Re: [Rails-devel] Interesting BGG thread with Rails users

[Jim B. <ji...@ko...>]

Brett wrote:
> Do you think it would be helpful to add a rails-users mailing list to give people a place to discuss more user-centric topics?

And, Stefan wrote:
> I believe that  a split into two lists would be really helpful, as I 
> sometimes  avoid the devel list for java specific stuff to avoid
> scare off those from the devel list who are ("only") interested in 
> 18xx stuff (like rule questions and get feedback on the state of bugs). 
> Maybe even keep the current mailing list for that reason and add 
> a new one like devel-internal, devel-implementation or devel-java?

I think Stefan's idea is a good one- a smaller list for developers/code-contributors /only/.   

This list could stay for more community discussion, etc.

I think your team should keep encouraging that any bug reports should be filed as incidents, not freely reported to the list.  I fear that bugs that get reported to the list, but not filed as incidents, have three problems:  unnecessary noise on the list; the developers understandably inevitably lose track of specific list discussions or informal commitments, and thirdly; they're just not fixed as promptly as a result (or tracked as easily).

Finally, though, I have to say that /nothing/ we do here would turn this particular list into a representative "Rails user community" forum.   This is just too technical of a group, imho- when I've asked that simple config options be defaults, everyone here was comfortable with launching separate versions of rails and/or editing my.properties, etc- I don't think that's remotely representative of the majority of rails users.  Rather, I think the rails users /on this list/ are much more technical than the average rails user from the geek, and the discussions here represent your more technical users and advocates.

So, separate Rails user groups/discussions elsewhere- like on the geek- seem inevitable, and, ultimately, a good thing.

best,
 - jim