# Re-post: \[Mailing list -\> ruby-forum.com broken?\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [May 2, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261 "2006-05-02T21:25:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/21 "2006-05-03T21:29:53Z")
Eric H. wrote: > > > > This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to > > > > And I’ve seen forum replies come without context, or under a different > > > > name, or in a new thread. This makes answering them very difficult. And I’ve seen emails on the mailing list with the same problems. I don’t think cutting off that part of the Ruby community is the solution. I’m more in favor of some of the other suggestions, such as an explicit statement about how the forum is a mailing list gateway (although it _is_ on the main page, right under the forum name), maybe a posting of the newsgroup FAQ, and requiring people to create an account. Personally, I use the mailing list most of the time, but different people have different preferences. Just my opinion. -Justin ---
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 11:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/22 "2006-05-03T23:15:47Z")
Nathan O. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes: > I think I see a little class separation going on here. I’m a newbie to > Ruby. I’m not incompetent, but I do often ask question that “could be > answered with a 3 second Google search”… if I only knew what on earth > I was searching for. It may be obvious to one person, but otherworldly > to someone who’s just encountering a gotcha for the first time. > > I’ve really loved [ruby-forum.com](http://ruby-forum.com) since I started using it. People are > VERY friendly, understanding, patient, and have all the answers to all > my questions. Excellent community, excellent dialog. How about just requiring users to register before they can post to ruby-talk? AFAICS, everyone can post ahead right now. ---
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 11:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/23 "2006-05-03T23:22:04Z")
On 5/3/06, Christian N. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > my questions. Excellent community, excellent dialog. > > How about just requiring users to register before they can post to > ruby-talk? AFAICS, everyone can post ahead right now. Yep, including guests, which leads to this nonsense: [http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/63894#70349](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/63894#70349) ---
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/24 "2006-05-03T23:25:49Z")
Christian N. wrote: > How about just requiring users to register before they can post to > ruby-talk? AFAICS, everyone can post ahead right now. I like this idea. ---
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/25 "2006-05-03T23:34:39Z")
On May 3, 2006, at 1:03 PM, Nathan O. wrote: > this is cross-posted to a mailing list. > > Is it really detrimental? I don’t believe anyone gets paid to respond to ruby-talk so increase in noise makes it much more likely that mails will be ignored. > I think I see a little class separation going on here. I’m a newbie to > Ruby. I’m not incompetent, but I do often ask question that “could be > answered with a 3 second Google search”… if I only knew what on > earth > I was searching for. It may be obvious to one person, but otherworldly > to someone who’s just encountering a gotcha for the first time. Subscribing to a mailing list takes work and causes you to get mail you might otherwise not want. Posting on ruby-forum takes much less effort, you don’t need to log in and it won’t clog up your inbox. The difference between the two causes people who go the mailing list route to do a more exhaustive search. – Eric H. - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [http://blog.segment7.net](http://blog.segment7.net) This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant [http://trackmap.robotcoop.com](http://trackmap.robotcoop.com) ---
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/26 "2006-05-03T22:26:06Z")
I do not believe web based interface makes the level of discussion low. Take comp.lang.c++.modreated and comp.programming.threads as examples. Two of them are filled with discussion of detailed/professional discussion on C++ and concurrency, respectively. However, both of them are exposed to the public via [groups.google.com](http://groups.google.com). The quality of comp.lang.c++.moderated is maintained by moderators who examine all the messages and approves them only if they are not too novice questions. Sometimes, a moderator directly answer to the question via email before they filter the message. This can be done because there are many other places where novice can ask anything. Such atmosphere of them are maintained not because of the absence of web-based interface, but because of process. This is the list which is just named ruby-talk. It’s not named like ‘ruby-master’ or something like that. Not having web based interface does not guarantee the quality of discussion, I believe. Why don’t you let people access all the messages in the mailing list? Why should we have to raise the bar to newbies (which includes me) anyway? Actually, I’ve joined mailing list when I’ve found out that ruby-forum does not work (I know it runs well right now), but I found not too much difference in this list. People in comp.lang.ruby are discussing some ruby questions on APIs, bugs, how-to. Messages in this is not radically different from them. I mean, what is quality anyway? I believe it might be something too subjective. Sincerely, Minkoo S. ---
**Author:** ![justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@justincollins](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justincollins)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 5:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261/27 "2006-05-04T05:47:26Z")
Andreas S. wrote: > Funny enough, you didn’t care notifying me about the problem, as did > nobody else. The gateway would have been up again in no time. Andreas: I didn’t mean to irk you with my behaviour. Rest assured you’ll hear from me quickly if anything like this ever happens again. 😉 Christian N. wrote: > How about just requiring users to register before they can post to > ruby-talk? AFAICS, everyone can post ahead right now. Sounds good to me. * * * I’m all for keeping low-quality posts out of ruby-talk. I wouldn’t want to be in the judgement seat deciding which are good or bad, though. Personally, I would rather not see the forum mirror for ruby-talk disappear. I have always preferred forums over mailing lists and newsgroups (though my stance has softened lately with the advent of GMail which displays threads rather nicely). I’ve been on more than a few forums in my life, and the fact is (based on my experience) postings are not really bad just because they’re done on a forum versus a mailing list. There are juvenile forums, and there are top-notch forums. My opinion is that we should just keep putting in little strictures and making little adjustments until we get to some reasonable state of affairs. Requiring forum registration to post to ruby-talk would be a good start, I think. Who knows, maybe we could also have moderation for ruby-forum, to act as a bit of a pre-ruby-talk sieve. Some extra warning text about the mirror-ness might help, too. Pistos [Previous page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-post-mailing-list-ruby-forum-com-broken/59261.md?page=1)