[clug] An alternate place for longer, meandering threads?

[Daniel Pittman]

Alex Satrapa <alexsatrapa at mac.com> writes:
> On 15/09/2009, at 08:58 , Conrad Canterford wrote:
>
>> ... However, when the list suddenly grows to being nearly 50% of my daily
>> viewable email traffic (spam filters are a wonderful thing), almost
>> entirely in one thread which very quickly broke down into two camps and
>> just went in circles ...
>
> I wonder if people commenting on social aspects could be disciplined enough
> to insert [social] into the subject?

I would put money on "no", because people never remember to do things like
that consistently.[1]  OTOH, if it was the popular choice it wouldn't be hard
for light-weight social pressure to remind people to tag messages that way.


> Thus if you want to talk about something kinda related to Linux that is more
> of social nature, just insert [social] into the subject.

As I understand it, sufficiently recent mailman can even tag messages based on
category, which I /think/ they implement based on more or less that specific
tag.

At which point users can even have the software pre-filter it for them so they
social tagged emails never hit their INBOX at all.


> If you are replying to a thread about Project Y and want to comment about
> how Project Y has a higher proportion of women/footballers/motorheads/
> other-non-stereotypical-linux-geek-population, just stick "[social]" into
> the subject.

This is the most likely place to run into trouble, because there isn't a hard
line that can be drawn between "social" and "not-social" issues.

Not to mention that my eyebrow goes up at the idea that FOSS participation is
a social, rather than, say, political, or sociological, issue.  Social, to me,
speaks of getting together for drinks, not trying to address hard problems in
fuzzy human-logic. ;)

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  For people read "me", at least. ;)

-- 
✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel at rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155 707
               ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons
   Looking for work?  Love Perl?  In Melbourne, Australia?  We are hiring.