Re: Newsgroup for Caml?

[Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp>]

From: Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr>

> The fact that there is so little discussion of Caml on comp.lang.ml,
> and actually so little discussion at all on comp.lang.ml, simply means
> that few persons want to have Caml-related discussions on the News.
> This is not a contradiction with the relatively high traffic on the
> Caml list: mailing lists and newsgroups have different profiles, both
> in terms of who posts where, and in terms of the kind of discussions
> that take place.

I am personally an adept of newgroups (at least as reader), but for
various reasons, amongst which the fact almost all postings seem to be
SML related, I generally refrain to post on comp.lang.ml, except for
software announcements.
I'm not even sure all ocaml announcement were there.

> I'm conscious the volume on the Caml list is a bit too high for some
> tastes.  A solution we've considered and almost implemented is to have
> two extra mailing lists:
> 
> - a "digest" version of the Caml list, with e.g. one big message per week
>   (for "silent lurkers" who'd like to follow the discussions, but don't
>    post often, and don't want their mailbox flooded);
>
> - an "announce" list reserved for announcing releases, new software,
>   and major events, i.e. with very low traffic
>   (for those who don't want to follow the discussions).
> 
> I believe this would work much better than going through the News.

If we keep all of the current caml-list in the digest, I'm afraid it
will be rather indigest.
What about splitting it in 2 or 3:
  * caml-list, and an optional caml-announce for moderated discussions
    and announces
  * caml-users for free questions and unmoderated discussion.
In a transition phase, the moderator could choose to repost things to
caml-announce and caml-users when he thinks that this fits there.

Having several lists, with a good web interface (the current one seems
buggy, and does not support presenting results in pages), and
automatized registration procedure, may indeed be an alternative to a
newsgroup.

I feel it much easier to casually go and see what is happening on a
newsgroup, rather than register and unregister from a mailing-list,
but the web interface can somehow play this role for casual readers.
Even better if it would remember which messages you have read and
which you didn't (cookie specialists around ?).

        Jacques

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Jacques Garrigue      Kyoto University     garrigue at kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp
		<A HREF=http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~garrigue/>JG</A>