Re: [OT] ideals 'n stuff (Re: [PATCH] Remove absolute paths from
On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 09:27:46AM -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
> * Dave <lists+mutt_devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [03-22-07 08:36]:
> > On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 12:26:15AM +0000, Paul Walker wrote:
> > > On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 11:06:32PM +0100, Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> > > > at this point, it would be quite a stretch to claim that this still has
> > > > something to do with mutt, so preferably skip over it if you are not
> > > > interested in discussing world security policy.
> > >
> > > Or you could take it off-list...?
> >
> > I'm trying to get us a Mutt-OT list (Steve: please? pretty please?). I
> > think
> > it'll make it a lot easier to take discussions off-list, while still
> > allowing
> > interested parties to continue watching (and participating in) the fun.
> OFF-LIST as in: Dave <--> Oswald and/or Oswald <--> Dave
Ad-hoc CC lists have lots of problems, not least of which is the lack of
official organization, leading to a possible need to repost an entire discussion
here when conclusions become relevant again to Mutt (which is the only reason
that we're even pursuing our discussion). Also, there's no easy way to know if
Oswald and I are the only people interested in our discussion. (Even if you
post a request for "I'm interested"s, you won't get an accurate number, since
you're only measuring the number of guys who are interested _enough_ in order to
come out and say so on-list. It's a well-known fact that passive interest is
far more common than active interest. The simple proof of said fact is that if
we _do_ create a Mutt-OT list, a nontrivial number of people (i.e., more than
two, which is where your system starts to break down) will probably stay
subscribed to it more or less regularly.)
> It can't get any easier than that. And would surely reduce
> un-necessary traffic.
I just showed that it'd actually _increase_ unnecessary traffic at least in the
case where we'll probably wind up back on-topic later. (Remember, nobody
on-list has to take our conclusions from off-list as fact without having a
chance to review the original discussion that lead to said conclusions. That
means people need (a) access to the archives of the discussion after the fact,
so they can evaluate the arguments that lead to our conclusions, and (b) access
to those discussions as they progress, so they can potentially offer input
before we reach conclusions. The CC approach requires a lot of redundant
traffic in order to accomplish that. (Just think of all the request/response
emails we'd have to field at various points.)
Adding a Mutt-OT list, on the other hand, allows us to easily keep track of
discussions that go off-topic, and to bring them back on-list when they come
back on-topic by simply hopping back and forth between the lists. People who
are only subscribed to Mutt-Dev will only get Mutt-relevant parts of the
discussion, while people who are subscribed to both will be able to follow the
discussion from start to finish, and contribute at will, without having to ask
the two of us at the start of the discussion to add them to an ad-hoc CC list,
and for all of us to group-reply everything. (Dude, we're not in the stone age
anymore. This is what lists are made for.)
> No need to introduce complexity to a simple
> situation.
Adding another instance of an existing system isn't "introducing complexity to a
simple system." Going from 2N to 3N isn't an increase in complexity. (In
reality, we're already considerably higher than 2N.)
- Dave