Re: Tracking Interest in Projects was Re: [boost] Re: Proposal: Library to manage processes

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-02-22 21:24:02

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:56:40 -0500, christopher diggins wrote

> I agree. Here are a few ideas I have:
> 
> 1. One approach is to use the wiki. We could ask that new library 
> proposals create a wiki page, and ask that those interested just add 
> their name (or nickname) to a list on the wiki page. 

We discussed this at OOPSLA what I took away was that we should try to use the
Wiki for this purpose.  See:

http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?OOPSLA2004/Workshop_--_Results

There has been a page on the Wiki to group these discussions for years, but
since it isn't really maintained it doesn't help...

http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?LibrariesUnderDiscussion

I'd rather see a little effort from a group of people to improve what we have
already done in the past.

> However, the wiki I find is hard to use 

The suggestion at OOPSLA was to remove the 'unofficial' labels and have more
direct links from the main web site into the Wiki.  For example, the Boost
main page could have a direct link to the LibrariesUnderDiscussion.

> and is aggressive with blocking (I am currently blocked!), so 
> I don't love this approach

Sorry about that -- we've had a fairly active spammer community to combat. I
administer the banned list -- it's possible that you got accidently included
or you are on a dialup/internet provider that has been spamming the Wiki. In
general the only way you get banned is if your IP address is responsible for
posting SPAM on the Wiki. Please send me your primary IP address (Go to
http://www.ipchicken.com/ and send me the name address) privately (jeff at
crystalclearsoftware.com) and I'll update the banned list so you can access.

> 2. Another option is to set up a new mailing list for each new 
> library discussions. This would help reduce noise on the main 
> mailing list. This can be done relatively quickly and easily using 
> google groups.

Sorry I can't agree with this approach.  I'm already subscribed to 5 boost
mailing lists and I can't imagine adding more everytime someone wants to add a
new library.  Also, part of the reason boost works is that all these libraries
get floated and discussed on the main list.  I can agree that some big
libraries like sockets, etc might want to go off-list with a smaller
sub-group.  And really, there's nothing to stop you from just talking offlist
with other boosters or setting up a list, but I would hate to see that for
every new library that is discussed.

> 3. Have the mailing list enforce some kind of subject naming 
> convention. For instance all future profiling library topics would 
> arrive with the subject tagged with [boost][new][profiling] and all 
> existing libraries would be tagged like [boost][old][mpl]. Clearly 
> this is extra work for the moderators to assure that the naming 
> convention is followed but it could really help eliminate noise, 
> track topics, find messages, avoid redundancy, etc. 

I see pretty good discipline already here. Most of the time I can spot and
delete uninteresting threads without much trouble.

> There could also 
> be web services created which sort the topics into RSS feeds.
> 
> The third option is my favourite, but we would need to probably 
> recruit more moderators. Which is not neccessarily a bad idea. I 
> would be willing to volunteer to help if need be.

I don't want to wait for moderators to approve all the posts -- that would
take forever even if we added a whole bunch.  Also, I'd like to see us focus
the majority of our time making C++ libraries better not enforcing list
policies.  Also, I think the current moderators do a good job of informing
folks that don't post the library name in bug reports and such...

Jeff