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Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2015 15:54:33 -0400
Message-Id: <201510111954.t9BJsXx5022095@envy.delorie.com>
From: DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to: <mve7ra$th$1@ger.gmane.org> (message from Kai-Martin Knaak on
	Sun, 11 Oct 2015 19:55:53 +0200)
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Stop playing stupid political games with gEDA
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> IIRC, there was a period of time where the dev list was writable for 
> devs only but could be read by everyone. Consequently some topics 
> talked about on the dev-list were also raised and discussed on the 
> user list.

IIRC we moved topics to the dev list because they didn't belong on the
user list, but some users kept moving them back so they could argue
with the developers, so the user list ended up full of inappropriate
topics anyway.  Hence, abuse.  It was impossible for the developers to
have a conversation without the users forcing their way into it.

> In addition, posts to the user list had to be manually 
> approved by a list administrator. By contrast, mails sent to the user 
> list by developers did not need to be approved.

I don't recall that rule.  Perhaps it was limited to abusers, not
non-developers.

> A few months later the old user list got shut down completely. A new 
> mailing list was set up on a different server. The list of members was 
> not transferred. So the new list started empty. Again, no discussion, 
> no warning.

Hmm... next time I create a mailing list, I need to warn you?

> > Now we have one list (geda-user) for general discussion, and we
> > happen to have a few other mailing lists that generally have no
> > discussion on them yet seem to be a hot spot for everyone who isn't
> > on them.
> 
> Make the archives public and the paranoia will vanish for the most 
> part.

http://www.delorie.com/archives/browse.cgi?p=geda-user
http://www.delorie.com/archives/browse.cgi?p=geda-help

There you go.  There's generally no traffic on any of the other lists,
so there are no archives to share.  If you require archives to make
your paranoia go away, you'll be paranoid forever.

> IMHO, this is less about permission to be on a list but more about 
> whether or not the content of communication is accessible to the 
> ordinary user.

The problems we had in the past were not about that.  They were about
people thinking they had a right to be *involved* in any given
conversation, even if the group having the conversation didn't want
them to be (for whatever reason).  Sometimes devs want to have a quiet
discussion about a feature without everyone else making noise about it
and confusing the issue, but the geda community would not allow the
devs that option.

> Some of the most successful open source projects make a point to 
> communicate transparent as possible.

And some of the most successful ones have private lists.  "Public" is
not a requirement to success, *respect* is.  If the devs (or admins,
or whatever group) want to have a private conversation, others should
respect that.  The gEDA community doesn't respect that.

> It is the nature of a privilege that it diminishes those who don't 
> have it.

Not if it's a priviledge earned.  Granting that priviledge to just
anyone diminishes the value of earning it.  Sometimes people aren't
equal because one of them puts in a lot of hard work to better
themselves.