Re-post: [Mailing list -> ruby-forum.com broken?]

ruby-talk
1

I posted this on the mailing list, but obviously that didn't get
duplicated to the forum :slight_smile: Sorry to those on the mailing list who have
to see this twice:

It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
to the ruby-forum.com.

Some examples:
"Mixin Syntax for Newbies" thread (started on forum, replies from
mailing list not showing up)
"YAML in limbo?" thread (same as above)
"So I got a binary file..." thread (same)

"[ANN] MinDI 0.3" thread (started on mailing list, isn't on forum)
"Generate unique filenames" thread (same as above)

However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
list. Is this a known issue?

This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to their
questions from the list, but the answers never reach them if they are
using the forum.

-Justin

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

2

Hm. As far as I'm concerned, it's broken the wrong way.

-austin

···

On 5/2/06, Justin Collins <collinsj@seattleu.edu> wrote:

I posted this on the mailing list, but obviously that didn't get
duplicated to the forum :slight_smile: Sorry to those on the mailing list who have
to see this twice:

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

3

So, we have three lists?
1) comp.lang.ruby
2) ruby-talk
3) ruby-form.com

···

-
Minkoo Seo

Justin Collins wrote:

I posted this on the mailing list, but obviously that didn't get
duplicated to the forum :slight_smile: Sorry to those on the mailing list who have
to see this twice:

It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
to the ruby-forum.com.

Some examples:
"Mixin Syntax for Newbies" thread (started on forum, replies from
mailing list not showing up)
"YAML in limbo?" thread (same as above)
"So I got a binary file..." thread (same)

"[ANN] MinDI 0.3" thread (started on mailing list, isn't on forum)
"Generate unique filenames" thread (same as above)

However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
list. Is this a known issue?

This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to their
questions from the list, but the answers never reach them if they are
using the forum.

-Justin

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

4

Justin Collins wrote:

It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
to the ruby-forum.com.
However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
list. Is this a known issue?

This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to their
questions from the list, but the answers never reach them if they are
using the forum.

Gee, that sucks.

/me mumbles.

I was wondering why the traffic seemed to have died down the last few
days...

I've felt for a while now that ruby-forum.com has been neglected
(abandoned?).

If the RForum software works as-is, I am willing to host a mailing list
<-> forum bridge, whether temporarily or permanently.

Pistos

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

5

"Austin Ziegler" <halostatue@gmail.com> writes:

I posted this on the mailing list, but obviously that didn't get
duplicated to the forum :slight_smile: Sorry to those on the mailing list who have
to see this twice:

Hm. As far as I'm concerned, it's broken the wrong way.

Exactly my thoughts. :stuck_out_tongue:

···

On 5/2/06, Justin Collins <collinsj@seattleu.edu> wrote:

-austin

--
Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@gmail.com> http://chneukirchen.org

6

We have ruby-talk. This has been mirrored for a long time with
comp.lang.ruby. I haven't heard anything reliable from the original
mirror person, but it would be nice if someone picked that up again.
In the last year, ruby-forum.com went live and shortly thereafter, a
mirror with ruby-talk was created (also one with the Rails list).

My problem is that for every good posting and question we get from
ruby-forum.com, we get ten nonsensical ones that could have been
solved with a three-second Google search. The problem *isn't* the
gateway as such, it's that forums are the bottom of the barrel when it
comes to what people actually do, and there's not enough indication to
the users of ruby-forum.com that this is going to both a mailing list
and a newsgroup as well as the forum, so they ask their questions in
forum-style. Which is to say, badly spelled and poorly considered.

I would much rather see ruby-forum.com act differently with respect to
the ruby-talk mailing list. First, the current "Ruby" forum should
probably be renamed and be a read-only view of ruby-talk and
comp.lang.ruby. Second, a new forum should be posted for discussion
purposes. Third, code could be added for moderated questions to be
migrated from the forum discussions to be posted to ruby-talk for
discussion there.

The forum currently makes it too easy to forget that you're dealing
with people who do *not* have the full thread in front of them because
they're not using the forum. It just looks like it.

-austin

···

On 5/2/06, Minkoo Seo <minkoo.seo@gmail.com> wrote:

So, we have three lists?
1) comp.lang.ruby
2) ruby-talk
3) ruby-form.com

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

7

Justin Collins wrote:
It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
to the ruby-forum.com.
However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
list. Is this a known issue?

Does anyone know if ruby-forum.com is missing any posts that have
appeared elsewhere? I'm waiting to see if anyone replies to a couple of
posts I've made and I don't want to double post, but at the same time I
don't want to miss out on answers to my questions.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

8

Please don't. I'm not against ruby-forum in general, but the quality
of posts is generally much lower with minimal information from
ruby-forum than from the mailing list or the newsgroup.

-austin

···

On 5/2/06, Pistos Christou <jesusrubsyou.5.pistos@geoshell.com> wrote:

Justin Collins wrote:
> It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
> to the ruby-forum.com.
> However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
> list. Is this a known issue?
>
> This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to their
> questions from the list, but the answers never reach them if they are
> using the forum.
If the RForum software works as-is, I am willing to host a mailing list
<-> forum bridge, whether temporarily or permanently.

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

9

And I was worried my job was beginning to block my @ruby-lang emails!

···

On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 04:59 +0900, Christian Neukirchen wrote:

"Austin Ziegler" <halostatue@gmail.com> writes:

> On 5/2/06, Justin Collins <collinsj@seattleu.edu> wrote:
>> I posted this on the mailing list, but obviously that didn't get
>> duplicated to the forum :slight_smile: Sorry to those on the mailing list who have
>> to see this twice:
>
> Hm. As far as I'm concerned, it's broken the wrong way.

Exactly my thoughts. :stuck_out_tongue:

> -austin

10

Does anyone know if ruby-forum.com is missing any posts that have
appeared elsewhere? I'm waiting to see if anyone replies to a couple of
posts I've made and I don't want to double post, but at the same time I
don't want to miss out on answers to my questions.

search ruby-talk... there are replys there that do not appear in the
forum

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

11

And I've seen forum replies come without context, or under a different name, or in a new thread. This makes answering them very difficult.

Please, let ruby-form go its own way.

···

On May 2, 2006, at 5:35 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

On 5/2/06, Pistos Christou <jesusrubsyou.5.pistos@geoshell.com> wrote:

Justin Collins wrote:
> It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
> to the ruby-forum.com.
> However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
> list. Is this a known issue?
>
> This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to their
> questions from the list, but the answers never reach them if they are
> using the forum.
If the RForum software works as-is, I am willing to host a mailing list
<-> forum bridge, whether temporarily or permanently.

Please don't. I'm not against ruby-forum in general, but the quality
of posts is generally much lower with minimal information from
ruby-forum than from the mailing list or the newsgroup.

--
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://blog.segment7.net
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

http://trackmap.robotcoop.com

12

brad wrote:

search ruby-talk... there are replys there that do not appear in the
forum

I'm searching here:

http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/ruby/ruby-talk/threads.html

and can't seem to find anything. Is there another interface to
ruby-talk?

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

13

Eric Hodel wrote:

Justin Collins wrote:
> It looks like messages sent to the mailing list are not being propagated
> to the ruby-forum.com.
> However, messages posted on the forum are getting sent to the mailing
> list. Is this a known issue?
>
> This is kind of a problem, because people are getting answers to their
> questions from the list, but the answers never reach them if they are
> using the forum.
If the RForum software works as-is, I am willing to host a mailing list
<-> forum bridge, whether temporarily or permanently.

Please don't. I'm not against ruby-forum in general, but the quality
of posts is generally much lower with minimal information from
ruby-forum than from the mailing list or the newsgroup.

And I've seen forum replies come without context, or under a different name, or in a new thread. This makes answering them very difficult.

And I've seen emails on the mailing list with the same problems. I don't think cutting off that part of the Ruby community is the solution. I'm more in favor of some of the other suggestions, such as an explicit statement about how the forum is a mailing list gateway (although it _is_ on the main page, right under the forum name), maybe a posting of the newsgroup FAQ, and requiring people to create an account.
Personally, I use the mailing list most of the time, but different people have different preferences.

Just my opinion.

-Justin

···

On May 2, 2006, at 5:35 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

On 5/2/06, Pistos Christou <jesusrubsyou.5.pistos@geoshell.com> wrote:

14

Nathan Olberding wrote:

brad wrote:

search ruby-talk... there are replys there that do not appear in the
forum

I'm searching here:

http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/ruby/ruby-talk/threads.html

and can't seem to find anything. Is there another interface to
ruby-talk?

I'm posting from the ruby-forum so I'm not sure if this will reach
anyone, but if you look at this thread:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/vframe.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/191006?190922-191129
You can see that only some of those replies are also visible on the
forum. The posting behaviour of the thread started indicates that he is
also a forum user and because of that he missed some excellent replies.

(This must be extremely irritating for the ruby-talk subscribers)

Edwin

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

15

I have seen a dramatic increase in endless September questions since
the establishment of the ruby-forum bidi link.

I do *not* think that it is sufficiently clear; someone noted that
they were surprised to learn that the forum was actually tied to a
mailing list *in this very thread*.

The web interface is reducing the quality of discussion dramatically,
and merely increasing the warning level is not going to help that. The
style of discussion on fora is too radically different for the way
that ruby-talk is presented on ruby-forum. Something different needs
to be done, because what exists is detrimental to the community.

-austin

···

On 5/3/06, Justin Collins <collinsj@seattleu.edu> wrote:

And I've seen emails on the mailing list with the same problems. [...]

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

16

Edwin van Leeuwen wrote:

I'm posting from the ruby-forum so I'm not sure if this will reach
anyone, but if you look at this thread:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/vframe.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/191006?190922-191129
You can see that only some of those replies are also visible on the
forum. The posting behaviour of the thread started indicates that he is
also a forum user and because of that he missed some excellent replies.

I must say, this is quite disturbing [for me]. I think we forum users
need to take action now. Like I said, I believe ruby-forum.com is
abandoned (would the administrator please make some comments?).

I'm thinking perhaps I am going to stop using it, since it is borderline
useless if we can't assume it is a consistent mirror in both directions.
:frowning:

Pistos

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

17

Austin Ziegler wrote:

I do *not* think that it is sufficiently clear; someone noted that
they were surprised to learn that the forum was actually tied to a
mailing list *in this very thread*.

That was me. After my first couple of posts, I thought it prudent to
treat this forum like a mailing list. Everyone else seemed to. It would
at least help somewhat if it was insinuated somewhere on the forum that
this is cross-posted to a mailing list.

The web interface is reducing the quality of discussion dramatically,
and merely increasing the warning level is not going to help that.

Help? Yes it would. Solve? Well...

The
style of discussion on fora is too radically different for the way
that ruby-talk is presented on ruby-forum. Something different needs
to be done, because what exists is detrimental to the community.

Is it really detrimental?

I think I see a little class separation going on here. I'm a newbie to
Ruby. I'm not incompetent, but I do often ask question that "could be
answered with a 3 second Google search"... if I only knew what on earth
I was searching for. It may be obvious to one person, but otherworldly
to someone who's just encountering a gotcha for the first time.

I've really loved ruby-forum.com since I started using it. People are
VERY friendly, understanding, patient, and have all the answers to all
my questions. Excellent community, excellent dialog.

I'm not sure it'd be a good idea, but to keep n00bz like me from
drowning the pro discussions, maybe we should have a "basic Ruby
concepts that even experienced developers from other languages might
snag on" forum. 90% of my questions are in regards to Ruby's
implementation of common features. I see a lot of people with similar
questions.

In any event, it's dangerous to have a web site with a forum labeled
simply "Ruby." Everyone will flock to this :slight_smile:

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

18

Pistos Christou wrote:

I must say, this is quite disturbing [for me]. I think we forum users
need to take action now. Like I said, I believe ruby-forum.com is
abandoned (would the administrator please make some comments?).

I didn't even know this forum had a mailing list attached to it! I was
suspicious because of the e-mail style quoting which people seem to
enforce as if this were a mailing list, but I didn't really know. I
googled for "ruby forum" one day and here I am.

How do I subscribe to the mailing list?

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

19

I have fixed the problem, no mails were lost.

Pistos Christou wrote:

I must say, this is quite disturbing [for me]. I think we forum users
need to take action now. Like I said, I believe ruby-forum.com is
abandoned (would the administrator please make some comments?).

I'm thinking perhaps I am going to stop using it, since it is borderline
useless if we can't assume it is a consistent mirror in both directions.
:frowning:

Funny enough, you didn't care notifying me about the problem, as did
nobody else. The gateway would have been up again in no time.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

20

I do not believe web based interface makes the level of discussion low.
Take comp.lang.c++.modreated and comp.programming.threads as
examples. Two of them are filled with discussion of detailed/professional
discussion on C++ and concurrency, respectively. However, both of
them are exposed to the public via groups.google.com.

The quality of comp.lang.c++.moderated is maintained by moderators
who examine all the messages and approves them only if they are not
too novice questions. Sometimes, a moderator directly answer to the
question via email before they filter the message. This can be done
because there are many other places where novice can ask anything.
Such atmosphere of them are maintained not because of the absence
of web-based interface, but because of process.

This is the list which is just named ruby-talk. It's not named like
'ruby-master'
or something like that. Not having web based interface does not guarantee
the
quality of discussion, I believe. Why don't you let people access all the
messages
in the mailing list? Why should we have to raise the bar to newbies
(which includes me) anyway?

Actually, I've joined mailing list when I've found out that ruby-forum does
not work
(I know it runs well right now), but I found not too much difference in this
list.
People in comp.lang.ruby are discussing some ruby questions on APIs, bugs,
how-to. Messages in this is not radically different from them.

I mean, what is quality anyway? I believe it might be something too
subjective.

Sincerely,
Minkoo Seo

···

On 5/4/06, Nathan Olberding <nathan.olberding@gmail.com> wrote:

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> I do *not* think that it is sufficiently clear; someone noted that
> they were surprised to learn that the forum was actually tied to a
> mailing list *in this very thread*.

That was me. After my first couple of posts, I thought it prudent to
treat this forum like a mailing list. Everyone else seemed to. It would
at least help somewhat if it was insinuated somewhere on the forum that
this is cross-posted to a mailing list.

> The web interface is reducing the quality of discussion dramatically,
> and merely increasing the warning level is not going to help that.

Help? Yes it would. Solve? Well...

> The
> style of discussion on fora is too radically different for the way
> that ruby-talk is presented on ruby-forum. Something different needs
> to be done, because what exists is detrimental to the community.

Is it really detrimental?

I think I see a little class separation going on here. I'm a newbie to
Ruby. I'm not incompetent, but I do often ask question that "could be
answered with a 3 second Google search"... if I only knew what on earth
I was searching for. It may be obvious to one person, but otherworldly
to someone who's just encountering a gotcha for the first time.

I've really loved ruby-forum.com since I started using it. People are
VERY friendly, understanding, patient, and have all the answers to all
my questions. Excellent community, excellent dialog.

I'm not sure it'd be a good idea, but to keep n00bz like me from
drowning the pro discussions, maybe we should have a "basic Ruby
concepts that even experienced developers from other languages might
snag on" forum. 90% of my questions are in regards to Ruby's
implementation of common features. I see a lot of people with similar
questions.

In any event, it's dangerous to have a web site with a forum labeled
simply "Ruby." Everyone will flock to this :slight_smile:

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.