On Wed, 12 Jul 2006, Stephen W. wrote:
If they are, would it not serve the purpose better to send a private
message to the original poster to recruit them to the RoR mailing list?
Absolutely not. There are an awful lot of lurkers who might benefit from
public posting.
That seems suspect to me. Let me follow up on this at the end of the
email, though.
I send the message out, rather infrequently actually, specifically to threads
that are exclusively questions about RoR.
Maybe they aren’t all sent by you, but some of the folks who are told to
get packing and get over to the Rail list with their question are
definitely asking something that really has a more general potential for
discussion. It’s really felt to me for a while that the effort to get
people to use the most appropriate forum for their questions has
resulted
in some overcompensation.
I’m sorry you get tired of reading it. I get really tired of RoR questions.
And, historically, before a few of us started doing this, the RoR infestation
on this list was really bad. Today it’s quite low.
I’ve been reading the list for quite a few years. I know. However, I
question how much of the low incidence of truly inappropriate posts is
because of “go away” posts, and how much of it is attributable to better
documentation of where the appropriate resources are?
If my infrequent messages to the list do continue to bother you, please
consider adding me to your killfile.
That’s not an alternative. I don’t want to filter all of your posts.
If the blanket broadcasts are useful to new lurkers who don’t know
better,
though, might that purpose be better served by a once a month broadcast
email, with some distinctive, clear subject line that makes it easy for
those who have been around for a while, and who already know about the
RoR
mailing list, to reliably filter the message out without risking
filtering
interesting posts.
Combine that with private emails to those folks who miss the broadcast
and
all of the other information about where the appropriate forums are, and
I
think the same effect could be achieved, with no more individual effort
than there is now, and I don’t have to miss out on all Stephen W.
posts
just to avoid the take-your-question-next-door posts.
To me, it’s a win-win scenario there. 
Kirk H.