[gentoo-dev] web request: search (index) of mailing lists on homepage

[Chris Johnson]

To all (and to the list/web maintainers): 
I'm a fairly recent beginner with Gentoo Linux, and as I have
encountered various issues during install and use, I have leaned heavily
on Google to simply route me back to the helpful community and
gentoo.org mailing lists, archived on the web. 

I propose that indexing of the listserves be implemented and prominently
promoted as a search on the gentoo.org homepage so that first-time
users, who invariably end up there and at the install pages, can quickly
query the knowledge accumulating in the mailing list traffic.  That is
really the only way to solve the problem of finding up-to-date
information of the highest quality; and many/most first-time users will
either a) not join the mailing lists because they want the minimum fuss
and involvement to get the job done and b) the mailing lists themselves
are not prominent and accessible in the first place (as are, say, the
main articles featured on the front page).  Further, the docs can't hope
to keep up with many of the smaller issues raised on the lists; but that
information should still be accessible. 

I don't know much about mailman (have set it up once) and its indexing
capabilities, but I know that such a search feature could be the single
largest improvement in the typical installer and user's experience with
gentoo linux. 

Thanks for your consideration, 

Chris Johnson