[GenABEL-dev] why genabel-devel list only? (genabel-devel = SPAM?)

[Yurii Aulchenko]

Dear All,

I was looking at the number of e-mails at this (genabel-devel) list,
and I was quite happy to see that the number of people posting and
number of messages is growing (#mails Jan = 18 / #people = 3; Feb = 61
/ 6; mid March = 60 / 9), which I take as reflection of the fact that
the project gets bigger, and more active. A couple of really important
issues were solved in the process of discussion on the genabel-devel
list.

So far so good, and congratulations to all of us, but 120 mails per
month (projection for March) is 4 mails per day! Now, we are all
people busy with many projects, and I can tell for myself that I could
not stand most really active mailing-lists: while there are a few
posts of high interest, there are also too many posts, which I am not
interested to read! So, after a while, I would unsubscribe from such
"active" mailing list.

I am very afraid this is something, which may happen to genabel-devel
list as well. Things like discussion over 'faster polygenic' is of
interest to many of us, but not all. The 'web-server' discussion is
most interesting to the web-team, but most of others may be willing to
have an occasional look and give a suggestion, but are not up to
receive, read, and react to 5 posts on this topic per day.

This is something we can change for better. My view is that we do need
to have our discussions in open, so anyone can have a look, join in,
contribute and help, but we all also need the freedom to choose the
discussions to follow-up closely, and the discussions we might be
willing to have an occasional look at.

My suggestion is to stream most of the bigger discussions of technical
aspects (such as 'web-server') and methodology (such as 'faster
polygenic') to a forum -- e.g. we can arrange GenABEL-devel forum,
along with GenABEL(-user) forum already in place at forum.genabel.org.
Then, anyone will have a freedom to subscribe to particular topic(s),
or just follow the whole forum. On the genable-devel list we can
announce new topics, and also keep it as a point of contact with
users/contributors (bug reports, suggestions, ... -- see
http://www.genabel.org/contribute). If we do this I believe we will
have targeted information delivery to all contributors, and still will
keep the process open.

Please let me know what you think, especially of you feel this is not
good way to go.

with best wishes,
Yurii