Python library "support" propaganda lists?

[Robert Kern]

On 2009-10-30 07:30 AM, Aaron Watters wrote:
> Let me vent my annoyance.
>
> In the last couple months on a few occasions
> I've tried various Python libraries (and I'm not going to
> name names) and run into some problem.
>
> Following the documented procedure I eventually
> post the problem to the "support" list trying to politely
> explain everything, including the admission that
> it may all be my stupidity causing the problem.
>
> Then I'm told automatically that my post will
> be moderated.
>
> Then nothing happens.  The post just disappears.
> No offline reply.  Nothing.
>
> I don't know why this happens, but if people
> are using their "support" forums as propaganda
> lists for only happy news I consider this a serious
> violation of the spirit of open source.  There
> is nothing wrong with filtering spam, of course,
> but silently filtering non-spam, even inane non-spam,
> is not acceptable.  At least there should be an
> offline RTFM reply to the poster.

You almost certainly ran into technical misconfiguration or lazy moderators. 
Both are distressingly common with mailing lists. Hanlon's Razor: "Never 
attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." You 
may also want to check to see if your mail host is on any spam block lists like 
Spamhaus.

So go ahead and name names. This may be the one chance the list owners will be 
able to learn about their misconfiguration. Just don't accuse them of censoring 
negative posts without actual evidence; you don't have any to support that 
conclusion.

In any case, it is accepted (or so I assert) that if you are having problems 
with a Python project, you can post your questions here until you are able to 
post to the project's mailing list.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco