From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id UAA15370 for caml-red; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 20:30:59 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA09988 for ; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 10:33:15 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from kurims.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp (kurims.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp [130.54.16.1]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e5G8XCr13142; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 10:33:13 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from localhost (sansho.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp [130.54.16.90]) by kurims.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp (8.9.3/3.7W) with ESMTP id RAA12195; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 17:33:10 +0900 (JST) To: Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: Newsgroup for Caml? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 Jun 2000 15:47:26 +0200" <20000615154726.32662@pauillac.inria.fr> References: <20000615154726.32662@pauillac.inria.fr> X-Mailer: Mew version 1.93 on Emacs 20.5 / Mule 4.0 (HANANOEN) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <20000616173258O.garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp> Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 17:32:58 +0900 From: Jacques Garrigue X-Dispatcher: imput version 980905(IM100) Sender: weis@pauillac.inria.fr From: Xavier Leroy > 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacques Garrigue Kyoto University garrigue at kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp JG