[Asterisk-Dev] Mailing list descriptions

[Steve Kann]

It seems that most long time mailing list subscribers have an 
understanding of what the charter for each asterisk-* mailing list is;  
also, people are pretty open about communicating their understanding to 
unsuspecting users.

However, it seems that this isn't clear to new mailing list users, 
probably because these charters are primarily unwritten:

1) There's some text describing the lists and their purposes at 
http://asterisk.org/index.php?menu=support, (which is probably the place 
most users go to subscribe?)

2) The mailman subscription pages don't seem to have a description at all.


Would it be possible for us to agree on mailing list charters, and to 
post these charters (a) at http://asterisk.org/index.php?menu=support, 
(b) on the mailman subscription pages, (c) in the welcome message that 
users get [I'm not sure if this is there].

The present text on the support page is:

======================

The asterisk-users at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users> and 
asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-dev> lists provide 
forums for users who have implementation and support questions and for 
developers who wish to participate in the technological discussions 
pertaining to Asterisk. Both lists potentially have hundreds of email 
messages in a single business day, and a digest version is available.

The asterisk-doc at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-doc> list provides a 
forum for users who wish to discuss and contribute to the documentation 
of the Asterisk project.

The asterisk-cvs at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-cvs> list provides a 
mailing list for CVS updates of Asterisk and the core components such as 
Zaptel.

The asterisk-bsd at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-bsd> list is for 
BSD-related Asterisk discussions.

The asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz> list provides a 
forum for parties who wish to discuss commercial or business related 
activities, opportunities, etc. regarding Asterisk.

======================

I propose the following:

==============

The asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz> list provides a 
forum for parties who wish to discuss commercial or business related 
activities, opportunities, etc. regarding Asterisk.   All commercial 
discussion, including requests or discussion related to for-hire 
development or support services belongs here.

The asterisk-doc at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-doc> list provides a 
forum for users who wish to discuss and contribute to the documentation 
of the Asterisk project.

The asterisk-bsd at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-bsd> list is for 
BSD-related Asterisk discussions.

The asterisk-cvs at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-cvs> list provides a 
mailing list for CVS updates of Asterisk and the core components such as 
Zaptel.   This is a "read-only" list, with postings automatically 
generated as source code changes are committed.  There is a lot of 
traffic on this list, but it is the bottom-line best way to stay 
informed about changes to asterisk.  Anyone working with the development 
versions of asterisk are encouraged to monitor this list.

The asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-dev> list provides a 
forum for contributing developers to discuss current and future 
source-code level engineering issues.  It is emphatically not a forum 
for support, implementation assistance, or bug-reporting.  This is a 
moderately high-traffic list, and a digest version is available.

The asterisk-users at lists.digium.com 
<http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users> list provides 
a forum for users who have implementation and support questions or for 
general technological discussions pertaining to Asterisk. This list 
often generates hundreds of email messages in a single business day, and 
a digest version is available.  If your message does not clearly fall 
into the charter of one of the above lists, this is the place for it!

Bug reports should go to the asterisk bug tracking system.   Guidelines 
for bug reporting are found here: http://www.digium.com/bugguidelines.html

===============


We end up having lots of "wrong list" flames going back and forth, 
seeming more than I tend to see on other lists, and I think that it is 
primarily due to this.   At best, making things clearer will reduce the 
number of "wrong list" kinds of posts, and the useless flames that 
follow.  At worst, it will increase the quality of the flames by at 
least allowing people to point to clearer list charters.

-SteveK


P.S.  This message really doesn't fit the charter as I described, unless 
you consider the website and mailman to be a part of asterisk.