[Mageia-discuss] User support mailing list?

[Remco Rijnders]

Dear all,

In the past few days since the release (and also before, but less 
frequently) I notice a number of requests for help and assistance for a 
variety of issues being posted on this list. To me this seems to be not 
really on topic for this list which, to my understanding, is more aimed at 
discussing the direction of Mageia for future releases and the role Mageia 
should play in the larger free software community.

I can fully understand why people would ask for help on this mailing list 
as it seems the most appropiate one given the lists we have available. I'd 
like to suggest the creation of a new mailing list for and by users where 
they can get or provide assistance with end user problems and questions 
like these.

I've brought this topic up on #mageia-dev today and received mixed 
reactions, though most of them seemed to be reluctant. As I'd like to 
gather the opinion of a wider audience than just those present and awake 
in #mageia-dev at the time, I now write this email.


Why yet another mailing list?
=============================
- We are lacking a list to discuss end user issues;
- Because of this, questions get posted on lists where they might be 
   off-topic;
- There is a need for them. Just look back at the mails sent on this list 
   over the past few days;
- A mailing list can be used and referenced even when the user is not 
   online;
- Mageia is about choice. Some might prefer forums, others might prefer 
   mailing lists;
- Mailing lists, also used in settings similar to ours, have proven to be 
   very useful. I've observed this first hand over the years in various 
   distributions and free software projects.
- ...?
- Why not?


Reasons against
===============
- 1) We already have a forum and IRC channel for support;
- 2) There is no need for it;
- 3) The administrative overhead;
- 4) The resource usage;
- 5) End user confusion;
- 6) I don't want to subscribe to yet another mailing list;
- 7) A lot of the current lists are not used;
- 8) Our users don't want it;
- 9) What's next? Phone support? IM support?
- 10) ...?

Above are a few reasons I heard today against my proposal. I'll briefly 
address them here.

1) "We already have a forum and IRC channel for support"
I do not see how one thing would be exclusive to another thing. It is an 
additional way for people to get support for their problems. On IRC often 
the person who could answer a users question is not there or not 
available. The forum is of use, but some people just prefer one over the 
other (me being one of them).

2) "There is no need for it"
Have you asked? I think one only has to look at the posts on here in the 
past few days to see that clearly there is a place for it. I hope users 
reading this mail will reply to it saying whether or not they'd find a 
mageia-users list of use to them. Of course there is nothing wrong with 
adopting a "wait and see if there is a need for it first"-attitude, but 
what do we actually gain by doing that?

3) "The administrative overhead"
I might be mistaken, but I think this is a one time action that'll take no 
more than a few minutes. If there is an issue with moderating the list, I 
believe we have a team in place for just that; And even if there is not, I 
herewith volunteer to take such a task upon me.

4) "The resource usage"
I believe the resource use of a mailing list, even with hundreds of 
subscribers, is lower than that of a forum which uses images and does a 
lot of SQL-queries on the database. If this is a serious issue, I'm more 
than willing to host such a list on one of my servers.

5) "End user confusion"
You have to give our users more credit than that. And then, there will 
always be some people who will always be confused, no matter what.

6) "I don't want to subscribe to yet another mailing list"
Then don't. It's as simple as that.

7) "A lot of the current lists are not used"
Well, that is a bit of a pity, but to me seems unrelated to my proposal 
for this new list. Besides, an unused list does little harm just by 
existing.

8) "Our users don't want it"
Well, I'm not so sure about that. Users, what do you think? Also, could it 
not be that our current users have a (slight) bias towards forums and 
against mailing lists, just because that is what we offer? Why not reach 
out and have Mageia welcome those users who prefer a mailing list over a 
forum, or the command line over KDE?

9) "What's next? Phone support? IM support?"
Well, now you are just mocking me :-)

Welps... that's long enough for now. If you made it through to here, 
thanks for reading my post and considering its merit (or lack of). Thank 
you even more if you want to share your thoughts on it on this list!

Sincerely yours,

Remco Rijnders
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