You guys have no sympathy for goodness sake! You want to dis the
gateway b/c of your unsubstantiated opinion that there is a difference
in the quality of posts from newsgroup vs. the mailing list? I’ve
looked at the newsgroup posts you are not seeing, and they are not
only few in number, they don’t seem particularly noob either. So I
think maybe you guys are over shooting the mark here, and really are
simply frustrated that you feel overwhelmed by the quantity of posts
(as is evidenced by the a desire to filter the posts).
Please consider that one of the long standing triumphs of this list
and the Ruby community is that it has never been a “RTFM” kind of
place. And I would prefer it say that way --I don’t mind answering a
nuby question now and then.
T.
On 4/19/06, TRANS [email protected] wrote:
Please consider that one of the long standing triumphs of this list
and the Ruby community is that it has never been a “RTFM” kind of
place. And I would prefer it say that way --I don’t mind answering a
nuby question now and then.
I don’t think anyone is saying comp.lang.ruby should go away. I used
it for over a year before I switched to the list. I think that the
problem is, we’ve got three principle entry points that all empty into
a single sink where if they were distinct, they would still survive
and develop their own personalities.
I don’t know about other USENET groups. Are these mail gateways
common? If they are, then maybe we’re just doing the normal thing.
If they aren’t, maybe there is a reason why they aren’t, especially
when both seem to have the critical mass necessary to co-exist
peacefully without being tied together.
However, I am much more concerned about ruby-forum than I am about
comp.lang.ruby. I think the signal to noise ratio has rapidly
dimished with this addition. However, i do think the interface is
beautiful. Maybe it could just be an archive, and replace or merge
with scat.rb ?
On 4/19/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:
With Perl, they’ve got comp.lang.perl, but there’s also Perlmonks.
Perlmonks has a system where you can rate posts (which are helpfully
displayed nested), and gain “experience points” if your posts get
rated well. They also have fastidious admins who remove trollish
postings (if any). Perlmonks is an amazingly helpful place for
Perlers. They keep that monastery clean. 
I’ve never been a Perler myself, but hearing about this makes me want
to be one (except for the language, LOL.) Would it be terrible to
create a Ruby equivalent of this? Would that result in too much
dilution of the community and maybe result in segregated communities
(experts on “Rubymonks”, the rabble on ruby-lang?) I mean if it has
worked in the Perl world…
Ryan
On 4/19/06, Gregory B. [email protected] wrote:
On 4/19/06, TRANS [email protected] wrote:
I don’t know about other USENET groups. Are these mail gateways
common? If they are, then maybe we’re just doing the normal thing.
If they aren’t, maybe there is a reason why they aren’t, especially
when both seem to have the critical mass necessary to co-exist
peacefully without being tied together.
Python does the same thing with comp.lang.python and the python-list ML.
With Perl, they’ve got comp.lang.perl, but there’s also Perlmonks.
Perlmonks has a system where you can rate posts (which are helpfully
displayed nested), and gain “experience points” if your posts get
rated well. They also have fastidious admins who remove trollish
postings (if any). Perlmonks is an amazingly helpful place for
Perlers. They keep that monastery clean.
Please consider that one of the long standing triumphs of this list
and the Ruby community is that it has never been a “RTFM” kind of
place. And I would prefer it say that way --I don’t mind answering a
nuby question now and then.
I’m a nuby and I enjoy responding to nuby questions that I can answer -
that said, there are some questions, which are almost unanswerable - ie
no context, no explanation etc. I have to say that this is more common
on the rails mailing list - which I’m almost on the verge of abandoning
because of the ridiculous number of trivial posts.
Most of the time on ruby-talk, I scan for anything by Matz, and anything
I’m either working on, or interested in (I always read ruby quiz and the
solutions), apart from that if I see something that I can answer, I’ll
reply, the rest I have to junk as I can’t read everything each day
Kev
Hi –
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Ryan L. wrote:
to be one (except for the language, LOL.) Would it be terrible to
create a Ruby equivalent of this? Would that result in too much
dilution of the community and maybe result in segregated communities
(experts on “Rubymonks”, the rabble on ruby-lang?) I mean if it has
worked in the Perl world…
I’ve always hated ranking people and creating hierarchies in online
communities (and most other contexts). I also deeply deplore the fact
that a name was chosen that denotes, without ambiguity, maleness on
the part of the participants; but that’s another issue.
My years in the Ruby community have really confirmed me in my belief
that the ranking stuff isn’t necessary. I’d see it as a digression or
step backwards, personally.
David
–
David A. Black ([email protected])
Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypowerandlight.com)
“Ruby for Rails” PDF now on sale! Ruby for Rails
Paper version coming in early May!
On 4/19/06, Ryan L. [email protected] wrote:
to be one (except for the language, LOL.) Would it be terrible to
create a Ruby equivalent of this?
I’d say the answer is “no”, it would not be terrible. Trouble is, the
perlmonks site is pretty sophisticated. You’d need a fairly powerful
web framework to put together something like perlmonks for Ruby. Dunno
if the Ruby community really has that kind of software, or even the
skills and experience necessary to tackle something like that yet…
{poke, poke, nudge, nudge }
Would that result in too much
dilution of the community and maybe result in segregated communities
(experts on “Rubymonks”, the rabble on ruby-lang?) I mean if it has
worked in the Perl world…
Ryan
I’m no expert, but I believe that in the Perl community, some folks
may have left the newsgroup and went to perlmonks because the
newsgroup can be a bit of a wild place sometimes. Maybe that’s why
they went with the name “Monastery” – to portray this feeling of
tranquility which may sometimes be contrasted by a few flaming posts
here and there on the newsgroup.
BTW, PM also benefits from having all manner of useful nodes hanging
around that are easily searchable (for example, check out their
“Tutorials” page (you will flip when you see how much useful stuff
they have there), or the “Code Catacombs” (flip again)). 
On 4/19/06, Ryan L. [email protected] wrote:
to be one (except for the language, LOL.) Would it be terrible to
create a Ruby equivalent of this? Would that result in too much
dilution of the community and maybe result in segregated communities
(experts on “Rubymonks”, the rabble on ruby-lang?) I mean if it has
worked in the Perl world…
As much as the idea is initially appealing, I find it kind of elitist.
What would be nice is if there was an archive where ruby-talk threads
can be rated, and authors given ‘experience points’ etc, but would be
a 3rd party setup, rather than something built into the system.
On 4/19/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:
I’d say the answer is “no”, it would not be terrible. Trouble is, the
perlmonks site is pretty sophisticated. You’d need a fairly powerful
web framework to put together something like perlmonks for Ruby. Dunno
if the Ruby community really has that kind of software, or even the
skills and experience necessary to tackle something like that yet…
{poke, poke, nudge, nudge }
I hope you are joking.
http://rubyforge.org/projects/nitro
http://redhanded.hobix.com/bits/campingAMicroframework.html
http://enigo.com/projects/iowa/index.html
On Apr 19, 2006, at 11:02 PM, Gregory B. wrote:
can be rated, and authors given ‘experience points’ etc, but would be
a 3rd party setup, rather than something built into the system.
I’m not really a perler either but I have browsed perlmonks
occasionally. I don’t get the impression that they are particularly
elitist, many of the questions posted to the front page are often
“nuby” type ones, and just like on the ruby-talk ML they often
generate esoteric discussions among the answers 
Gregory B. wrote:
…
I just think that if ranking is to be done at all, it should be by an
independant third party. When it’s incorporated into the system, it
becomes more about ‘leveling up’ than it is about the topics for
enough people to make it a bit unpleasant.
What might be handy is some metadata. Not simple ranking (which, as
D.A.B. pointed out, can get real sour), but indications of, say, level
of complexity, completeness, relative “freshness”, whatever.
(One can sort of do this now by bookmarking and tagging Web-archived
mailing list messages on del.icio.us, if people feel adventurous.)
There is great value in informed collaborative filtering; I’d be more
inclined to read a thread if I knew, for example, that this or that
person marked it as interesting, but it may be tricky to keep this from
degrading into random chatter without some annoying amount of
administrative intervention.
–
James B.
http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
Ruby Code & Style - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://refreshingcities.org - Design, technology, usability
On 4/19/06, Logan C. [email protected] wrote:
generate esoteric discussions among the answers
I just think that if ranking is to be done at all, it should be by an
independant third party. When it’s incorporated into the system, it
becomes more about ‘leveling up’ than it is about the topics for
enough people to make it a bit unpleasant.
I used to really enjoy perlmonks when I was big into perl, btw, but
it’s not as nice as I’ve found this list to be.