discuss: Re: Avoiding high traffic on the discuss list in the future.
Subject:
Re: Avoiding high traffic on the discuss list in the future.
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
9 Feb 2016 11:41:25 +0000
Message-Id: <56B9D09D.3080001@lafn.org>
On 2/9/2016 3:31 AM, David Lawyer wrote:
>
>
> On 2/7/2016 4:43 AM, ####@####.#### wrote:
>> On Saturday, February 06, 2016 09:54:54 PM you wrote:
>>>> On Feb 6, 2016, at 8:48 PM, David ####@####.#### wrote:
>>>> Also, I want to mention that the above paragraph which discusses
>>>> individual howtos, doesn't belong on the discuss list. The high traffic
>>>> on the discuss list in the past that was not related to ldp policy and
>>>> progress turned off a lot of contributors from subscribing to it or
>>>> reading it. I hope the same mistake isn't made again. One person should
>>>> handle details on individual documents unless there is controversy about
>>>> the document.
>>> Sounds fair. I envision that once you get in touch with someone who can do
>>> the merge for you that this discussion can take place off list. No need
>>> for the entire discuss list to see it.
>> Interesting. I feel just the opposite, I'll discuss why below.
>>
>> Maybe we need two mailing lists, one for ldp policy (possiby to be named
>> ####@####.#### and one for discussion (perhaps of documents??), maybe
>> ####@####.#### ;-)
>>
>> My arguments may start out a little disjointed / disorganized, maybe just some
>> bullet points at first:
>>
>> * how will anyone know something is controversial before the publication of
>> a howto (or other document) unless some of the points of contention
>> (discussion) between a reviewer and a writer are publicized to some degree?
>>
>> That's all I'll say for now. A;though I may add more later. I (we) don't
>> want to see a repetition of the C++ Howto which was written by one author and
>> apparently never reviewed by anyone until I tried reading it to learn
>> something. It was ridiculous. (I apologize in advance--I might be mis-
>> remembering, it might have been the (or a) C howto.
> Randy Kramer
> It was the C++ howto. It has been removed from our collection as a
> result of discussion on the discuss list. 3 other howtos by the same
> author were also removed at this time. I looked into the situation and
> found one of his howtos to be almost all plagarism of other docs. I
> also found that the author had posted elsewhere, what amounted to an
> internet scam. The author was invited to join the discuss list to
> discuss his howtos but refused to do so. I thought that he was
> negligently careless, tended to wildly exaggerate and made numerous
> errors. In this case someone on the LDP staff contacted the author
> after receiving multiple complaints about his docs and the staff
> member brought the issue up on the discuss list, although the problem
> had previously been mentioned on discuss. It's an example of a
> controversial issue being referred to the list with a proposal to
> possibly remove the authors "contributions" from the LDP collection.
> They are noted as "removed for review" but I doubt if they were every
> actually reviewed later on.
>
> So if we have a howto coordinator, that's the person potential authors
> write to if they want to write a howto. Getting a response from a
> real person that encourages them to write the doc is more likely to
> motivate someone to actually carry through with their project. But
> suppose the howto coordinator isn't sure that the LDP should accept
> the proposal. One person wrote a howto on how to make tea for a LUG
> meeting (*Russian*-*Tea*-*HOWTO)*. It's been removed. A published
> howto is "Howto encourage women in linux". These are controversial
> howto topics. Should LDP accept such a topic for a howto? This is
> where the discuss list comes in, although the howto coordinator might
> tell the potential author (or the author, if the howto is already
> written) that s/he thinks the discuss list will not accept it.
>
> So there will be cases where controversy is established either before
> or after publication, and both the staff and others can refer such a
> problem to the discuss list.
>