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Debian Users list - signal to noise... is this normal?
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Tanstaafl
Jan 18, 2014, 9:40:01 AM1/18/14
to
Hi all,
If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans I'm
a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related list that
doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and on and on ad
nauseum?
If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
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If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans I'm
a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related list that
doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and on and on ad
nauseum?
If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
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Bob Proulx
Jan 18, 2014, 9:00:02 PM1/18/14
to
Tanstaafl wrote:
> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> I'm a machine') is typical of this list,
It varies from season to season. Although often it feels like the
> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> I'm a machine') is typical of this list,
September That Never Ended. There are more than 2,000 plus
subscribers to debian-user. Imagine if it were a physical town hall
style meeting with that many people in one location. How many of
those meetings in real life remain on topic and with a high signal to
noise ratio? Very few of the ones I have actually attended. Everyone
wants to talk about the issues that are important to them and everyone
has a different set of issues.
Imagine again if every one of those people could speak without any
limitation. Or rather the only limitation is each person's own
discipline. That is basically what we have here. A small number of
participants without discipline. In many ways it is a problem due to
its own success that it is so popular and there are so many
participants. That we only have a few problems is actually pretty
good given the large number of subscribers.
> is there a debian related list that doesn't allow such crap to go on
> and on and on and on and on and on ad nauseum?
list. And then with the volume of mail it would be overwhelming to
most moderators. It would definitely require a team. And to set this
up would require a large change in culture. From a completley free
spirited one to one that required proctoring. Cultural changes come
hard.
Personally I find it interesting that one of the biggest off-topic
posters often complains that another mailing list for another distro
became moderated. But given the actions I think many of us would vote
for that moderation here to control the off-topic postings.
> If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
> support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
execution of a killfile is complicated and difficult. You really want
to kill an entire thread. Because when the trolling is particularly
successful many people post into these long running threads. Even I
am not without fault. It really should be integrated into the mail
reader so that you could kill by a combination of posters and subjects
and that would be persistent across days as new messages arrive.
My personal technique is to keep all of the messages specifically so
that I can recognize one of those threads and then quickly mark the
entire thread including subject changes as read (C-r in mutt) and move
on. If I deleted messages it would break the threads and I would have
to wade through all of the broken off sub-threads individually.
In the most recent long running off topic thread there were 87
messages posted by 29 different addresses. Trying to killfile to
reduce the noise there would require a large number of addresses some
of which usually post reasonable stuff most of the time.
Really this needs better mailer support. Something like a scoring
system where one could score good quality posters higher and reduce
the noise from low quality posters. (Of course gnus comes to mind
since it has scoring. I am not currently using it but perhaps I
should try it again.)
I will mention the wiki page of mailing list posting rules. Maybe a
few will read it.
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMailingLists#Posting_Rules.2C_Guidelines.2C_and_Tips
Good luck! If you come up with a magic recipe please share it with
the rest of us.
Bob
Bob Bernstein
Jan 18, 2014, 10:00:02 PM1/18/14
to
Dear Sir,
I would like to protest in the strongest possible terms your
representation of officers of the British Army. It is simply shameful.
And also the traffic on this email list. Can't something be done
about it? Think about the children!
...oh...sorry...this isn't Monty Python, is it?
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Артур Истомин
Jan 19, 2014, 1:00:01 AM1/19/14
to
On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 09:31:21AM -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> I'm a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related
> list that doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and
> on and on ad nauseum?
>
> If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
> support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
It is normal. I think you do not understand the sense and mechanics of
> Hi all,
>
> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> I'm a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related
> list that doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and
> on and on ad nauseum?
>
> If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
> support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
open source community. So I think you need immediately reinstall
Microsoft Windows 7 or 8 on your computer and those bastards will no
longer get you.
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Florent Peterschmitt
Jan 19, 2014, 3:40:02 AM1/19/14
to
Le 19/01/2014 06:43, Артур Истомин a écrit :
> On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 09:31:21AM -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
>> I'm a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related
>> list that doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and
>> on and on ad nauseum?
>>
>> If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
>> support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
>
> It is normal. I think you do not understand the sense and mechanics of
> open source community. So I think you need immediately reinstall
> Microsoft Windows 7 or 8 on your computer and those bastards will no
> longer get you.
More than the open source community, the popularity of a project is for
> On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 09:31:21AM -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
>> I'm a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related
>> list that doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and
>> on and on ad nauseum?
>>
>> If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
>> support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
>
> It is normal. I think you do not understand the sense and mechanics of
> open source community. So I think you need immediately reinstall
> Microsoft Windows 7 or 8 on your computer and those bastards will no
> longer get you.
something (can we say that?) about this noise…
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Tanstaafl
Jan 19, 2014, 9:00:02 AM1/19/14
to
On 2014-01-18 8:53 PM, Bob Proulx <b...@proulx.com> wrote:
> Imagine again if every one of those people could speak without any
> limitation. Or rather the only limitation is each person's own
> discipline. That is basically what we have here. A small number of
> participants without discipline.
And therein lies the problem.
> Imagine again if every one of those people could speak without any
> limitation. Or rather the only limitation is each person's own
> discipline. That is basically what we have here. A small number of
> participants without discipline.
A well organized town hall meeting with thousands of participants can
still be kept on topic as long as they have rules (Roberts Rules of
Order), and someone to enforce them.
Obviously it is the enforcement that is key.
If the debian-users list had moderators that actually cared, and were
willing to discipline the repeat offenders (after some warnings of
course, not looking for tyranny), then this problem could easily be
resolved.
The postfix list is a perfect example. Wietse/Victor wouldn't put up
with this crap for a second.
Anyway, it isn't that big a deal...
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John Hasler
Jan 19, 2014, 9:20:02 AM1/19/14
to
Tanstaafl writes:
> Obviously it is the enforcement that is key.
Killfiles are the key. Use a modern MUA and you can easily arrange not
> Obviously it is the enforcement that is key.
to see anything you wish to avoid.
> If the debian-users list had moderators that actually cared,
> not looking for tyranny
"Enforcement" -> tyranny
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Tanstaafl
Jan 19, 2014, 10:00:01 AM1/19/14
to
On 2014-01-19 9:17 AM, John Hasler <jha...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Tanstaafl writes:
>> Obviously it is the enforcement that is key.
> Killfiles are the key. Use a modern MUA and you can easily arrange not
> to see anything you wish to avoid.
Which means you easily miss valuable information provided by the same
> Tanstaafl writes:
>> Obviously it is the enforcement that is key.
> Killfiles are the key. Use a modern MUA and you can easily arrange not
> to see anything you wish to avoid.
people who consistently engage in ridiculous OT nonsense.
>> If the debian-users list had moderators that actually cared,
> This list has no moderators. Period. Nor does it need any.
>> not looking for tyranny
> "Enforcement" -> tyranny
'Mad Max' world...
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John Hasler
Jan 19, 2014, 11:00:02 AM1/19/14
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Tanstaafl writes:
> Which means you easily miss valuable information provided by the same
> people who consistently engage in ridiculous OT nonsense.
A decent MUA allows you to killfile (score down, actually) subjects,
> Which means you easily miss valuable information provided by the same
> people who consistently engage in ridiculous OT nonsense.
threads, or keywords. It also lets you score up (or down) selected
authors. Thus I will no longer need to see anything you post.
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Brian
Jan 19, 2014, 2:50:01 PM1/19/14
to
On Sat 18 Jan 2014 at 09:31:21 -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> I'm a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related
> list that doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and
> on and on ad nauseum?
It is not frequent but it does occur. The 'sad but true Linux sucks'
> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> I'm a machine') is typical of this list, is there a debian related
> list that doesn't allow such crap to go on and on and on and on and
> on and on ad nauseum?
thread was kicked off by Jarth Berilcosm. It obviously had nothing
to do with Debian; he knew (or suspected) that but, hey, he had time on
his hands and, who knows, there are always fish who will bite. Nobody
should have bit but human nature being what it is ...
So the first one swam along .... Then the next ..... Meanwhile Jarth
Berilcosm had disappeared into the watery blue yonder, never to be seen
again. Maybe he had a guilty conscience or, having gained himself a big
audience, he got stage fright. Or he was upset or disgusted by some of
the responses. After all, who wants to communicate with someone who says
"I couldn't help myself" and have to guide them through the nicities of
self-control or public interaction?
It happens; you live through it. You don't need a moderator as a crutch.
> If it is typical, and there is no other option for list based debian
> support, I guess its time to start building another kill file.
should have and whether your file promotes it.
And dwell on what you will do when the next Jarth Berilcosm comes along.
They are easy to recognise (think of phishing) and easy to ignore.
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Zenaan Harkness
Jan 19, 2014, 7:00:02 PM1/19/14
to
On 1/20/14, Brian <ad...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat 18 Jan 2014 at 09:31:21 -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
>
>> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> On Sat 18 Jan 2014 at 09:31:21 -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
>
>> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
> It is not frequent but it does occur.
> It happens; you live through it. You don't need a moderator as a crutch.
> Build your kill file if you must. Then think about what ethos -user
> should have and whether your file promotes it.
>
> And dwell on what you will do when the next Jarth Berilcosm comes along.
> They are easy to recognise (think of phishing) and easy to ignore.
OMG, sanity! Thank you Brian (and others similarly).
> should have and whether your file promotes it.
>
> And dwell on what you will do when the next Jarth Berilcosm comes along.
> They are easy to recognise (think of phishing) and easy to ignore.
(... when I was young, we didn't even have kill-files
... this one time, there was, like, this mailing thread
... ok, ok, I go home now :)
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Paul E Condon
Jan 22, 2014, 1:30:02 AM1/22/14
to
On 20140120_105413, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> On 1/20/14, Brian <ad...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Sat 18 Jan 2014 at 09:31:21 -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
> >
> >> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
>
> > It is not frequent but it does occur.
>
> > It happens; you live through it. You don't need a moderator as a crutch.
>
> > Build your kill file if you must. Then think about what ethos -user
> > should have and whether your file promotes it.
> >
> > And dwell on what you will do when the next Jarth Berilcosm comes along.
> > They are easy to recognise (think of phishing) and easy to ignore.
>
> OMG, sanity! Thank you Brian (and others similarly).
>
> (... when I was young, we didn't even have kill-files
> ... this one time, there was, like, this mailing thread
> ... ok, ok, I go home now :)
This was/is not at all normal. The list has tended to swing into OT crazyness
> On 1/20/14, Brian <ad...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Sat 18 Jan 2014 at 09:31:21 -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
> >
> >> If this garbage OT crap ('sad but true Linux sucks', and 'Hey Humans
>
> > It is not frequent but it does occur.
>
> > It happens; you live through it. You don't need a moderator as a crutch.
>
> > Build your kill file if you must. Then think about what ethos -user
> > should have and whether your file promotes it.
> >
> > And dwell on what you will do when the next Jarth Berilcosm comes along.
> > They are easy to recognise (think of phishing) and easy to ignore.
>
> OMG, sanity! Thank you Brian (and others similarly).
>
> (... when I was young, we didn't even have kill-files
> ... this one time, there was, like, this mailing thread
> ... ok, ok, I go home now :)
during the pre-release freeze. When this started, I thought, for a while,
that the freeze had been announced, but that is still many moons in the
future.
Oh, well. The world turns....
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