Andy Smith wrote: > Hello, > > On Sun, Aug 08, 2021 at 11:35:15AM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > > any ideas on how to make the situation better? > > To be honest I don't think that mailing lists are a very good venue > for user support and I would these days prefer to direct people to a > Stack Overflow-like site. The chief advantages of such sites are > that posted problems are narrowed down to contain the required > information, and answers are ranked so as to make poor answers (and > ultimately, disruptive posters) disappear. Ask Ubuntu. I think, > works well. > > There have been a few attempts to set up such sites for Debian, so > that people could be directed to a site running on DFSG-free > software instead of proprietary platforms like Stack Overflow. Sadly > each of these efforts have foundered through lack of use.
If you particularly want to do this, CoDidact is a non-profit developing and running a GNU Affero-licensed codebase for this sort of thing. I know one of the founders, if you'd like an introduction. https://codidact.org/ > I don't see the lack of use as an indictment of their effectiveness; > rather I think it's just because it's too hard to change the status > quo without significant work. My opinion is that forum and Q/A-style systems are fundamentally inferior to mailing lists for experts and advanced users, while being friendlier to beginners. > advertising on Debian's web site. The announcement threads on the > mailing lists then got dominated by arguments from the same small > group of people loudly and repeatedly arguing how they would never > use or support such a thing. That's fine, but without a way to The loud ones are partially the rude ones, but also all the people who have been through this cycle several times and have decided that there is nothing wrong with having mailing lists for people who can deal with mailing lists. > this for nuggets of on-topic wisdom and even when a post is > on-topic, a newcomer often doesn't have the base knowledge to > distinguish good answers from bad. I find it hard to justify > subjecting someone to that. This doesn't go away on forum or Q/A sites. Often the top-voted answer is wrong or suboptimal or was correct ten years ago when it was first asked but is incorrect now. > If we have to continue using a mailing list for user support then my > best suggestion would be to severely tighten up the on-topic > requirements so that every post must be about use of Debian, and > giving time-outs to posters who repeatedly can't stick to this. This is reasonable. It is, however, a change in moderation that will require a lot more work from volunteers. -dsr-
