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Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 13:06:59 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-idd AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Request for list links in left side navbar
Message-ID: <20030704170659.GB2895@redhat.com>
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References: <Pine DOT LNX DOT 4 DOT 44 DOT 0307041211110 DOT 31505-100000 AT localhost DOT localdomain> <NGBBLLIAMFLGJEOAJCCEKEHBDBAA DOT garbage_collector AT telia DOT com>
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On Fri, Jul 04, 2003 at 02:08:56PM +0200, Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail) wrote:
>Sigh ;-) it *is* mean to *not* take the user to exactly the point
>he/she is expecting when following a link.  i.e.  WJM applies ;-)

We have nine mailing lists associated with cygwin.  It would not be
helpful to list all nine of those lists every time the concept of a
mailing list is mentioned.  That is exactly why we have things like
hyperlinks.

If I added a convenient "send cygwin email here" link somewhere (which
would attract all sorts of spam anyway) we would be guaranteed to get,
for example, increased cygwin/xfree email on the cygwin mailing list.

The goal is not to make things extremely easy for people to send any
question that pops into their head to the cygwin mailing list.  The goal
is to make the cygwin email traffic manageable so that people who
volunteer their time to answer questions will be tempted to do so rather
than giving up after the 1000th "Where is 'make'?'" question.  The goal
is also to possibly help people help themselves.

(And, before you now start saying "Aha! If 1000 people ask where is make
then you have a problem! Did you ever think of that?" stop and think
that maybe we've already discussed this type of problem and made
decisions on the lesser of two evils.)

> In other words: This might be slightly "counter productive"; causing
>_confusion_ where there really shouldn't be any of it.
> - Confusion causes questions
>    -> questions causes (unnecessary?) traffic on the list.
> - Confusion at one occasion
>    -> Less probable that same user tries to look/search at the same place
>       again

If the cygwin web pages which deal with mailing lists are confusing then
how, exactly, is someone going to find the cygwin mailing list to send
their confused questions to the list?

Please remember, that the original request was for someone who wanted us
to essentially bookmark some links on the cygwin web site for their
convenience.  There was no confusion involved here.  I don't just make
changes to the web site because one person asks for it.  If I notice
trends, then I try to make corrections.

For instance, when everyone was talking about how it wasn't clear what
kind of questions should be sent to the mailing list, I added more words
to lists.html.

When we got many complaints about the lack of a newsgroup, I added a
sidebar link to gmane.

When people complained that setup installed everything by default, I had
words on the web site mentioning that fact.

When setup changed and people complained that cygwin didn't install
everything I added words to explain that.

As I've pointed out before, the cygwin web site is not a static thing.
Its layout reflects lessons learned over the last six years.

cgf
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