boat 
have restrained to a huge degree discussions about dealing with spam or 
spam filtering. We simply know it could all but take over this list and 
that it is really not quite appropriate here. DNS, Apache, mail 
programs... all can lead to in depth discussions.... again not really 
appropriate on a general list. I have used restraint. I can only suppose 
that many others have as well.

I very much like the idea of another list, which is for the discussion 
of more extensive use of Centos. I also believe this list is quite 
appropriate for 'getting Centos to run' on whatever system you're trying 
to use. But I'll never need to know how to hook up my camera, get a 
wireless card to work, figure out why my uber video card doesn't work or 
really anything to do with a GUI in Centos as these are desktop issues.

I don't want to sound like an elitist or anything... it's just different 
uses. Neither one is above the others.... just different needs.

Perhaps a new list name that might be considered would be 
CentOS-Extended or CentOS-Servers. A place where Apache conf can be 
discussed, as I'm sure the desktop users don't want to hear about 
this... or running a DNS server... and the hoards of issues that come 
with running a mailserver.

Best,
John Hinton