Mailing list <-> forum gateway

[Alan McKinnon]

Hi all,

First off - this is not flame bait or a troll. It's a genuine question.

Since the forum gateway was introduced, it is my opinion that this list
is getting flooded with newbie questions. Check the "I just installed
Ubuntu" thread for a typical example.

I wish to silently remove all wine-forum posts and their replies from my
inbox. I plan to filter based on
From: [email protected]
and the phrase "@forum.winehq.org" appearing anywhere in Message-ID:,
In-Reply-To: or From:

Not knowing how the gateway is configured, my question is: will this be
enough?

Now the explanation why. I spend my days at work answering newbie
questions. I've done my requisite 1000s of hours in the past, now it's
someone else's turn. I'm not asking for the gateway to be undone -
those users have a perfect right to ask questions and get answers. If
this is the place, then that is fine. I just don't want to see the
questions anymore, and I don't want to unsubscribe either (the list
itself is great as-is).

So lets please not turn this into an "Alan is a great big newbie-hating
spawn-of-Satan jerk" thread, OK?


--
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[Marc]

Hi,

En/na Alan McKinnon ha escrit:

Since the forum gateway was introduced, it is my opinion that this list
is getting flooded with newbie questions. Check the "I just installed
Ubuntu" thread for a typical example.


Now the explanation why. I spend my days at work answering newbie
questions. I've done my requisite 1000s of hours in the past, now it's
someone else's turn. I'm not asking for the gateway to be undone -
those users have a perfect right to ask questions and get answers. If
this is the place, then that is fine. I just don't want to see the
questions anymore, and I don't want to unsubscribe either (the list
itself is great as-is).

I am a wine newbie and I suscribed to this list just one month ago.
Since then, I have been surprised by the kindness and nice attitude of
the answers to all the newbie questions. Specially surprised me the very
positive answers to some bad-formed, unclear, already answered and with
an unadequate subject questions.

It would be a pity for us, newbies, that all experienced users just flee
now, that's why I think that it could be interesting for everybody (
both newbies as myself and also experienced users of wine ) that some
specifical forum rules and FAQ were written in order to direct newbies
to the direct source of information, specially having in mind the huge
amount of info we can find so clearly written in the WineHQ webpage.

For example, in one of the linux forums I have used the last years, when
you try to open a new thread, you get a message like this (translating
from spanish):

Please check the forum rules before sending a new problem:
-Search in Google before asking.
-Write a descriptive title.
-Write correctly.
-Don't publish your question in more than one forum.
-If you find the solution to your problem send advise of which it was.
-For more information read the forum rules. (link to forum rules).

And people is scolded when they do not follow this rules. Maybe some of
this things could be done for the winehq forums, in order to avoid other
people being obliged to do what Alan had to do.
Maybe this is not exactly what you were talking about, I will have to
change the subject or open a new thread in the forum, in that case ...

Best,
Marc ///

[hasi]

Marc,

I'd like to add one point to your list:
"-apply common sense."

--hasi.

[James McKenzie]

Marc wrote:

WineHQ webpage.

For example, in one of the linux forums I have used the last years,
when you try to open a new thread, you get a message like this
(translating from spanish):

Please check the forum rules before sending a new problem:
-Search in Google before asking.
-Write a descriptive title.
-Write correctly.
-Don't publish your question in more than one forum.
-If you find the solution to your problem send advise of which it was.
-For more information read the forum rules. (link to forum rules).

Good Ideas. +1 for the Search before asking. Also you should add, look
in the Applications Database for known problems and workarounds.

And people is scolded when they do not follow this rules. Maybe some
of this things could be done for the winehq forums, in order to avoid
other people being obliged to do what Alan had to do.
Maybe this is not exactly what you were talking about, I will have to
change the subject or open a new thread in the forum, in that case ...

Scolding? No, gentle reminders are best.

James

[Peter]

Yea. I miss here on the Forums messages how to post threads.

Maybe we could block typical titles like "Help me" when posting here on Forums.

Note the forum is new and has just started. I hope the problem get better since I like the Idea of combining mailing lists and Forums.

Please check the forum rules before sending a new problem:
-Search in Google before asking.
-Write a descriptive title.
-Write correctly.
-Don't publish your question in more than one forum.
-If you find the solution to your problem send advise of which it was.
-For more information read the forum rules. (link to forum rules).

Good Idea!

cheers
Peter

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 27 February 2008, Marc wrote:

I am a wine newbie and I suscribed to this list just one month ago.
Since then, I have been surprised by the kindness and nice attitude
of the answers to all the newbie questions. Specially surprised me
the very positive answers to some bad-formed, unclear, already
answered and with an unadequate subject questions.

That's pretty normal for the majority of linux help forums

Trust me on this one point - there will not be an exodus of experienced
wine people from this list, there never is. If the number of answers
drops for a few days then a few lurkers step in to give a hand. This is
just the nature of humans and it's how these lists work in reality.

Forums, by their very nature, are attractive to new users. Those users
need other newish users that have been in the game a little longer to
help them out and not confound them with deep technical issues. Forums
also encourage mass "me to!" responses, again, this is by their very
nature and I just don't want to read them. Others don't mind this.

I know I'm not the best person to answer such requests for help - they
annoy me and I tend to snap back. I get about 5 such calls a day at
work and deal with it all day long when giving Linux training. I'd
rather someone else took on that role and I devote my time to the kind
of assistance I most like to give. And I have every intention of
remaining on the mailing list itself

It would be a pity for us, newbies, that all experienced users just
flee now, that's why I think that it could be interesting for
everybody ( both newbies as myself and also experienced users of wine
) that some specifical forum rules and FAQ were written in order to
direct newbies to the direct source of information, specially having
in mind the huge amount of info we can find so clearly written in the
WineHQ webpage.

That's a good idea, but don't be surprised when it is disobeyed many
times a day, by people who probably don't know any better. The FAQ is
something to gently nudge violaters towards, not enforce.


--
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[FatButtLarry]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Alan McKinnon <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi all,

First off - this is not flame bait or a troll. It's a genuine question.

Since the forum gateway was introduced, it is my opinion that this list
is getting flooded with newbie questions. Check the "I just installed
Ubuntu" thread for a typical example.

I wish to silently remove all wine-forum posts and their replies from my
inbox. I plan to filter based on
From: [email protected]
and the phrase "@forum.winehq.org" appearing anywhere in Message-ID:,
In-Reply-To: or From:

Not knowing how the gateway is configured, my question is: will this be
enough?

Now the explanation why. I spend my days at work answering newbie
questions. I've done my requisite 1000s of hours in the past, now it's
someone else's turn. I'm not asking for the gateway to be undone -
those users have a perfect right to ask questions and get answers. If
this is the place, then that is fine. I just don't want to see the
questions anymore, and I don't want to unsubscribe either (the list
itself is great as-is).

So lets please not turn this into an "Alan is a great big newbie-hating
spawn-of-Satan jerk" thread, OK?


--
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

If I read this right, it appears Alan would like a way to filter the
extremely "noob" questions from the "legit" ones.

In my opinion, its not a bad idea as long as people know how to
escalate concerns to his inbox. Quite often, its a "new user" that
finds a bug thats worth rising a stir about.

-Tres

--
- [email protected]

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, A. Tres Finocchiaro wrote:

If I read this right, it appears Alan would like a way to filter the
extremely "noob" questions from the "legit" ones.

That's about right. Or expressed another way - and painting with very
broad strokes here - the majority of new user questions are along the
lines of "What is Wine? How do I install it? How do I use it?" A good
and current FAQ or a forum is a good way to answer these questions.

Users who have been around a while graduate to questions like "I can't
get app XYZ to run, here is the console output, what can I do about
this?" and historically the mailing list has dealt with these, and does
it well.

In my opinion, its not a bad idea as long as people know how to
escalate concerns to his inbox.  Quite often, its a "new user" that
finds a bug thats worth rising a stir about.

I had a think about this, and an idea occurred to me:

I presume the forum has moderators and they read most threads looking
for abuses. If they were to look for the good stuff as well, perhaps a
function where a mod can *easily* escalate a query or valid bug to the
mailing list? It could be automated to generate a new forum post that
says the query was escalated.

As long as this doesn't result in a two-tier "elitist" environment,
perhaps it's worth investigating.

--
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[David Gerard]

to list as well, whoops!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard <[email protected]>
Date: 2 Mar 2008 17:31
Subject: Re: [Wine] Mailing list <-> forum gateway
To: "A. Tres Finocchiaro" <[email protected]>


On 02/03/2008, A. Tres Finocchiaro <[email protected]> wrote:

If I read this right, it appears Alan would like a way to filter the
extremely "noob" questions from the "legit" ones.
In my opinion, its not a bad idea as long as people know how to
escalate concerns to his inbox. Quite often, its a "new user" that
finds a bug thats worth rising a stir about.

Although we've had a lot more list traffic with the forum gateway in
place, to me it looks like much the same level of stuff - some highly
technically adept users, some users who seem to be recent converts
from Windows and have heard of Wine and are trying it for that last
annoying app - just *much more of it*.

It's good to see Dan Kegel keeping an eye on wine-users, I hope other
devs will glance in occasionally for a useful indicator of just who
makes up the Wine user population and what they need - much better
than trying to guess what a user *might* need or find useful, or
extrapolating only from one's own level of technical skill.



- d.

[vitamin]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, A. Tres Finocchiaro wrote:

If I read this right, it appears Alan would like a way to filter the
extremely "noob" questions from the "legit" ones.

That's about right. Or expressed another way - and painting with very
broad strokes here - the majority of new user questions are along the
lines of "What is Wine? How do I install it? How do I use it?" A good
and current FAQ or a forum is a good way to answer these questions.

Then you should think about un-subscribing from the wine-users. That is the list for users to seek help. If you saying you can only help these users and not other users just because they know less about wine - you should rethink why you subscribed to the list in the first place.

This is a pointless conversation. Splitting mailing list to "noobs" and "experts" will never work, as noobs will always think they are experts, and wise-versa.

[Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, my mailbox was graced by a missive
from "vitamin" <[email protected]> who wrote:

Then you should think about un-subscribing from the wine-users. That is the
list for users to seek help. If you saying you can only help these users
and not other users just because they know less about wine - you should
rethink why you subscribed to the list in the first place.

This is a pointless conversation. Splitting mailing list to "noobs" and
"experts" will never work, as noobs will always think they are experts, and
wise-versa.

The list was, before the forum link, a place where serious wine-users could
discuss problems.

With the forum link we have been flooded with beginners queries that barely
merit a RTFM / RTFFAQ and the nois/signal ratio has become very strong.

Which leads me to reconsider my membership of this list, as it is now mainly a
waste of time for advanced users; in which case I would also feel compelled
to remove myself from the various apps I am maintainer of.

Cheers,

Ron.
--
Blame San Andreas:
it's all his fault.

-- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --

[FatButtLarry]

Then you should think about un-subscribing from the wine-users. That is the
list for users to seek help. If you saying you can only help these users and
not other users just because they know less about wine - you should rethink
why you subscribed to the list in the first place.

Although it may not yet be practical, Alan has a legitimate request.
He wants to help but he also wants to enjoy his life. With the
growing popularity of Linux and Wine, he's trying so save his inbox
from overflowing with unanswered requests that in turn are simply a
copy and paste.

Suggesting to unsubscribe is rude considering the nature in which he
opened the conversation:

First off - this is not flame bait or a troll. It's a genuine question.

Please take this into consideration before barking "this way or the
highway" to a relatively good natured post.

-Tres

-Tres


--
- [email protected]

[vitamin]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, my mailbox was graced by a missive
from "vitamin" <[email protected]> who wrote:

Then you should think about un-subscribing from the wine-users. That is the
list for users to seek help. If you saying you can only help these users
and not other users just because they know less about wine - you should
rethink why you subscribed to the list in the first place.

This is a pointless conversation. Splitting mailing list to "noobs" and
"experts" will never work, as noobs will always think they are experts, and
wise-versa.

The list was, before the forum link, a place where serious wine-users could
discuss problems.

With the forum link we have been flooded with beginners queries that barely
merit a RTFM / RTFFAQ and the nois/signal ratio has become very strong.

Which leads me to reconsider my membership of this list, as it is now mainly a
waste of time for advanced users; in which case I would also feel compelled
to remove myself from the various apps I am maintainer of.

Cheers,

Ron.
--
Blame San Andreas:
it's all his fault.

-- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --

Then why don't you use forum instead and ask to make a separate section for advanced users? It's easy on forum to move topics around. It's impossible to do so on the list.

The whole point of forum was to attract more new users to Wine. And to not further divide users into groups.

[Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, my mailbox was graced by a missive
from "vitamin" <[email protected]> who wrote:

Then why don't you use forum i

because I hate those forums (fora ?), I pursue them with intense loathing.

They take forever to load a page, waste bandwidth with the way they present a
page, and are generally a pain in the fundament.

In short, I dont like them.

Cheers,

Ron.
--
Democracy is a government
where you can say what you think
even if you don't think.

-- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --

[Dan Kegel]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM, vitamin <[email protected]> wrote:

The list was, before the forum link, a place where serious wine-users could
discuss problems.

Then why don't you use forum instead and ask to make
a separate section for advanced users?

I think that means creating a new mailing list wine-users-advanced to
match.

Do we really want to split the users into two groups like that?

Perhaps. What do others think?
- Dan

[Mark Knecht]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Dan Kegel <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM, vitamin <[email protected]> wrote:

The list was, before the forum link, a place where serious wine-users could
discuss problems.

Then why don't you use forum instead and ask to make
a separate section for advanced users?

I think that means creating a new mailing list wine-users-advanced to
match.

Do we really want to split the users into two groups like that?

Perhaps. What do others think?
- Dan

don't split it up. there isn't enough traffic on this list to warrant
it as far as I'm concerned. Better to get information to more people.

just my 2 cents,
Mark

[austin987]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 7:00 PM, Mark Knecht <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Dan Kegel <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM, vitamin <[email protected]> wrote:

Then why don't you use forum instead and ask to make
a separate section for advanced users?

I think that means creating a new mailing list wine-users-advanced to
match.

Do we really want to split the users into two groups like that?

Perhaps. What do others think?
- Dan

don't split it up. there isn't enough traffic on this list to warrant
it as far as I'm concerned. Better to get information to more people.

just my 2 cents,
Mark

A) That'll fragment users more.
B) Odds are the novice users will think their question is advanced,
when it isn't, and vice versa.

Maybe add a note about checking the FAQ before posting...

-Austin

[vitamin]

Then we all should stop whining about noob users and start helping them! For our resident snobs who think they are special - they are welcome to start their own list/forum etc. So far there was only few who complained. Did those few bothered to look how many new users where registered on forum? And how many posts came from them?

I think this conversation is over. Just the number of new users and new posts tells the story - the forum here to stay.

[austin987]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 7:57 PM, vitamin <[email protected]> wrote:

Then we all should stop whining about noob users and start helping them! For our resident snobs who think they are special - they are welcome to start their own list/forum etc. So far there was only few who complained. Did those few bothered to look how many new users where registered on forum? And how many posts came from them?

I think this conversation is over. Just the number of new users and new posts tells the story - the forum here to stay.

+1

[DARKGuy .]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI <
[email protected]> wrote:

On Sunday 02 March 2008, my mailbox was graced by a missive
from "DARKGuy ." <[email protected]> who wrote:

Forums take forever to load? I assume you know about how the internet
works...

You may not have noticed, but I live in Darkest Paraguay, where rain
disrupts
the telephone service because the string gets wet, and humidity causes the
bottom of the tin cans to rust off.

Here the Internet is _slow_ (and expensive) and the damn forum pages (or
any
other page for that matter) take forever to load.

Cheers,

Ron.
--
Certains miroirs feraient mieux de réfléchir
avant de renvoyer une image.
-- Jean Cocteau

-- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --

Oh, my apologies then, I didn't know you were in such situation . I'd
assume however that it can be compared to dial-up, so for those who use
dial-up or are in a similar situation (or even wireless! it kinda sucks
sometimes >_<) can use the mailing list instead.

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 10:03 PM, Austin English <[email protected]>
wrote:

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 7:57 PM, vitamin <[email protected]> wrote:

Then we all should stop whining about noob users and start helping them!

For our resident snobs who think they are special - they are welcome to
start their own list/forum etc. So far there was only few who complained.
Did those few bothered to look how many new users where registered on forum?
And how many posts came from them?

I think this conversation is over. Just the number of new users and new

posts tells the story - the forum here to stay.
+1

+2
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[James McKenzie]

vitamin wrote:

Then we all should stop whining about noob users and start helping them! For our resident snobs who think they are special - they are welcome to start their own list/forum etc. So far there was only few who complained. Did those few bothered to look how many new users where registered on forum? And how many posts came from them?

I think this conversation is over. Just the number of new users and new posts tells the story - the forum here to stay.

Vitamin:

Thank you for saying what needed to be said.

+1 for the fora <--> Mailing list gateway.
+1 for the newcomer questions.

However, we should provide a FAQ to help those who need help from us.

I am going to start a new thread for that.

James McKenzie

[Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI]

On Monday 03 March 2008, my mailbox was graced by a missive
from "DARKGuy ." <[email protected]> who wrote:

can use the mailing list instead.

Mailing list now getting clogged up with beginners questions.

For me that's it, I'm leaving, and you'll have to find new maintainers for the
apps I maintained.

Cheers,

Ron.
--
Individualists, unite!

-- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --

[Dan Kegel]

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 2:21 AM, Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI
<[email protected]> wrote:

Mailing list now getting clogged up with beginners questions.

For me that's it, I'm leaving, and you'll have to find new maintainers for the
apps I maintained.

Hmm. That's two people who are upset by the
increase in newbie questions.

I'm starting to think that perhaps we do need
to map the existing forum to a wine-users-newbies list.
I think that amount of segmentation might in fact
be useful.
- Dan

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Dan Kegel <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 2:21 AM, Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI
<[email protected]> wrote:

Mailing list now getting clogged up with beginners questions.

For me that's it, I'm leaving, and you'll have to find new maintainers for the
apps I maintained.

Hmm. That's two people who are upset by the
increase in newbie questions.

I'm starting to think that perhaps we do need
to map the existing forum to a wine-users-newbies list.
I think that amount of segmentation might in fact
be useful.
- Dan

What am I missing here? I have received maybe 10 messages (just a
guess. Maybe more.) in the last couple of days. It doesn't seem (to me
anyway) that this is enough to cause anyone heartburn but clearly
Renaud is upset by this. I receive something in the range of 250-300
messages a day so I hardly see the increase but there have been a few
more.

Am I not receiving all the messages?

Anyway, I wouldn't want app maintainers quiting over something like
this, nor would I prefer to have newbies be without the help of
maintainers also. Instead of changing the users list maybe there needs
to be some sort of maintainers list for folks like Ranaud?

I'm perfectly happy with whatever you do but if there are two lists
let me know how to get signed up for whatever the new one is.

Cheers,
Mark

[austin987]

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Mark Knecht <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Dan Kegel <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 2:21 AM, Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI
<[email protected]> wrote:

Mailing list now getting clogged up with beginners questions.

For me that's it, I'm leaving, and you'll have to find new maintainers for the
apps I maintained.

Hmm. That's two people who are upset by the
increase in newbie questions.

I'm starting to think that perhaps we do need
to map the existing forum to a wine-users-newbies list.
I think that amount of segmentation might in fact
be useful.
- Dan

What am I missing here? I have received maybe 10 messages (just a
guess. Maybe more.) in the last couple of days. It doesn't seem (to me
anyway) that this is enough to cause anyone heartburn but clearly
Renaud is upset by this. I receive something in the range of 250-300
messages a day so I hardly see the increase but there have been a few
more.

Am I not receiving all the messages?

Anyway, I wouldn't want app maintainers quiting over something like
this, nor would I prefer to have newbies be without the help of
maintainers also. Instead of changing the users list maybe there needs
to be some sort of maintainers list for folks like Ranaud?

I'm perfectly happy with whatever you do but if there are two lists
let me know how to get signed up for whatever the new one is.

Cheers,
Mark

I don't think we should be turning away those seeking help...That's
the whole point of wine-users/the forum. If you didn't want to help,
you shouldn't have signed up for it. Putting a couple warnings/links
to the FAQ/etc should help the situation.