Re: A maze of twisty mailing lists all the same

I've often said in the past that we have too many mailing lists with
overlapping and vague charters. I submit the following thread as
evidence that this causes real problems.

http://archives.postgresql.org/message-id/g2o4b46b5f01004010610ib8625426uae6ee90ac1435ba1@mail.gmail.com

Because the poster chose to send it to pgsql-admin instead of
pgsql-general (or pgsql-bugs) very few of the usual suspects had a
chance to see it. 7 days later a question about a rather serious
database corruption problem had no responses. I've never understand
what the point of pgsql-admin is; just about every question posted is
an "admin" question of some sort.

Likewise I don't think we should have pgsql-performance or pgsql-sql
or pgsql-novice -- any thread appropriate for any of these would be
better served by sending it to pgsql-general anyways (with the
exception of pgsql-performance which has a weird combination of hacker
threads and user performance tuning threads). Sending threads to
pgsql-general would get more eyes on them and would avoid a lot of the
cross-posting headaches. What would someone subscribed to one of these
lists but not pgsql-general get anyways but some random sample of
threads that might be vaguely performance or admin related. They would
still miss most of the administration and performance questions and
discussions which happen on -general and -hackers as appropriate.

--
greg

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 1:11 AM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
>
> Likewise I don't think we should have pgsql-performance or pgsql-sql
> or pgsql-novice -- any thread appropriate for any of these would be
> better served by sending it to pgsql-general anyways (with the

+1

--
Atentamente,
Jaime Casanova
Soporte y capacitación de PostgreSQL
Asesoría y desarrollo de sistemas
Guayaquil - Ecuador
Cel. +59387171157

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
> Because the poster chose to send it to pgsql-admin instead of
> pgsql-general (or pgsql-bugs) very few of the usual suspects had a
> chance to see it. 7 days later a question about a rather serious
> database corruption problem had no responses. I've never understand
> what the point of pgsql-admin is;  just about every question posted is
> an "admin" question of some sort.

I can't argue with that... but a counter argument is that merging
lists would significantly increase the traffic on -general would may
not be appreciated by the many people that are only subscribed to one
or two of the affected lists. I would wager that the majority of
people aren't subscribed to more than a small number of the available
lists.

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 8:46 AM, Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:

> I can't argue with that... but a counter argument is ...

Yes, I know. Clearly it's coffee time :-p

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
>> Because the poster chose to send it to pgsql-admin instead of
>> pgsql-general (or pgsql-bugs) very few of the usual suspects had a
>> chance to see it. 7 days later a question about a rather serious
>> database corruption problem had no responses. I've never understand
>> what the point of pgsql-admin is;  just about every question posted is
>> an "admin" question of some sort.
>
> I can't argue with that... but a counter argument is that merging
> lists would significantly increase the traffic on -general would may
> not be appreciated by the many people that are only subscribed to one
> or two of the affected lists. I would wager that the majority of
> people aren't subscribed to more than a small number of the available
> lists.

That's actually something we can easily find out, if we can get a list
of the subscribers emails into a Real Database. I know this bunch of
database geeks who write strange "ess-cue-ell kweriis", or whatever
they call it, to make such analysis...

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 3:46 AM, Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
>> Because the poster chose to send it to pgsql-admin instead of
>> pgsql-general (or pgsql-bugs) very few of the usual suspects had a
>> chance to see it. 7 days later a question about a rather serious
>> database corruption problem had no responses. I've never understand
>> what the point of pgsql-admin is;  just about every question posted is
>> an "admin" question of some sort.
>
> I can't argue with that... but a counter argument is that merging
> lists would significantly increase the traffic on -general would may
> not be appreciated by the many people that are only subscribed to one
> or two of the affected lists. I would wager that the majority of
> people aren't subscribed to more than a small number of the available
> lists.

Yeah. I read -performance, -hackers, -bugs, but not -sql, -admin,
-general. Consolidating multiple mailing lists to increase viewership
of certain messages is only going to work if everyone who now follows
each of the smaller mailing lists does an equally good job following
the bigger one. That doesn't seem like a safe assumption.

I might be able to buy an argument that -admin is too fuzzy to be
readily distinguishable, although I don't really know since I don't
read it. But -performance seems to have a fairly well-defined charter
and it's a subset of messages I enjoy reading. Of course if some
performance questions get posted elsewhere, yeah, I'll miss them, but
oh well: reading every message on every topic hasn't seemed like a
good way to address that problem.

...Robert

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
>> Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:

>>> Because the poster chose to send it to pgsql-admin instead of
>>> pgsql-general (or pgsql-bugs) very few of the usual suspects had
>>> a chance to see it. 7 days later a question about a rather
>>> serious database corruption problem had no responses.

I do monitor that list, and try to respond to those issues I can,
but had no clue what that message was about -- so I left it for
someone else to take up. I often see Tom responding to posts on
that list, so I kinda figure anything serious (or where I get it
wrong) will be addressed by him, but this thread makes me wonder
whether we should advise people not to post there when there is any
indication of possible corruption or bugs.

>>> I've never understand what the point of pgsql-admin is; just
>>> about every question posted is an "admin" question of some sort.

I think you just answered your own question. I've considered it to
be a list for DBAs (or those filling that role, regardless of title)
to discuss administrative and operational issues and "best
practices". That seems useful to me.

>> a counter argument is that merging lists would significantly
>> increase the traffic on -general would may not be appreciated by
>> the many people that are only subscribed to one or two of the
>> affected lists. I would wager that the majority of people aren't
>> subscribed to more than a small number of the available lists.
>
> Yeah. I read -performance, -hackers, -bugs, but not -sql, -admin,
> -general.

My set is different, but the principle is the same -- I can't find
the time to read all messages to all lists (really, I've tried), so
I limit by list to try to target the issues of most interest to me.

> Consolidating multiple mailing lists to increase viewership of
> certain messages is only going to work if everyone who now follows
> each of the smaller mailing lists does an equally good job
> following the bigger one. That doesn't seem like a safe
> assumption.

Agreed.

Perhaps further clarifying the charters of the various lists would
help, but folding too much into any one list is likely to reduce the
number of readers or cause "spotty" attention. (When I was
attempting to follow all the lists, I'd typically give up when I
fell about 6000 messages behind, and try to start up again "cold"
after having missed a big interval of messages.)

-Kevin

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> Perhaps further clarifying the charters of the various lists would
> help, but folding too much into any one list is likely to reduce the
> number of readers or cause "spotty" attention. (When I was
> attempting to follow all the lists, I'd typically give up when I
> fell about 6000 messages behind, and try to start up again "cold"
> after having missed a big interval of messages.)

I don't quite agree with this, because -general is *already* at the level
where it takes a significant chunk of daily time to keep up with it.
All the other mergeable lists pale in comparison to its volume.
I stopped trying to read lists completely a time ago, and merely read
subject lines at this point, diving into ones that seem interesting
or important.

Merging the smaller lists that have a huge overlap of topics with -general
already would thus be a win, as there would be a larger audience to
reply to, and less lists to administer and have people keep track of.
It would also reduce the confusion of "which list should I post this to?"

I think -admin should absolutely be folded in, -sql really should as well,
and slightly less so -performance and -interfaces.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
End Point Corporation http://www.endpoint.com/
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201004081214
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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On 4/7/10 10:11 PM, Greg Stark wrote:
> Likewise I don't think we should have pgsql-performance or pgsql-sql
> or pgsql-novice -- any thread appropriate for any of these would be
> better served by sending it to pgsql-general anyways (with the
> exception of pgsql-performance which has a weird combination of hacker
> threads and user performance tuning threads). Sending threads to
> pgsql-general would get more eyes on them and would avoid a lot of the
> cross-posting headaches. What would someone subscribed to one of these
> lists but not pgsql-general get anyways but some random sample of
> threads that might be vaguely performance or admin related. They would
> still miss most of the administration and performance questions and
> discussions which happen on -general and -hackers as appropriate.

(1) Regarding -sql and -performance, I couldn't disagree more. I agree
that the charter of -admin is extremely vague.

(2) This is *definitely* the wrong list for this discussion; it should
be on -www.

And, no, #2 was not meant to be ironic, even if it is.

--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Kevin Grittner
<Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov> wrote:
> My set is different, but the principle is the same -- I can't find
> the time to read all messages to all lists (really, I've tried), so
> I limit by list to try to target the issues of most interest to me.

But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages. You're
still missing most of the admin or sql or performance related threads
since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those three categories cover
pretty much all of -general.

--
greg

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Kevin Grittner
> <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov> wrote:
>> My set is different, but the principle is the same -- I can't find
>> the time to read all messages to all lists (really, I've tried), so
>> I limit by list to try to target the issues of most interest to me.
>
> But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages. You're
> still missing most of the admin or sql or performance related threads
> since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those three categories cover
> pretty much all of -general.

Maybe we should remove -general. :-)

...Robert

Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:

> But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages.
> You're still missing most of the admin or sql or performance
> related threads since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those
> three categories cover pretty much all of -general.

Perhaps -general should be eliminated in favor of more specific
lists?

-Kevin

+1 for the idea, and +1 for the Zork reference. Hello sailor.

On 4/8/2010 1:11 AM Greg Stark wrote:
> I've often said in the past that we have too many mailing lists with
> overlapping and vague charters. I submit the following thread as
> evidence that this causes real problems.
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org/message-id/g2o4b46b5f01004010610ib8625426uae6ee90ac1435ba1@mail.gmail.com
>
> Because the poster chose to send it to pgsql-admin instead of
> pgsql-general (or pgsql-bugs) very few of the usual suspects had a
> chance to see it. 7 days later a question about a rather serious
> database corruption problem had no responses. I've never understand
> what the point of pgsql-admin is; just about every question posted is
> an "admin" question of some sort.
>
> Likewise I don't think we should have pgsql-performance or pgsql-sql
> or pgsql-novice -- any thread appropriate for any of these would be
> better served by sending it to pgsql-general anyways (with the
> exception of pgsql-performance which has a weird combination of hacker
> threads and user performance tuning threads). Sending threads to
> pgsql-general would get more eyes on them and would avoid a lot of the
> cross-posting headaches. What would someone subscribed to one of these
> lists but not pgsql-general get anyways but some random sample of
> threads that might be vaguely performance or admin related. They would
> still miss most of the administration and performance questions and
> discussions which happen on -general and -hackers as appropriate.
>

Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:

> But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages.
> You're still missing most of the admin or sql or performance
> related threads since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those
> three categories cover pretty much all of -general.

Well, one of these more specific lists must be getting over half of
the message relevant to the title, unless things are freakishly
evenly divided. Message counts in the last 30 days:

143 -novice
199 -sql
321 -admin
436 -performance
----
1099 *subtotal*
----
1102 -general
----
2201 **total**
====

-Kevin

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Kevin Grittner
>> <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov> wrote:
>>> My set is different, but the principle is the same -- I can't find
>>> the time to read all messages to all lists (really, I've tried), so
>>> I limit by list to try to target the issues of most interest to me.
>>
>> But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages. You're
>> still missing most of the admin or sql or performance related threads
>> since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those three categories cover
>> pretty much all of -general.
>
> Maybe we should remove -general.  :-)
>
>

if we want specific topics, then remove -general, -novice, -admin

--
Atentamente,
Jaime Casanova
Soporte y capacitación de PostgreSQL
Asesoría y desarrollo de sistemas
Guayaquil - Ecuador
Cel. +59387171157

On Thu, 2010-04-08 at 15:06 -0400, Jaime Casanova wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
> >> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Kevin Grittner
> >> <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov> wrote:
> >>> My set is different, but the principle is the same -- I can't find
> >>> the time to read all messages to all lists (really, I've tried), so
> >>> I limit by list to try to target the issues of most interest to me.
> >>
> >> But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages. You're
> >> still missing most of the admin or sql or performance related threads
> >> since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those three categories cover
> >> pretty much all of -general.
> >
> > Maybe we should remove -general. :-)
> >
> >
>
> if we want specific topics, then remove -general, -novice, -admin

This will likely never fly, see the archives.

Joshua D. Drake

>
> --
> Atentamente,
> Jaime Casanova
> Soporte y capacitación de PostgreSQL
> Asesoría y desarrollo de sistemas
> Guayaquil - Ecuador
> Cel. +59387171157
>

--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 503.667.4564
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering
Respect is earned, not gained through arbitrary and repetitive use or Mr. or Sir.

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-04-08 at 15:06 -0400, Jaime Casanova wrote:
>> >
>>
>> if we want specific topics, then remove -general, -novice, -admin
>
> This will likely never fly, see the archives.
>

well, -novice shuold be easy... actually it has no reason to exist.
after all what are the rules? you should subscribe here first 6 month
you use postgres or until you make a course?

--
Atentamente,
Jaime Casanova
Soporte y capacitación de PostgreSQL
Asesoría y desarrollo de sistemas
Guayaquil - Ecuador
Cel. +59387171157

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 7:58 PM, Ned Lilly <ned(at)nedscape(dot)com> wrote:
> +1 for the idea, and +1 for the Zork reference.  Hello sailor.

fwiw it's older than Zork. It comes from Adventure
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure)

--
greg

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 20:35, Kevin Grittner
<Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov> wrote:
> Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
>
>> But all it means is you get a random subset of the messages.
>> You're still missing most of the admin or sql or performance
>> related threads since they're mostly on -general anyways. Those
>> three categories cover pretty much all of -general.
>
> Perhaps -general should be eliminated in favor of more specific
> lists?

That sounds like a great way to make things harder for newbies and outsiders.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/