[Zope-dev] mailing list 'noise'

[Ken Manheimer]

On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Rik Hoekstra wrote:

> Karl Anderson wrote:
> > 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.

That's my impression, too.  In fact, this would make a good case in point
- this is part of a rambling discussion originally about, as best as i can
tell, current wiki deficiencies for interactive discussions ("I feel your
Wiki Pain:-)").  Focus in this thread has moved to merits and deficiencies
of mailling lists for discussions - wiki is no longer the center in this
branch, the zope-dev list was for a bit, and use of gnus for effective
filtering of mailling lists is perfect fair game.  I'm glad, though, that
rik brings back in the issue that really concerns me - modes of
discussion.  I'm interested in what they serve.

In fact, i'm *really* interested in "turning answers into stories".  That
is, not just getting answers to questions, but preserving them in a way
that makes them easy to find when they're next needed - organizing them so
they collectively serve to describe the topic they're about, to make the
topic, as a whole, discoverable.  While i think there are many modes of
discussion that can serve this purpose, depending on the application and
collaborative context, i think mailling list discussion threads need more.  
They're a step towards that building-together, but fail to organize beyond
that - so the answers they provide are fragmentary glimpses into the topic
at hand.

One key way wiki documents help bind the fragments is by providing more
"fixed points" around which discussions can range.  The fixed points
are not immutable - they can evolve - but they're easy to point at, and
provide a definite manifestation of the topic at some stage of its life.

The dev.zope.org proposals site is one example where definite subjects are
at hand.  As someone behind the WikiNG proposal, who *wants* to be able to
reap the suggestions and details from a discussion, but knows i won't have
the time for a while to actually concentrate attention on it, i dread
having to collect all the messages, for later review for harvesting.  
Furthermore, messages on the mailling list tend to diverge more and
farther from the topic, than they do when placed within the wiki.

What i'd like the best, for now, is to have discussion happen on the
mailling list *when someone wants to feel something out*, *and then
they're responsible for summarizing in the wiki discussion page, if they
have anything to harvest*.

(Sorry if this message is a bit scattered - i think i saw an opportunity
to tie together a lot of thoughts i have on this subject, but not
sufficient time to do so cleanly, so i'm erring on the side of
just-throw-it-in...)

Ken
klm@digicool.com