[Community] New working group, procedures

[Gabe Wachob]

Joaquin, I have a different take on email lists than you. 

 

It matters quite a bit to me which list an email comes in on - each list has
its own context, rules of the road, audience, etc. I have a hard time
keeping track of which email lists I'm subscribed to, and worse yet, I have
a hard time keeping track about all the metadata around each of these lists
(some of which is not "public" metadata - such as my personal opinions about
the list, who the list is visible to that I need to be sensitive to, etc). 

 

So I think we agree that allowing new lists for discussions about spinning
up WG's is fine - I just want to make sure that there are *automatic*
wind-down provisions or else I'm afraid I'll be seeing random email on lists
that get 1 email a quarter for which I have no context. 

 

            -Gabe

 

  _____  

From: community-bounces at idcommons.net
[mailto:community-bounces at idcommons.net] On Behalf Of Joaquin Miller
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 11:27 AM
To: Identity Commons
Subject: Re: [Community] New working group, procedures

 

... 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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