[Asterisk-Users] WAS: Stupid hold music NOW: list gripes

[Colin Anderson]

>Anyway, isn't time to split this list in "strictly technical...

>And lest we forget, another split for the Cisco/Polycom/Snom/othersipphone
configurations...

That would be short-sighted imo. Splitting the list or goofy offers to do
the list as a PHPbb, NNTP, or other forums would only serve to dilute the
value of the collective wisdom of the people on this list. 

Suppose the lists changed to -users, -newbies, -sip, -interop, -biz, -dev,
-phones. I have a question about pushing a firmware upgrade to a Snom 190 (I
did last week, thank to all that helped). Now, what list do I post it to?
-users? -sip? -interop? -phones? What if the Snom gentleman that helped me
out last week was on -phones only, but I posted to -interop? The answer to
my question was so close but I had to divine that the source of the
information that I needed was on a different list. So I crosspost. Some guys
are like me, they subscribe to all the lists, so they see the same question
X 7 times. So exactly, how did splitting the list help reduce the traffic or
focus the topic?

Take the lessons from Usenet. There will be 20 different NG's all on the
same general topic. Using the Microsoft forums for example, you will see
microsoft.sqlserver.programming, microsoft.sqlserver.general,
microsoft.sqlserver.questions etc. There is so litle stratification between
topics and so many topics crossover to different topics, that everyone just
gives up and posts to microsoft.sqlserver.general anyway, and the other NG's
atrophy, to the point where literally 90% of all existing newsgroups could
be deleted today, and no one would miss out (except the spammers). Same
thing I see here if the list gets split. No one would post to -newbies,
-sip, -interop, -phones, they'd all post to -users 'cause they know all the
l33t guys subscribe to that list.

I for one am immensely grateful that this list is heavily traffic'd with OT,
flames, anecdotes and the like. It demonstrates that this is a living,
vibrant list with active contributors.