Offtopic noise: Re: BBC iPlayer viewers now need a...

[C E Macfarlane]

Please see below ...

www.macfh.co.uk/CEMH.html

>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: get_iplayer [mailto:get_iplayer-bounces at lists.infradead.org]On
>     Behalf Of David Woodhouse
>     Sent: 16 May 2016 19:33
>     To: peter.kirk at isauk.biz; get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
>     Subject: Offtopic noise: Re: BBC iPlayer viewers now need a...
>     
>     
>     On Sat, 2016-05-14 at 00:38 +0100, Peter S Kirk wrote:
>     > 
>     > List is for GiP discussion and help ONLY.

I think there are some points that need to be made ...

The first is that no person, other than perhaps David Woodhouse who I understand maintains it, has the right to claim what this email list is for.  When you join, inevitably you are putting yourself in the way of receiving emails that you might not wish to see, as well as accepting that some of your own emails will be equally unpopular with others.  You just have to live with that.  Posting that you don't like others' posts only creates more useless noise which serves to obscure the useful signal even more.

The second is that thread drift will always occur. particularly when the first post in a thread is either unanswerable in absolute terms, or open-ended, or both.  I don't have a problem with a thread drifting somewhat OT, as long as it's not too far (and, actually, as someone who seems to have acquired something of a reputation for OT posts, in my own self-defence I will add that generally most of my emails that others consider OT are replies to others who have already gone OT - that is, I'm not aware of starting thread drift recently).

To analyse briefly the one that has been banned, it started as a technical question, which when I first read I thought: "How can anyone possibly give any sort of meaningful, informed answer at the moment?  Ask it again a year or two on!", and so initially didn't respond.  However, of course others did, and as the technical questions asked could not be answered, inevitably drift started to occur, to which I responded when I thought I had something relevant to add, even though by then the thread was already OT.

This is the sort of thing that inevitably happens.  To prevent it requires everybody, and I really do mean everybody, to be more self-disciplined than they actually are, and to hope for this seems unrealistic to me.

>     I have barred that thread, although I don't generally favour 
>     censorship
>     as a solution to anything.

Regrettable, but understandable under the circumstances.  I for one am not fussed.

>     However... it seems that this list is mostly used these days for
>     offtopic crap, and for technical queries which get referred to the
>     forums.
>     
>     Is there still a benefit to having this list at all? Would we 
>     be better
>     off shutting it down entirely?

As the variety of replies that you have already received indicate, there seems to be benefit in maintaining the list, but perhaps it would be worthwhile to think about the alternatives:

	*	Totally unmoderated 'traditional' newsgroup.
			-	Newsgroup reading software required
			-	OT posts, not to mention spam, might be even more of a problem, but ...
			+	People can't really complain about the above in a completely open system!
			+	A good newsreader can set filters to counter the above.
			+	Noone has to spend time moderating it.

	*	The current system.
			-	Someone has the unenviable task of moderating and maintaining it.
			-	Thread drift inevitably occurs, and there is even some spam.
			+	People can set email filters to counter the above.

	*	Web-based bulletin board/blogging type arrangement.
			-	Someone still has the unenviable task of moderating and maintaining it.
			-	Thread drift will still inevitably occur.
			-	Can't easily set filters against the noise.

So, if we are wondering whether to discontinue, I would suggest that migrating to a newsgroup would be a better alternative than to a web-based system.

>     Likewise the git repository on git.infradead.org — if development is
>     happening on github, there's no point in just mirroring it here, is
>     there? I was happy to provide services (and even try to learn a bit of
>     perl) when Phil Lewis bowed out, but it now seems that 
>     there's a fairly
>     capable community around it and it's not clear what benefit I continue
>     to provide...

The answers you have already received will hopefully convince you that the list provides benefit.  I think it does.