[Koha] Purpose of this list?

[MJ Ray]

"Nicole Engard" <nicole.engard at liblime.com> wrote:
> I'm wondering what everyone thinks about setting up these boundaries
> and enforcing them on these lists. Basically, should this list be for
> Koha usage questions and the Koha Developer list be for those very
> techie questions about Perl and Linux and installing Koha on your own.

Yes, it should.  I think the problem is that the moderators of these
lists went to sleep or went away a long time ago and, over time, the
list descriptions have been lost and very little moderation happens
now.

>  Or do we need a different list for this type of thing? And if we
> create it will it stay that way? Or will it too turn into a list that
> looks awfully scary to non-programmer librarians.

If another list is required, I'd suggest koha-install, with its
moderation overseen by koha-devel.


"Nicole Engard" <nicole.engard at liblime.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the input.  Is anyone against having three lists?  And does
> anyone know how we can make it clear what each list is for?

We've already got far more than three (this, -devel, -translate,
-fr, -bugs just for me).  I don't really want any more lists.

We can make it clearer what each list if for by putting descriptions
on http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel and
http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha and making sure they
link back to http://www.koha.org/community/mailing-lists.html (well
done katipo - naughty koha.org)


"Cab Vinton" <bibliwho at gmail.com> wrote:
> The line between tech support & usage is often not hard-and-fast --
> would predict problems in this area, with folks copying both lists ...

If it happens often, moderators should put an automatic
moderation-hold on crossposts and keywords, sanction people for
multi-posting and give clear advice in the list descriptions.


Rachel Hamilton-Williams <rachel at katipo.co.nz> wrote:
> Henri (list moderator for koha-dev) can possibly clarify, but the 
> developer list pretty clearly says it's for developers. If we wanted to 
> do anything there, it could be to moderate who joins the developer list.

Most of the developer list description fields are blank.

I'd be in favour of moderating first-posts to the developer list (a
feature of recent Mailman versions), but not moderating subscription.


"Nicole Engard" <nicole.engard at liblime.com> wrote:
> I would think we wouldn't want to moderate who joins lists - just
> because the nature of open source is that anyone can become a
> developer and having membership moderated seems sort of closed off.

I don't think being open means that we have to leave ourselves open to
unwanted use.  Like free software, it's easier to explain in terms of
freedom: your freedom to swing your arm ends at my nose!

Any moderation needs to be overseen, verifiable and consistent, though.
See e-democracy.org for where I look for advice.  Different field,
similar best practice.


"Joshua Ferraro" <jmf at liblime.com> wrote:
> I wonder if this is the right time to ask: Shouldn't we try to consolidate all
> the mailing lists to the lists.koha.org domain? [...]

No.  Mailman doesn't support list migration - the List-Id always
changes, which is wrong.  We broke filters by moving -devel from GNU
to koha.org.  I'd hate to do that to a list the size of the katipo one.


Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
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