Re: Idea for a secondary list server - Mailing list pgsql-www

On 02/24/2015 12:08 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> * Josh Berkus (josh@agliodbs.com) wrote:
>> On 02/24/2015 12:57 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>>>> Having a slew of not used mailing lists would not be beneficial to the
>>>>> community in general, in my opinion.  Again, the issue is less about
>>>>> the workload and more about the concern of having far more lists than
>>>>> make any sense, 90+% of which are essentially dead.
>>> I agree entirely.
>>
>> So the alternative is that we'll be running folks through the gauntlet
>> of justification whenever they ask for a list, and requiring them to
>> prove the popularity of their project/group/etc. before allocating them
>> one -- something which is hard to do without having a list in the first
>> place.
> 
> I'm missing the part where this is a downside.

Because it's hostile to community members who just want to do something
cool.  Nothing destroys your enthusiasm for PostgreSQL faster than
having a senior project member tell you you're not "worthy" of a list.
The more so because the approval policy is *entirely* subjective; there
are no written rules anywhere.  The current practice makes the
completely unjustified assumption that the admin group is a fair and
accurate judge of whether a new group is likely to be popular or not.

For example, what does telling a new PUG organizer they can't have a
list say about postgresql.org's attitude towards starting new user
groups, and towards whatever part of the world they're from?

This has also been a succession of having the admin group move the
goalposts.  First, when we booted pgfoundry Dave promised we'd be more
open about adding lists to @postgresql.org.  Then he said that we
couldn't do that for resource/time reasons.   Now you're saying that
even without resourcing reasons, you're just opposed to new lists period.

>> Alternatively, having a secondary list server with external
>> infrastructure support and an automated termination policy for idle
>> lists would give us an "incubator" area where people could prove the
>> viability of their focused sub-communities ... or not.  This would allow
>> us to NOT spend time arguing on this list over whether a specific group
>> deserved a list or not.
> 
> If we had a policy for idle lists then we'd be much better off.  That's
> a completely independent consideration from where the lists are hosted.
> 
> I'd encourage you to propose such a policy.  Once that's been hammered
> out, we'll clean up the existing lists and address any requests for new
> ones.

I'm not going to waste my time discussing such a policy if it's not part
of making it easier for folks to get new lists, which I note you're not
promising.  I will be happy to help write and enforce a policy if it
means that new list requests get dealt with in a fair and generous manner.

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com