Date: Wed, 26 Apr 1995 00:35:16 +0100 (BST) From: Paul Richards <paul@isl.cf.ac.uk> To: FreeBSD-hackers@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD hackers mailing list) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Proposed gateways. Message-ID: <199504252335.AAA13570@isl.cf.ac.uk>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
This is the current state of the gateway plans. We have a full two way gateway between questions and usenet. We have a *ONE-WAY* gateway from hackers into usenet with a note stating that the FreeBSD developers are doing this as a service to the usenet community so that people can see what we're up to but that to actually participate in those discussions they should subscscribe to the mailing lists, the pointer would be to majordomo@freebsd.org rather than to hackers itself. The new mentor/newbie scheme would use help@freebsd.org for newbies to ask questions to and a mentors@freebsd.org for the mentors to sign up to. Ok, the reasons: We need a higher profile on usenet, questions will basically be sacrificed for this purpose, If people feel that questions becomes too much for them then it's up to them whether they stick with it. In fact, discussion has suggested that many people have already made this decision and unsubscribed so those of us left probably don't mind the load :-) Hackers will be our main, general discussion list. We want usenet to see these discussions, so we gateway to usenet, but we don't want that list to get spammed and we don't want all the religious wars and general crap you get on usenet finding it's way back onto it. We provide a hint of how to actually join the list by referring to our majordomo address. We do this much anyway. If we get some problem subscribers joining because they've seen the usenet discussion then we have control over their subscription and we can toss them out very easily if they're any trouble. The newbie/mentor mechanism should not be visible to anyone who doesn't want anything to do with it so we'll create a completely separate set of lists for it. The mentor list would be controlled by Gary and basically if you want to join the scheme as a mentor you send mail to mentors to sign up. We can probably use mentors for general discussion of the scheme too (amongst the mentors and people running the scheme that is). The help@freebsd.org list will be widely advertised as the place to, well, request help from. We'll work out the details but this will be an automated queue where requests for help are assigned to mentors. All further requests for help from a particular newbie will then get re-directed to the assigned mentor, these discussions will be private between the mentor and the newbie, they won't be visible to the rest of the list. They will be archived though so we can track what the problem areas are in our user support. There'll also be mechanisms for mentors to drop newbies and vise-versa. Ok, that sort of sums up what's been discussed over the last few days with the current proposals as discussed on -core. Now to the rub, we have to take a vote on questions and hackers to accept the usenet gateway proposals before we implement it. I'll handle this. To make it simple for me send a single, separate, mail message, for each list you're on (you have to actually be on the list), stating whether you are for or against the proposal for that list. Stick the answer in the subject so I don't even have to read the thing. Something like, "questions - YES" etc. I can just dump them into appropriate folders that way and count them up pretty easily. I'll run this for about a week and then post the results. This isn't anything too formal so don't go asking for the rules :-) We're just trying to gauge opinion for each list before we go ahead and do it. Ohh, one last point. There's no decision been made as to which newsgroups we gateway to. I only seem to have misc and announce at this site for FreeBSD, what new groups actually got created? -- Paul Richards, FreeBSD core team member. Internet: paul@FreeBSD.org, URL: http://isl.cf.ac.uk/~paul/ Phone: +44 1222 874000 x6646 (work), +44 1222 457651 (home) Dept. Mechanical Engineering, University of Wales, College Cardiff.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199504252335.AAA13570>