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Chris Gianelloni wrote: |
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> On Mon, 2007-07-16 at 13:14 +1000, Will Briggs wrote: |
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>> Oh dear. "slight delay" in an email list forum? That's like saying |
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>> "you can take part in this face-to-face conversation but you have to |
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>> wait 30 seconds before you can say anything" In effect you reduce that |
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>> person to an on-looker who can throw in the occassional comment. The |
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>> comments themselves are reduced in their relevance or impact because by |
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>> the time they are heard, the conversation has moved on. |
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> |
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> On a mailing list? |
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> |
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> We're not talking IRC here. We're talking mailing lists. |
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> |
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> I can take a nap, a full 8 hour sleep, or many times even take the |
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> WEEKEND OFF FROM GENTOO and still manage to come back and give useful |
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> input. Email isn't exactly instant and nobody who runs a mail server |
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> will even pretend that it is. Adding a, say, 3 hour delay between |
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> posting and the timeout, doesn't seem to me like it would affect much of |
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> anything. After all, I managed to not touch my email since Friday and I |
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> am still managing to participate in this conversation. |
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> |
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|
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1) The smaller the moderation time, the smaller the benefit of having |
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moderation at all. The greater the moderation time, the greater the |
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"penalty" for not being one of the "in crowd." 3 hours is an |
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interesting figure to consider in this light and I would love to see |
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some justification as to why that is the "sweet spot" (if, in fact, a |
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sweet spot exists) |
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|
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2) I agree - I too sleep between reading gentoo-dev. But the difference |
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is that you are talking about a delay in reading the list (like, for, |
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yeah, sleep). The proposal, however, is a delay between between your |
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awareness of the current state of the conversation (and your writing of |
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a reply), and the actual distribution of your reply. |
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|
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So, for instance: someone asks a (technical) question, no-one has |
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replied, so I reply. $moderation_delay later my answer is distributed, |
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but in the mean time n other people have answered. I (or they depending |
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on whether they were moderated as well) look like an idiot, and the end |
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result is more noise on the list, not less. |
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|
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And you can throw in a whole other bunch of the sorts of thing that can |
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happen in the delay between reading & writing, and the actual |
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distribution of the email --> clarifications, retractions (Don't worry |
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I've solved it emails), solutions, and even warnings from people that |
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the thread is off-topic! |
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|
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This is only compounded when the thread needs a bit of "to and fro" (the |
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"when you said X, did you mean X+Z?" type email). |
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|
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Email being what it is there are always posts that "pass in the night" |
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and double-ups and delays. These, while minimal, are one of email's |
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inherent frustrations. The proposal simply amplifies that frustration. |
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|
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Moderation delay is not the same thing as having a sleep between |
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readings of the list. |
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|
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W. |
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |