Re: PHP RFC # 0001 --- List Etiquette

On Nov 28, 2007, at 10:56 AM, Nathan Nobbe wrote:

On Nov 28, 2007 10:48 AM, Daniel Brown <parasane@gmail.com> wrote:

Good morning (/afternoon/evening) all; This is more or less an RFC-type email, hence the subject line. I would like to see your comments on this case, and maybe we can forge some sort of agreement or unofficial treaty or something. Oftentimes we see a user post a question to the list, with ongoing discussion back-and-forth on a troublesome issue, and when a solution is found, the subject line has an added [SOLVED] tag on it. While this makes sense in a forum style arena, where posts are binded statically in the same group, it defeats the purpose of mailing list archives such as Nabble and GMANE. A recent email from this morning illustrates the problem, as displayed presently at this page:

      http://www.nabble.com/PHP---General-f140.html

The email with the subject "The PHP License" received commentary from both Jochem Maas and myself, and the OP (AmirBehzad Eslami) replied to the message, appending the [SOLVED] tag to the subject. This is not a serious issue in this particular matter, as it was a simple thank-you message out of politeness (which is greatly appreciated, Amir!). However, using just a single example should help to emphasize my point exponentially when you consider the frequency of occurrences we see following the [SOLVED]-appended route. On 12 September, 2007, Zbigniew Szalbot posted a message to the list about a segmentation fault in PHP 5.2.3. Over the next 24 hours-plus, exactly sixty comments passed back-and-forth on the thread. When a solution was found, it was posted in a separate email with the [SOLVED] tag added to the subject line, and two additional comments added to that (entirely new) thread. Why is this such a critical issue? Because if we hope not to have to answer the same questions over and over again, instructing people to properly STFW, then we should at least be contributing to proper archival and documentation of problems we've successfully solved. Using the aforementioned example, we check Google for the same problem: http://www.google.com/search?q=php+5.2.3+segmentation+fault+core+dumped Hooray! Someone else has had the exact same list of problems, and now I can simply go through all of the responses and it should (fingers crossed!) correct my issues as well. Message 58.... 59.... getting close!.... sixty-one.... WHAT?!? No solution? Back to Google.... only to find that each result is exactly the same discussion, never including the final three emails. So the summary of my proposal is as follows:

      1.) An issue has been identified with the list whereby
improper archival will likely lead to repeat questions and unnecessary

traffic to the list.

      2.) I propose that we discontinue the act of subject

modification to indicate a change in status of the issue (SOLVED, ALSO, ANOTHER PROBLEM, etc.) unless a completely different problem is reached or question is asked. This will allow a step-by-step document (of sorts) to be created and made "searchable" on the web.

i agree; [SOLVED] on a separate email is nonsense; it makes perfect sense in the context of a forum, but not on a mailing list. this issue has been annoying me for sometime. however the only problem with your proposal is the following: new users will enter the list sporadically as they already do. anybody who enters the list after this agreement is made (assuming it is universally accepted) will not be privy to the agreement. also, anybody who hasnt bothered to keep up with the list today will probly gloss over it and also ignore (inadvertently) the agreement. its a good idea, but i doubt well ever see it come to fruition.

Wouldn't it be possible to add it to the Welcome message if we can get the group to agree on it? :) Someone somewhere should have the admin password for changing the welcome message. -- Jason Pruim Raoset Inc. Technology Manager MQC Specialist 3251 132nd ave Holland, MI, 49424 www.raoset.com japruim@raoset.com