[Edu-sig] On and off-topic [was Re: Elegant copy-by-value]

[Michael Williams]

On Tuesday, January 14, 2003, at 12:24  pm, Arthur wrote:
>> hasn't he clarify it in http://www.python.org/sigs/edu-sig/ ?
>> That's what I read when I decided to join this forum.
>
> I see no reason to put any strictures on the list subject matter - 
> beyond
> filtering spam.  Certainly the list does not suffer from an over 
> abundance
> of traffic.

If really you see *no* reason to put *any* strictures on what's on and 
off-topic on a mailing list then perhaps you've got rather more spare 
time than many of the other people on this list. This list not being 
high-volume is one of its virtues, not a failure, and is certainly not 
a reason to keep posting until you deem the level to be suitable to you.

> And by question to Guido was quite specific.
>
> He might have answered me using no more bandwidth than he used with
> reasoning as to why he was not answering me.

It's not bandwidth that's the issue. It's people time being wasted on 
stuff they're not interested in.

> Why is formality necessary.

One of the reasons we compartmentalize "python" into smaller topics is 
so that busy people only have to read about what they're interested in. 
I should imagine that many of this lists subscribers consider 
*technical* discussion of Python's development and structure to be 
irrelevant to them
-- 
Michael