freebsd list admins?

[Julian H. Stacey]

Hi questions@

> Robert Simmons articulated:
> > There
> > seems to be a few email addresses that are subscribed to these lists
> > that keep spamming it periodically,

jerry at seibercom.net wrote:
> Now, if this forum were conducted under the same restraints that the
> Postfix forums(2) adhere to, the quality of advice given and basic
> overall quality of this forum would increase immeasurably.

The history of address <questions at freebsd.org> explains why we are here:

    questions@ list introduced to provide stuck newbies a lifeline.
    (Advertised from /etc/motd after a new install. )
    
    Created long after more lists such as hackers@ &
    current@ & some other list, But still created years ago now.

    Many old guard didn't subscribe questions@ many years, 'cos
    just newbie questions, too boring, no time etc.
    
    A few experienced conscientious people did sub. questions@ though
    & did lots of good working helping people.
    
    Years later, what was once a list for mostly simple newbies has
    become a lot more skilled 
	(I was suprised when I re-sub'd after absence of years, a
	notable difference; Maybe people presumably learnt FreeBSD,
	but failed to move on to hackers@ & current@, & usb@ etc,
	is probably down to individual inertia).

    The traffic on questions@ has now become very heavy.

Traffic too heavy in fact, & a mess of themes,
	 Some traffic would be better posted to hackers@ or
	 current@ or other more specialist lists

    		http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo

	Posting less to questions@ & more to other lists would help:
		Some traffic deserves a wider, &/or more specialist
		readership on other lists;

		Some Subjects some don't need.

		Newbies questions could be clearer visible as still
		pending an answer, not drowned among a morass of
		more technical threads.


> It is my personal view that FreeBSD-Questions should be consolidated
> into the chat forum. Chat forums are rarely moderated and tend to be
> open to the general public. The "Questions" forum has deteriorated to
> the level of SlashDot which has deteriorated to the level of a
> cesspool. At least SlashDot openly admits that they allow (encourage)
> "Anonymous Coward" to post.

I'm against merging chat@ & questions@, & don't believe it will happen
	Lists for different purposes, but even if questions@ people
	might come to a consensus in favour of merging, lots of
	people on other lists have a use for a seperate chat@, ie
	to demand of off remit people on their other lists "Take
	it to chat@"

I think we should: 
	make questions@ list writable only to subscribers (if not already); &
	Edit /usr/src/etc/motd	eg:
OLD	If you still have a question or problem, please take the output of
OLD	`uname -a', along with any relevant error messages, and email it
OLD	as a question to the questions at FreeBSD.org mailing list. 

NEW	If you still have a question or problem, please subscribe (free) via
NEW	http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/subscribe/freebsd-questions
NEW	then email <questions at FreeBSD.org>

Should we send in a send-pr to edit src/etc/motd ?

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
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