On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 12:20:31AM +0900,  JamesBritt wrote:
> 
> And how many arguing for it?  Five? 20? Out of ALL of the people subscribed
> to this list? I don't see how an informal poll determines the long-term
> validity of any idea.  Many people do not publicly comment because they
> believe their views have already been expressed by somebody else, and aren't
> aware that somebody has decided a vote is in progress.
> 
> >
> > > I have an interest in, for example, database programming, but I don't
> > > want to
> > > subscribe to a list solely on that topic, as database programming only
> > > occupies a relatively small and sporadic amount of my time.
> >
> > Who said you were limited to only one list? Subscribe to more than one,
> > including -talk, and filter them to the same mailbox or whatever you
> > want.
> 
> Thank you for that insight.  My point was that, with a list focused on (as
> an example) database development, one would need to subscribe to the list to
> partake in any brief discussion about databases.  As it is now, ruby-talk
> allows for broad-topic discussions on databases, threading, distributed
> applications, etc.  With potential fragmentation, discussions covering more
> than one area often might require running for one list to another, repeating
> the details at each step.
 
I would suspect that the lists would work much like they to for FreeBSD.
If a topic is specialized or advanced it would then be directed
to one of the lists. 

I think ruby-talk would look a lot like ruby-questions but without
the philosophical meanderings...they would go to chat or advocacy
or language-design or whatever. Seems that could be over 50% of
the current traffic. :)

> Now, maybe that's just how it has to be, maybe we've reached the point where
> multi-topic discussions are impractical on ruby-talk.  Maybe it's worth
> discussing before spewing lists.
> 
> >
> > How detrimental is multiple lists to the ruby community (which we
> > already have!)? It hasn't seemed to hurt FreeBSD, or apache, or linux,
> > or postgresql, or mysql, or... you get the picture. For the most part,
> > those are all thriving online communities.
> 
> For the most part?  It is insufficient to point to another community and
> count the number of lists. We should also consider the number of lists
> relative to the number of list participants and the size of the community,
> as well as the topics and organization of the lists, and see what (if any)
> bearing these have on the growth and development of the community.
> 
> Here are my concerns:
> 
>   That an announcement list will distract from the use of the RAA as the
> primary means of recording information about new and altered libraries.
> 

I hope to see the raa changed in the future and become raa.succ.
If so, I don't see this as a concern.

>   That a precedent will be set for any disgruntled person or group to start
> whatever "official" lists they happen to deem useful at the time, risking
> Balkanization of the community because of a lack of discussion and
> consensus.  I'm excepting lists devoted to independent classes and libraries
> (e.g. ruby-tmpl), which should be managed by the owner of the library, and
> referring to broad-topic lists (e.g. ruby-databases, ruby-announce).
> 

Agreed. That is why I want these lists to be controled by ruby-lang
and not created by joe schmoe.

> If there is a real need for additional Ruby lists (and it appears there is,
> though the specifics are vague), then the details should be thought-out and
> publicly discussed prior to creation, and the lists should be organized
> under @ruby-lang.org.
> 
Yes

> 
> James
> 

-- 
Jim Freeze
----------
Programming Ruby 
 def initialize; fun; end
A language with class