[CentOS] Off topic list for centos please?

[Karanbir Singh]

On 08/25/2011 12:30 PM, Kenneth Porter wrote:
>> an offtopic list would need to come with a lot more moderation here then.
>
> Are the -devel and -docs lists moderated?

I didnt imply holding postings back for moderation - but more along the 
lines of creating an identity for the list, and asking people to shift 
conversations to better suite the audience on there. And in those ways 
the -devel and -docs list are much more focused than the generic list here.

> A reason I suggest -tech is that it's usually fairly clear when a question
> isn't technical but either social or political (eg. advocacy).
>
> OTOH, I don't think the technical traffic is high enough to warrant
> separate software and hardware lists (as would be the case with the generic
> Linux newsgroups).

A large part of the value of this list comes from the varied and diverse 
membership. However, the main focus is still about CentOS itself. I try 
and keep up, but often fall behind reading this list - but it does look 
like a lot more people would rather see the hostility and arrogance on 
this list go away, rather than split the membership up into smaller groups.

An example worth looking at and considering is the centos-virt list. 
Quite a few people here are members there as well, and yet continue to 
post to this list about their virt specific issues.

The other issue that we have, which many other lists dont - is that the 
membership churn is quite high. And without exception, we fail quite 
comprehensively as a group to capitalise on that. What should be an 
amazing opportunity for us to bring in, nurture and hold onto content 
and tech specific talent - is repeatedly driven away, marginalised and 
put down.

Yes we have the people using this list repeatedly without contributing 
back, yes we have people on the list here who will, even after being 
pointed out, fail to adhere to list etiquette and we have people on 
there who will still stick in and try to help others through the noise. 
And yes we do have people who will rant on and on about things with 
dubious relevance, while they will still turn around and make very good 
relevant points some times. But guess what, we have all kinds of people 
on this list - even the occasional spammer.

One thing we definitely have in abundance is opinion on how this list 
should be run, whats OT and whats not and how people should go about 
starting to get help with issues they come up against. Since not 
everyone here would have a wiki.centos.org account, I've started a 
typewith.me page at http://typewith.me/B3hEsCAx97 ; how about everyone 
come together and thrash out a list policy, with guidelines and helpful 
content that might even become holding content at 
wiki.centos.org/GettingHelp and wiki.centos.org/EngageCommunity

Thoughts about this, put it here on the list. Thoughts ON the content, 
put them in the typewith.me page. If you have a wiki account, please use 
the login name there for your ID on the typewith.me page.

- KB