[rhn-users] NIS or automounter problem

[jef e]

Máirín Duffy wrote:

> How did folks here initially find out about this list (if you can
> remember)?

I honestly don't remember. I *think* it was on the RHN help section,
here: https://rhn.redhat.com/help/contact.pxt


> Some ideas I had:
> 
> (1) We could make a policy that if an off-topic question is asked, we
> first let the question asker know that this is not the appropriate list
> and provide a list of links that might be helpful for them (I can come
> up with that list if needed, although the list info page is a good start
> [1]).

This helps, and a few folks have tried it in the past, but I think that
it gets frustrating when others start replying and answering the
questions anyhow. I tried a few weeks of relying off-list, but that too
got frustrating for the same reasons. There was no need for them to go
to the other lists because they were getting help here.


> (2) We could cc the reply with the quoted question to the appropriate
> list with the answer if we know it. (Is this terrible mailing list
> etiquette?)


Probably a bad idea, and confusing to people that are already confused
over what this list is for. And probably irksome if we cc the wrong list
ourselves ;-)


> (3) We could reply to the question asker privately (I think it's better
> for everyone if questions are answered publicly, though, for the benefit
> of folks running into the same problems in the future searching for an
> answer.)

This sounds like the right thing to do from a certain level, but doing
so continues to let this problem drag on. If off-topic discussions
aren't discouraged, they will never stop.


> (4) We could send out a monthly reminder to mailing list subscribers
> with an explanation of what the mailing list is about and redirects to
> other lists (I don't like the idea of sending out so much mail, but I'm
> on other mailing lists that do this - they send out their policies/rules
> on a monthly basis.)

I'm also on a few lists that do this. I'm not sure that it ever does
much good.

First, you have the new subscribers who join and then post their
off-topic question right away. They won't see a monthly mailing for it
to matter.

Second - and this relates to point #3 you made above - you have the long
time subscribers who, despite messages being off-topic,  let the
discussion continue by offering help via the list. I'm not saying that
people shouldn't offer help, I'm just saying that messages to this list
are *not* the place to do it. These folks might want to consider
replying off-list, letting the original sender know that the list isn't
the proper place to be looking for an answer.


This is probably too difficult to pull off, but I think that some
renaming of the lists would help. Names like Taroon-list and Nahant-list
mean hardly anything to me, since I am not a heavy Redhat user - what do
they mean to the brand new user? Probably even less. I think the "user'
in rhn-user pulls most of these folks in. So even redhat-list probably
gets overlooked because it isn't called redhat-user-list.We already know
that a lot of people can't be bothered to read what the lists are about,
so making the list names more clear might help to solve some of these
problems.

redhat-network-list might make a bit more sense and differentiate it
from a general users list. I dunno, though.

It's probably not do-able, but I think Mailman's "topics_enabled" Option
could help clean things up by requiring posts to have a keyword or 2 in
them. This would force people to maybe read the list information first?
However, I'm not sure it works with digest mode.

jef