[Queue-developers] New moderation policy

[Werner G. K. <wer...@ya...>]

Hi folks,

You may recall that a while back (around the time that Linux Journal
came out last year) I anticipated that GNU Queue would become a much
more public project.  As a result, I figured sooner or later
queue-developers would see higher volume and would need to become a
moderated list if we wanted to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high.

So, in anticipation of that fact, I created a new mailing list,
que...@li... around that time.

Well, my prophesy has come true. Our signal-to-noise ratio has indeed
dropped in recent months, and I'm taking the first steps to rectify this

by making queue-developers into a moderated list. I'm going to try to do

this in a pragmatic way. At times, I'll screen every posting. At other
times, I'll allow entire groups (especially the developers) to post
unrestricted to ensure timely access to information, such as new CVS
releases.

Queue-developers is intended for things like CVS announcements, quality
patches, proactive discussion of potential improvements to GNU Queue,
and high quality bug diagnosis. The noisier stuff (general bug reports,
requests for help, questions, and those annoying whinny complaints :) )
should go to queue-support, which is totally unmoderated. As
queue-support discussions mature, they can be redirected back to
queue-developers.

There's no reason why postings can't be directed to both queue-support
and queue-developers, if the content is appropriate for both lists.

At some level, this policy change is just a formality. To some extend,
queue-developers has always been a moderated list. From the start, users

needed to be subscribed to the list in order to post, something that has

never been true of queue-support.

The policy is that, from time-to-time, I'll be screening all posts to
queue-developers. I'll try to do this in a way that doesn't discourage
discussion too much, or makes queue-developers a less friendly forum.
So, from time-to-time I'll silently drop the moderation, or quietly
create groups of posters that can by-pass the moderation. The reason for

doing this is to allow useful discussions to proceed in a timely fashion

while still diverting lower-quality postings to queue-support.

What I will try to do is assert a slightly greater control over the
content of queue-developers than I have in the past, in the hope of
diverting lower-quality material to queue-support for the benefit of our

subscribers.

Thanks for your support.