[Zope-dev] mailing list 'noise'

[Rik Hoekstra]

Karl Anderson wrote:
> 
> Ken Manheimer <klm@digicool.com> writes:
> 
> > > > I dont see this as a problem: You only create a new list when the
> > > > traffic for that proposal gets too great for zope-dev. Threading is
> > > > good enough before that point.
> > >
> > > Yes, but zope-dev has a relatively high traffic load... Why should you
> > > have to put up with all that 'noise' if you're only interested in posts
> > > for your comparatively small discussion?
> >
> > Yeah - maillists flow by, and not everyone can follow all the traffic all
> > the time!! The cool thing about "content-based" mailling lists, where
> > people can subscribe to notifications about changes in subthreads, is that
> > you just subscribe to the part of the discussion that has your interests!!
> 
> I haven't understood this gripe ever since I started reading mail with
> Gnus.  Before anyone groans, I'm not sure that Gnus is ready for
> general use by anyone who doesn't want to learn elisp - but surely
> there's anther reader with these features?


most have features a bit/lot/sufficiently like this. They (apparently)
do not work for everyone. Moreover,not everyone works the same way. 

> 
> The point that I'm trying to make is that a mailing list has all the
> strucure needed to keep abreast of an important thread.  I don't think
> it's perfect when you can't afford to miss a single important article,
> but it works great for general lists.

as long as you can follow it. But for prolonged and diverging
discussions? Not quite IMO/Experience. Or for discussions that you fall
into in the middle? And what if you want to follow discussions at
different places, with different tools and you depend on a POP Server or
differential access (POP/IMAP/Web) to a mailserver? 

> I read the
> 2-10 articles that I'm probably interested in, and miss the 95% which
> is almost always noise.

The question is why you'd want to receive all this if you don't have to
(as remarked above).
As I understood it, the discussion is less about tools and more about
modes of discussion.

Rik