Maybe BayLISA needs a new mailing list

Mon Apr 14 12:19:30 PDT 2003

On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 05:53:22AM -0700, David Wolfskill wrote:
> After the recent flurry on baylisa-jobs and seeing various folks'
> reactions to same, it seems to me that something that might be
> helpful is a list to allow folks to "blow off steam" from time to
> time.
> 
> I suggest a name such as baylisa-chat (or just "chat at baylisa.org").
> 
> Thus, the main BayLISA lists would be:
> 
> * baylisa@	intended for BayLISA members; intended to be oriented
> 		toward technical matters.
> 
> * baylisa-jobs@	intended for BayLISA members and those who might be
> 		in a position to hire folks who are likely to be
> 		BayLISA members (whether on contract or as employees).
> 
> * blw@		intended for BayLISA members (and certain others) who
> 		are interested in the matters discussed by the BayLISA
> 		Board of Directors.
> 
> * chat@		intended for BayLISA members; a catch-all for anything
> 		not listed above.  Tangential discussions from the
> 		other lists would be appropriate to divert to this list.

My heart quails at the idea of declaring a fresh "generic chat" list, but
if you really feel that baylisa@ and baylisa-jobs@ can be restored to
their more focus'd topics by this method, then I support the concept.

If we are adding lists I'd also like to see an announce@ added -
certainly not because I want another place to post things (bleh) but
because it's been requested a few times, and it would be easy to make
the regular baylisa@ list a recipient to it.  

This would allow people who don't want to deal with any chat, even
technical, to bail from it and just get our meeting and event announcements. 
The next question would be if we should accept other events of sysadmin
interest as announcements there, eg. SIG BEER WEST, ACCU, various user
group meetings.

> I would, of course, prefer that if the list is created, that someone
> else (other than postmaster@) would be the "list owner" (and thus
> deal with attempts at spamming and the like).
> 
> Thoughts?

I don't have the bandwidth to become a moderator, but the idea sounds like 
it has good potential.

Would a thread that has been pushed off the main or jobs list cause its
members to be temporarily moderated so that all the stray threads could
be directed to the correct list?  Would that get us into censorship
trouble?  (never minding people who ooze trouble on their own - I mean,
would it change our legal state with regard to list content.)

-* Heather Stern * Arch (secretary) BayLISA Board * http://www.baylisa.org/ *-