Re: [ANNOUNCE] USENET vs Mailing Lists Poll ...

On 11/30/2004 5:55 PM, Woodchuck Bill wrote:

> Marc G. Fournier From: <scrappy(at)hub(dot)org> wrote in
> news:coi503$28u4$1(at)news(dot)hub(dot)org:
>
>> bill_harris(at)facilitatedsystems(dot)com (Bill Harris) writes:
>>
>>>"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
>>
>>>> "If there was an official newsgroup for postgresql, would you switch
>>>> to using Usenet from using the mailing lists?"
>>
>>>> As a side note, for those that do vote 'yes', please note that there
>>>> is an official pgsql.* hierarchy gated from the mailing lists, that
>>>> is available at news.postgresql.org, if you do wish to use a news
>>>> reader vs a mail reader ...
>>
>>>FWIW, I voted yes, but my vote depended upon it being a
>>>comp.databases.postgresql.* hierarchy, done according to USENET
>>>guidelines. I sense that would be a lot more important for PostgreSQL
>>>in the long term and a lot more sustainable in general than a pgsql.*
>>>hierarchy. It's been my experience that processes done outside the
>>>norm tend to have extra problems along the way that cost more than the
>>>immediate gratification is worth, even if it does seem more painful at
>>>the time.
>>
>> Just as an FYI ... the latest RFD is for *one*
>> comp.databases.postgresql group to be created, that is not-gated ...
>> this means that those using it would not have the benefit(s) that
>> those using the pgsql.* hierarchy do, namely access to the wealth of
>> knowledge/experience of those on the mailing lists ...

Which is all the contributing developers, all the key people in the
project. So that newsgroup whould be for whom?

>>
>> I had posed the 'who would use USENET' question on -hackers previous
>> to the poll, and the general opinion was "not in this life time" by
>> ppl like PeterE, TomL, JoshuaD, etc ... the thread can be seen:
>>
>> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2004-11/msg01110.php
>
> Trying to sway the vote?

Perhaps.

The long term solution for this incompatibility seems clear to me. Set
it up as a moderated newsgroups under pgsql.* and have the moderator bot
respond with a fixed "if you want your message to be read by all
PostgreSQL community members, you must post to the underlying mailing
list ..." with a reference how to do the nomail subscribe etc. and the
gateway setting Follow-Up-To: and so on so that news-lurkers usually
mail it to the list server anyway. Everything else will lead to constant
work on Marc's side, delayed or double posts, all the crap people have
been complaining about.

Jan

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