[ruby-talk:14384] Re: Separating the wheat from the chaff.

On Saturday 28 April 2001 13:23, Marc Butler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>  Would it be possible to split the ruby-talk into two groups delineated by
> subject matter?  My personal intuition is one group named 'community' for
> discussion of predominantly non-technical issues such as Mascots, book
> reviews, ruby group meetings, and "what other people said about ruby"
> discussions.  The other list would be focused on technical concerns, such
> as language problems, questions and patches.
>
>  I believe the level of sycophancy and politics on this list, is beginning
> to swamp the technical material.  The non-technical material is at best of
> only passing interest to me, and I hope I am not the only one who feels
> this way.
>
>  I do not know how difficult this would be for the list manintainer. 
> Considering the work for the list is volunteered (I assume.), I accept
> their decision (or matz) as the final answer.
>
> Respectfully,
> Marc.
>
> Yes, I expect to be flamed for this post.
>
> --
> Political correctness is an euphemism for euphemism.
> [e-mail]

LOL re the sig! :-)

No, you aren't going to be flamed. Personally, I have two problems with 
splitting the list. (1) some people who _need_ or can benefit from, even if 
the don't at the time fully understand, the technical information, may not be 
subscribed to the 'technical' list; (2) some people who may _need_ or can 
benefit from, even if they do not fully understand, the community 
information, may not be subscribed to the community list.

I guess it basically boils down to whether we, as individuals, prefer to 
accept a 'technocracy' or whether we prefer a more well-rounded 'community'. 
I tend to think that Ruby both favors and fosters the latter.

There are a number of issues influencing technical decisions that have 
nothing to do with technology per se but are the results of a broader base of 
community values. (in Dave's words, loosely paraphrased, this would be a 
'dampening effect') 

And, there are a number of 'community values' that are strongly influenced by 
the progress of technology. Separation of the two would IMO be a mistake.

This suggestion, I strongly suspect, is based on the currently running 'Ruby 
mascot' thread. And, while the discussion does nothing of significance to 
advance the language, it is _very_ revealing re the personalities, life 
experiences/choices and priorities of those who have contributed. Indirectly, 
the subconscious awareness of these things by all will, in the long term, 
subtly influence some of the technical decisions (like to RCR or not and why 
or why not a given individual advocates one of the other)

To put things into perspective, there was, not long ago, a _very_ technical 
thread running re some deep details of C/C++. This thread ran to over 100 
posts, at which time suggestions were _then_also_ made re 'splitting the 
list'. Consensus of opinion skewed to _not_ splitting; I believe I am not the 
only one who derived value from that discussion even though parts of it are 
beyond my experience level and most of it was very much off topic re Ruby per 
se. 

While it is, personally, not a difficulty for me to sub to both lists (or for 
any of us at this point), it might in future be a problem for newcomers, who 
may opt for one list or the other(s) based on description; they will be both 
making a wrong decision for the wrong reasons, likely, and will definitely be 
missing out on things of value.

OTOH it is not a problem for any of us to ignore posts in which we have no 
interest. I temporarily ignore some threads (not for lack of interest but 
rather time at the moment) but I save them for latter review. I personally 
would prefer the convenience of a single list, but the way I have my 
mailboxes set up, it doesn't really matter. Any objections I have to 
splitting the list are a result of personal philosophy and not personal 
convenience.

At any rate, my 2 cents FWIW.

Regards,

Kent Starr
[e-mail]