[Mailman-Developers] On allowing any list member to be an email moderator

[R. Bernstein]

Brad Knowles writes:
 > 	Okay, now that is truly weird.  I thought it was kind of 
 > off-topic myself, but I thought that it would be one that either you 
 > or Barry would have approved of, so I approved it on that basis.

What I find truly weird is all the discussion of the moderation
process on mailman-developers not to mention perhaps the moderation
itself.

Please allow me explain why I initially posted to mailman-developer.

(I have no idea if this will make it to the mailman-developers list
given what I'm reading so far. As I write this, my first reply to Brad
Knowles is, as far as I know, being held for moderation. But I've
received two other emails from that list on the thread, one of which
seems to reinterpret the problem I stated.)

I wanted to request a new feature. I looked at
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/bugs.html to find out the proper
way to do so. I submitted a feature request on sourceforge.net. But I
also read at the URL mentioned:

  It is also recommended that you email a note about your submission
  to the mailman-developers mailing list, but don't rely on just the
  email to get the attention of the Mailman developers.

So I do that. I have to subscribe to the mailing list first.  Not to
be able to post -- but to have it looked at by a moderator for
posting. A little bit involved, but okay. I'm actually am lucky that
the initial post was accepted.

As part of the feature request, I describe the motivation for why I
think the feature helpful. And now it seems as though whether or not
the *moderators* think the way to get this accomplished is by adding a
feature (as I guess I am not convincingly making my case) or as some
other way to set up a mailing list now determines whether or not I can
discuss or even *defend* my request for a feature on
mailman-developers.

Finally, there is a bit of irony with respect to the spam-infested
moderator-lacking list which got me to request this and the views and
treatment of the mailman-developers list.

As the co-maintainer (but not the primary or main author) of that
mailing list with the too much spam per valid posting, when the issue
arose I suggested exactly the tight-fisted approach that seems to be
in effect on mailman-developers list. That is, make people register if
they want to post. (Actually, I wasn't going to then suggest
moderating them *after* registering so I guess I am a bit more
liberal.)

However the main author felt very strongly that people should not have
to subscribe to a group in order to ask for help or post bugs on the
mailing list he set up. And interestingly, the person who sent the
garbage-man solicitation to GNU developers feels exactly the same way.

But here's the part that is very relevant here: others may not share
the mailman-developer moderator's view of how mailing lists should be
managed or maintained. I've mentioned two people above who probably
don't in a strong way. It's possible or probable that in those other
25 or so lists there are more.

And an important goal of my software projects is to allow others to do
things in ways that maybe I don't necessarily personally use. So
again, in sum although the *moderators* may decide that the way to
handle the problem described is using mailman a different way -- again
-- I don't (yet). It's a feature request.

 > 	I guess that just goes to show that you shouldn't over-think the 
 > process too much.  ;)

Amen.