Re: SMod: List dynamics

[glen e. p. ropella]

Pietro Terna writes:
 > As 'an incoming true swarm user' I think that all four lists are useful and
 > also necessary, without limitations. I'll work about economic models but
 > ideas from GIS are also stimulating etc. ...
 > So a little question (unfair?): Why not to keep a unique list?
 > Pietro

This is a bit of a controversy.  Several people feel we don't
need more than one list.  But, more people seem to feel we do.
So, I think it's probably a good idea.  I believe their argument
goes like this (if any proponents for the list split want to 
correct me, feel free).

Some Swarm users have been using Swarm for awhile, now.  They
are not as interested in seeing questions they've seen over and
over again or in questions relating to some obscure platform.
Since alot of people on this list may get several (like...over
100?) email messages a day, it is more convenient to be able 
to subscribe to lists on which they're fairly sure only "interesting"
messages are posted.

Right now, this isn't really that much of a problem, because there
hasn't been that much traffic.  But, in high traffic periods (like
after a new release), it can be difficult to sift through the posts
to find which ones are "interesting" and which ones aren't.

Ideally, with the scheme I'm setting up, you can subscribe to all
the lists, if you'd like.  In fact, this might be a good idea for
a new Swarm user.  But, after awhile, you might realize that you're
not that interested in one or the other.  It should also be amenable
to those people who are not actually using Swarm, but who employ
(or advise) people who are.  Then you could subscribe to the 
modelling and GIS lists to interact on one level without having to
pour through intricacies you're not concerned about.

So, basically, it was decided at SwarmFest to split the list into
a "code-slinger" type list and a "theory-slinger" type list.  And,
depending on whether the scheme works or not, we can keep or trash
this scheme.  If the traffic just continues to grow, then it might
be justified to make another split later on.

glen



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