[Aces-support] multiple ACES email lists

[chris hill]

Hi James,

 Thanks for the comments.

 We will have only one public list for now. We may revisit this one day,
but for now one list is how we will be doing things.

Thanks,

Chris


On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 09:52, Peter James Dennedy-Frank wrote:
> Hi Ed and Chris,
> 
> I wanted to drop you guys a few thoughts about the email lists.  I really
> don't think that the current setup is the best solution, as it is annoying
> many people with emails that we don't want to see.  Chris, I appreciate
> your attempt to destratisfy the operation of the cluster.  However, in its
> current state, I think you will simply have many people unsubscribing from
> the lists and as a result emailing you the same exact questions that have
> gone out to the lists previously.  I certainly was interested by the
> problems with Matlab and saved those; however, 9/10 of what currently goes
> out to the support list are details of people's codes to which I don't pay
> any attention except as an annoyance.
> 
> > What you describe in this paragraph is almost *exactly* what we're
> > currently doing.  Theres a lot of discussion on the admin list thats
> > already kept off the support list.
> 
> I appreciate that there is already a great deal of discussion on the admin
> lists.  However, no one that I talked to on the fourth or fifth floor knew
> that there was an admin mail list at all.  I feel that at least some of
> the mail that is currently bouncing about the support list should go to
> the admin list instead, and perhaps advertising that there is such a list
> would help with this.
> 
> > And we don't want to try to limit the discussion on the support list any
> > further because:
> >
> >  1) its easy for folks to filter and/or delete email
> 
> The problem with this is that if it gets filtered/deleted (or
> unsubscribed) is that it doesn't do any good to have such a large group
> list, which I agree could be useful (see your point #2).  Certainly when I
> have tried filtering mail in the past it invariably goes into a folder
> never to be looked at again, and I know that's true for many other people
> as well.
> 
> >  2) we *WANT* all the users to see what the other users
> >     are doing so that:
> >      a) people can learn by example
> >      b) the admins don't get duplicated questions
> 
> I think this is a great goal, but think it would be much better
> accomplished if the volume to the support list was much less.  Perhaps
> some kind of a weekly email from the admins talking about the problems
> that were found and how they were fixed, along with having it be a
> resource for things that people think other users might have encountered,
> but with more of the very detailed technical questions going to the admin
> list.
> 
> >  3) the admin list isn't archived and the support list is
> >     archived at:
> >
> >       http://acesgrid.org/pipermail/aces-support/
> >
> >     and we want this archive to be web-search-able so that
> >     smart users can (perhaps occasionally) find the answers
> >     to their problems by google-ing for past questions and
> >     responses.
> 
> I think it's great to have an archive, and would certainly encourage
> people to search for their problems there first, but would argue that
> perhaps the admin list should also be archived, then.  That shouldn't be
> too difficult to set up (Mailman can do it automatically), and would
> accomplish the same thing.
> 
> Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to deal with helping you
> guys with web development, but after I'm done with my generals (hopefully
> in May), I would be happy to do so.  I really am happy to work towards a
> system that I think works better, but I really do think that will require
> some adjustments from the current setup.
> 
> Cheers,
> James