Re: [Off Topic] Spam

From: Daniel Koepke (dkoepke@california.com)
Date: 02/21/97


On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Corey Hoitsma wrote:

> > No. That [a] defeats the entire purpose of the mailing list (if
> > no-one is talking to each other, then the mailing list dies), [b]
> > annoys some of us that answer frequently (because then we get
> > picked out and get a lot of personal mail).
> 
> 	Right, Okay, discussion about, say, should we as Imps
> 	do this, or that, or can we change this code into this
> 	to make it more effiecent, etc is fine. But when
> 	ppl just keep asking the same questions, it's a pain. 
> 	I don't mind simple questions like: How do I add
> 	more levels? It's jsut that EVERYONE answers back to the
> 	list says, 'Read the FAQ' or whatever, rather than sending
> 	it in to the person that asked.

I think, then, that we should elect one person to say, "read the
faq," on the mailing list. Why? Well, someone else might want to
ask how to add levels. But then they see that JohnDoe has already
asked it. So they wait for JohnDoe's question to be answered. But
since everyone has e-mailed JohnDoe, our poor person resorts to
asking on the list and we all e-mail him with the answer. Why
bother with that, instead of having a single person respond, "Read
the FAQ," on the list each time. As long as it is known that this
one person is the only one that should be doing that...

> 	I myself don't mind being singled out for help ( I do it a lot
> 	actually) and if I don't know it, I just recommend a 
> 	method to find out (or even if I do). Stuff like	
> 	how to add more levels is trivial, and shouldn't be answered that
> 	way unless they have problems:)

I don't mind being singled out for help, either, but that's only
maybe four or five people that I help privately. If we begin to make
people think that they should send all of their messages to me or
you or someone else, instead of to the list, we indeed get lesser
traffic on the list, but then we get the same question 20 times from
20 different people, some really good questions that would have been
better on the list, etc.

> 	Get my drift? :)

I understand your point, I just don't think it's a good one. :P~

> 	It probably will. But I'm seeing more and more debate around
> 	here, like IDeas on Death, where they debate about how
> 	death should work. Or how skills should work, etc. That
> 	could be a whole new list, while the maintaining stays
> 	here, but the new-ideas, and other stuff can
> 	goto another list... see what I mean? :)

Funny, I thought that debate was one of the reasons for the CircleMud
Mailing List? I don't know exactly, so Alex will have to say, but I
thought: admin'ing, ideas/debate/code, world building, and lastly
help, would be the goals of the mailing list (although not necessarily
in that order). Alex has said that the mailing list was supposed to be
one of the last resorts for receiving help, but people started to just
ask for help here, and things deteriorated. So, he wrote the faq. But
no-one bothers to read it. It'd actually save them a wealth of time
instead of wasting it, like they seem to think. It's much quicker to
see the answer in the faq than to ask the question, wait for a
response, get the response, "Read the FAQ", and then go read the faq.
Don't you think?


--
Daniel Koepke
dkoepke@california.com
Forgive me father, for I am sin.


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