[Community] New working group, procedures

[Joaquin Miller]

>... we need to develop some best practices around creating mailing lists.
>
>If you start a discussion one place, it's hard to move later.
>
>On the flip side, there's a cost to creating too many mailing lists.
>
>First, it's a strain on the people in the community, who are already 
>on too many lists.
>
>Second, it's a strain on the infrastructure if the lists don't 
>become active, because then you have a bunch of dead lists.

I feel the downside of dead lists is a minor issue.  The cost of 
maintaining a dead list is quite low.

So the balance of these three points is between the difficulty of 
moving a discussion and the strain of being on too many lists.

A fourth point may be the strain of getting mail on many topics on a 
single list.

My feelings:

It is transparent to me whether a message comes from one list on from 
another.  Having a general list and specialized lists let's me pick 
and choose.  That seems to favor starting a new list for a proposed 
working group, with a very occasional message to the general list 
about the proposal and progress.

It being hard to move a discussion is another reason to start a list 
now for the proposed working group.

I feel the best practice is to start a new list whenever a new 
working group is proposed.  If it gets going, that's the time to 
announce on the general list that a new charter has been added to the 
wiki and admission of the working group will be requested when the 
time is ripe.

Cordially, Joaquin

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