[asterisk-dev] [policy] Discussion on IRC - how to make -dev more useful

[Matthew Fredrickson]

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 03, 2008 at 08:39:20AM -0500, John Lange wrote:
>> I'm not opposed to anyone trying to make improvements but my honest
>> feeling is it won't work.
> 
> Concur, based on 25 years experience on mailing lists...
> 
>> First, this seems like a solution without a problem. The -dev list
>> really is not that busy. I don't find it all that hard to scan subject
>> lines and read messages that interest me while ignoring or skimming over
>> ones that seem less relevant.
>>
>> Secondly, how are you going to enforce subject line compliance? The
>> "correct" way to do this would be to split the list into separate lists
>> but my experience with this is it never works. You just end up with
>> people cross posting to every list because they always want their posts
>> to reach the maximum number of readers.
> 
> The worst problems with the idea, though, are these:
> 
> 1) it pushes the labor onto the posters, when the people who care are
> the readers, and probably not all of them.
> 
> 2) it pushes the *actual* subject line even further off the screen,
> which is painful, even if you *don't* use mutt in an xterm, as I do.
> 
> And indeed, as John points out, -dev really is not that high traffic a
> mailing list.  If you want to see a high traffic mailing list, go
> subscribe to LMKL for a day or two.

Not to be Mr. Negativity here, but I concur as well.  Asterisk-dev is 
not a high traffic list at all (LKML is a great example of a high 
traffic list), and any solution that puts the load on the posters is 
going to have major trouble gaining traction.

-- 
Matthew Fredrickson
Software/Firmware Engineer
Digium, Inc.