Where have all the experienced users gone?

ruby-talk
21

(1) I have learned to think twice before discarding Tom's POVs
and
(2) it might be *now* that we have to worry about keeping it like this
Cheers
R

···

On 12/20/06, Geoff <Geoff@domain.is.invalid> wrote:

On 2006-12-19, Eric Hodel <drbrain@segment7.net> wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
>
>> seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
>> the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
>> away?
>
> In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-
> time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
>
> a) signal:noise ratio too low.
> b) belligerent newbies.
>

I've been reading quite a bit about these properties of online
communities lately. There's a lot of material worth looking into if you
happen to have a bit of a deeper interest, like:

Clay Shirky's "A Group is it's Own Worst Enemy"
http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

Clay Shirky's "Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software"
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_user.html

Kathy Sierra's "How to Build a User Community: Part 1"
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/
how_to_build_a_.html

Oh, and I'm definitely a Ruby newb myself, but I'm learning, and this
mailing-list/Usenet-newsgroup/forum has proven a fantastic learning
resource. I hope that, one way or another, that continues to be the
case.

Geoff.

Thx Geoff I also feel that this still is a great list but

--
"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad
defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of
incomplete ideas."

- Alan Kay

22

Geoff wrote:

I've been reading quite a bit about these properties of online
communities lately. There's a lot of material worth looking into if you
happen to have a bit of a deeper interest, like:

Clay Shirky's "A Group is it's Own Worst Enemy"
http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

Clay Shirky's "Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software"
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_user.html

Kathy Sierra's "How to Build a User Community: Part 1"
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/
how_to_build_a_.html

Having read those, I'd like to put that a little stronger:
1) I would request that all participants of this community read (or at
least skim) that last one in particular. To make it easier, here's an
short unbroken link:
http://rubyurl.com/YeY

2) I'd like to find a common spot that we could put something based on
the above (after we get some semblance of agreement on what it says)
that we could point new users and violators. Not really a charter, not
a mission statement, but some sort of creed of behavior. Something that
says "Be nice, be helpful, be respectful", but in more words and with
concrete do's and don't's and helpful examples.

There are very few experienced, long-time posters who I can think of
who would violate this creed. I feel that I've seen more than a few
semi-new-comers posting with serious attitude, and (in my opinion) it's
reasonably important that we don't just lead by example, but (as the
article says) take a zero-tolerance policy towards
abusive/high-and-might/asshole posts.

For the good of the community and national security. To fight the
terrorists. Won't somebody please think of the children?

23

I think it's also important that we all realize that we use mailing
lists for different things. Newbies use it to get help; many of them
are programming for the first time and don't understand a lot of the
concepts (and Ruby has some that are mind-boggling if you aren't used
to thinking like an OO programmer).

Many of us want to use the list to discuss interesting things, things
that are "advanced," or bounce ideas off of another experienced
Rubyist.

This is why many times there will be "xxx-talk" (or "xxx-users") and
"xxx-newbie" lists. I think perhaps Ruby has reached that "critical
mass" point where this split is in order (even though i'm sure this
has been discussed a number of times and decided against). If it
means getting some of our best and brightest back on the list, then I
see it as necessary.

Though, many would probably argue that "no experienced programmer
would visit the newbie list." Who wants an answer from another
newbie, right? Perhaps we should setup a "n00b taskforce" to monitor
that list and answer questions; just a few people to check in every
day. I would be willing to do it, if a few others would help me out.

To make this whole thing effective, though, the residents of this list
would have to be stringent about telling people to "take it to the
newbies" if their question is something that belongs there.

Just a thought.

--Jeremy

P.S. - It would also be mildly entertaining to have an auto-answer FAQ
bot that parsed the language of a message and if it could decently
figure out what they're saying, post an answer pointing to a
(currently non-existent) Ruby FAQ...

···

On 12/19/06, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:

On 12/19/06, Jeremy Wells <jwells@servalsystems.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Eric Hodel wrote:
> > On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
> >
> >> seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
> >> the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
> >> away?
> >
> > In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why
> > long-time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
> >
> > a) signal:noise ratio too low.
> > b) belligerent newbies.
> >
> I think that it's not just newbies, but newbies asking insensible
> questions, normally involving excel. There's also a lot of postings
> along the lines of "I've written this code, can you write it better for
> me" which is fair enough for an interesting bit of code, but normally
> the response should be, without sounding rude, "read the documentation
> or buy a ruby book". Newbies want answers often before working out what
> the question should be. And I'd consider myself a newbie on the way to
> intermedion, but I'd never post a question like "ruby.exe doesn't work
> on my windows xp! tell me what to do!?", or from a couple of pages down
> the list "I need to save an Excel Spreadsheet with Ruby. I used the Save
> AND SaveAs methods..." (What is it with excel? I've got no particular
> problem with it, but it seems to be a magnet for the ignorant).
>
> Jeremy
>
Yup while whining I forgot to talk about the real reasons.
You do have a good point, and maybe I am completely off but I still think a
FAQ would get rid of some of the noise, there would be the classic themes
* IDE
* Slow or not slow
* splash and some other very Rubyesque things
* Meaning of #==, #equal? (yessss I am whining again)
* What is true and what is not?
* Receivers of messages as in x > 5
  NoMethodError: undefined method `>' for nil:NilClass,
  Q? But 5 is not nil, surely
* Upcoming changes or at least links
* Pitfalls like proc vs lambda
* goto Rails, without being impolite, it should be a pointer not a "get out
of here" :wink:

I do not have too much time and I do not think that I am qualified but
maybe be just starting a FAQ somebody will hit it until it is a good one ( I
know *some* stuff about Ruby after all), another idea is to include some
really useful links, like where to look first in case of certain specific
error categories and AGF, the Golden Rule for posting of course - like the
old RTFM but politically correct :wink:
Ask Google First

Just the same thoughts again.

Robert
--
"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad
defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of
incomplete ideas."

- Alan Kay

24

Robert Dober wrote:

Yup while whining I forgot to talk about the real reasons.
You do have a good point, and maybe I am completely off but I still think a
FAQ would get rid of some of the noise, there would be the classic themes

Isn't there a Ruby FAQ somewhere on the main Ruby home page?

and AGF, the Golden Rule for posting of course - like the
old RTFM but politically correct :wink:
Ask Google First

If you wish, that can be made politically incorrect:

AFG

or

STFW :slight_smile:

···

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.

25

Hi --

Agreed.

I've been marking all list mail as 'read' upon arrival so there is no
instant clue that there are new messages. I visually scan for certain
sender names or topic words, and have some filters to catch references
to a small set of keywords. Just in case.

But I don't bother trying to keep up or pitch in as I once did. I'm
sure I'm missing some interesting topics, but it's too tedious to wade
through "What is the best IDE?" , "What's wrong with my ajax?", "Why is
my model not validating?", and "Your opinion on [foo] is teh sux."

All in all, I'd rather just focus on writing, and writing about, Ruby.

(This started way before the holidays, too, so we can't blame Santa's
elves.)

While I can understand and appreciate the reasons for this approach,
James, it does have a significant (and in my opinion bad) side-effect:
you're leaving the field to those who can't contribute as much or as
well as you can. This means that a Ruby Newbie (hah! :D) coming into
the mailing list for the first time does not see a vital community full
of knowledgeable people ready to share what they know. Instead they see
an increasingly hostile community fraught with flames and lacking
support for them. A significant fraction of these (likely the majority)
will then conclude that learning Ruby won't be worthwhile and will go
elsewhere to less productive, less useful, less fun languages. They
suffer and so does the Ruby community as a result.

If it were all that deterministic and manipulable and predictable,
we'd just do whatever it was that pushed the "Make this a great forum
for all people, forever" button and that would be that. It's
certainly too bad to see James pulling away from the list, but I think
we have to bend before we break, so to speak. James is free to do as
he likes.

The increases in hostile, flame-like rhetoric on the list in recent
times will not, I'm afraid, vary inversely with signal. However, I do
love the fact that there is still a lot of signal on this list. It's
a bit more buried than it used to be, but on a decent day there are as
many interesting, well-intentioned, friendly posts as there were back
in the days that I'm supposed to be grumpily nostalgic about :slight_smile:

David

···

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Michael T. Richter wrote:

On Wed, 2006-20-12 at 02:31 +0900, James Britt wrote:

--
Q. What's a good holiday present for the serious Rails developer?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black\)
    aka The Ruby book for Rails developers!
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

26

Michael T. Richter wrote:
>> ...

All in all, I'd rather just focus on writing, and writing about, Ruby.

(This started way before the holidays, too, so we can't blame Santa's elves.)

While I can understand and appreciate the reasons for this approach,
James, it does have a significant (and in my opinion bad) side-effect:
you're leaving the field to those who can't contribute as much or as
well as you can. This means that a Ruby Newbie (hah! :D) coming into
the mailing list for the first time does not see a vital community full
of knowledgeable people ready to share what they know. Instead they see
an increasingly hostile community fraught with flames and lacking
support for them. A significant fraction of these (likely the majority)
will then conclude that learning Ruby won't be worthwhile and will go
elsewhere to less productive, less useful, less fun languages. They
suffer and so does the Ruby community as a result.

Well, I've not abandoned the list (as my posts on this thread shows), but I have realized that I cannot stay on top of it as I once could. More to the point, though, the gradual shift in content and tone has made me less inclined to want to stay on top of the list as a I once did. (And not just this lists; most lists now get the "mark-as-read on arrival" treatment.)

As I said I understand fully your reasons for stepping out like this.
I'm just wondering if you've thought through the possible consequences.

No, of course not. I'm making decisions based on what I think is best for me. There's no ill will involved. I'm not stooping to calling newbies "vampires" or other such nonsense. I just don't have the wherewithal or the inclination to follow each thread on the list.

I'm not enthralled by Rails; I don't care about IDE choice. I do watch for posts from certain people or on certain topics, and I'm too much of a bigmouth to stay quiet very long. But mostly I'm trying to earn a living hacking Ruby, and time is short. (Side note: I've given up on reading most top-posted comments. If someone wants a response, they should make it easy to read their post. If they don't care about my time, I don't care about their problem.)

As for stepping out, I'm still looking after ruby-doc.org, and getting a Ruby book on-line:

   http://www.beginningruby.com

And I organize the Ruby group here in Phoenix.

Mailing lists and developer communities change. That's life. It would be quite sad if this list didn't see a constant shift in those offering guiding hands to newcomers.

Maybe a better question to ask is, Who are the *new* experienced users on the list?

And if we can't find them, then there's a real problem.

···

On Wed, 2006-20-12 at 02:31 +0900, James Britt wrote:

--
James Britt

"To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to
assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with
the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."
    - Friedrich Nietzsche

27

Robert Dober wrote:

> But that is not Trans, or am I confused? Anyway thx for caring Simon!
I thaught T was Tom, anyway the important thing is the quality/content of
his/her posts, and that is quite high.
So coming back to all that has been said (not only by Simon and it was not
simple anyway;) I just would like to add my POV in slight favor of splitting
the ML.
The conservatives' reasons are valuable but I feel that the auto-dynamic of
the ML just pushes us there...

do you favor a ruby-beginner list or a ruby-advanced list split?

T.

28

Having read those, I'd like to put that a little stronger:
1) I would request that all participants of this community read (or at
least skim) that last one in particular. To make it easier, here's an
short unbroken link:
http://rubyurl.com/YeY

Great article! A real must read for everyone here (and for everybody who
is or planning to become a member of any community).
I could not agree more with this article because basically I put it to
practice here at ruby-talk - I begun to answer some questions, despite
of still being a noob myself - and I have learned a *lot* during this.
I am still just a beginner and the answers are maybe not the most
perfect, but anyway they are corrected by the 'adults' here and it is a
sure way to learn a lot.

2) I'd like to find a common spot that we could put something based on
the above (after we get some semblance of agreement on what it says)
that we could point new users and violators. Not really a charter, not
a mission statement, but some sort of creed of behavior. Something that
says "Be nice, be helpful, be respectful", but in more words and with
concrete do's and don't's and helpful examples.

100% agree.

There are very few experienced, long-time posters who I can think of
who would violate this creed. I feel that I've seen more than a few
semi-new-comers posting with serious attitude, and (in my opinion) it's
reasonably important that we don't just lead by example, but (as the
article says) take a zero-tolerance policy towards
abusive/high-and-might/asshole posts.

Well said. loop do { +1 }.

Cheers,
Peter

···

__
http://www.rubyrailways.com

29

This is why many times there will be "xxx-talk" (or "xxx-users") and
"xxx-newbie" lists. I think perhaps Ruby has reached that "critical
mass" point where this split is in order (even though i'm sure this
has been discussed a number of times and decided against).

I was on perl-beginners for years. When I came to the Ruby community I asked for the equivalent, but many members felt it wasn't needed or even desired. While I think I came around to their point of view over time, I'm not sure it still holds.

Though, many would probably argue that "no experienced programmer
would visit the newbie list."

I've seen this argument multiple times, but it certainly doesn't hold true in the Perl community. See perl-beginners and Perl Monks. Plenty of knowledgeable help on both. I enjoy helping others and stayed on the list to do so when I was past the beginner stage, as just one example.

To make this whole thing effective, though, the residents of this list
would have to be stringent about telling people to "take it to the
newbies" if their question is something that belongs there.

Now this I don't feel is needed or desired. I don't think we want to start turning anyone away, period. There's no reason questions can't still be answered here. There would just be a new resource, with a comfortable beginner's environment. (I do feel it should be moderated, though I realize many view that as a sin.)

P.S. - It would also be mildly entertaining to have an auto-answer FAQ
bot that parsed the language of a message and if it could decently
figure out what they're saying, post an answer pointing to a
(currently non-existent) Ruby FAQ...

As has been pointed out, we do have an FAQ.

I feel a bot like this hurts the community interaction. Answers are best let to the users, in my opinion.

James Edward Gray II

···

On Dec 19, 2006, at 7:52 AM, Jeremy McAnally wrote:

30

dblack@wobblini.net wrote:

Hi --

>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> I've been marking all list mail as 'read' upon arrival so there is no
>> instant clue that there are new messages. I visually scan for certain
>> sender names or topic words, and have some filters to catch references
>> to a small set of keywords. Just in case.
>>
>> But I don't bother trying to keep up or pitch in as I once did. I'm
>> sure I'm missing some interesting topics, but it's too tedious to wade
>> through "What is the best IDE?" , "What's wrong with my ajax?", "Why is
>> my model not validating?", and "Your opinion on [foo] is teh sux."
>>
>> All in all, I'd rather just focus on writing, and writing about, Ruby.
>>
>> (This started way before the holidays, too, so we can't blame Santa's
>> elves.)
>
>
>
> While I can understand and appreciate the reasons for this approach,
> James, it does have a significant (and in my opinion bad) side-effect:
> you're leaving the field to those who can't contribute as much or as
> well as you can. This means that a Ruby Newbie (hah! :D) coming into
> the mailing list for the first time does not see a vital community full
> of knowledgeable people ready to share what they know. Instead they see
> an increasingly hostile community fraught with flames and lacking
> support for them. A significant fraction of these (likely the majority)
> will then conclude that learning Ruby won't be worthwhile and will go
> elsewhere to less productive, less useful, less fun languages. They
> suffer and so does the Ruby community as a result.

If it were all that deterministic and manipulable and predictable,
we'd just do whatever it was that pushed the "Make this a great forum
for all people, forever" button and that would be that. It's
certainly too bad to see James pulling away from the list, but I think
we have to bend before we break, so to speak. James is free to do as
he likes.

The increases in hostile, flame-like rhetoric on the list in recent
times will not, I'm afraid, vary inversely with signal.

Has it increased? I imagine there's probably some conservation
principle at play. after all what would life be without a little drama
now and then, eh david?

flame-wars are underated :wink: and honestly its the one's with real
bullets that get too much hype.

t.

···

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Michael T. Richter wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-20-12 at 02:31 +0900, James Britt wrote:

31

It's
certainly too bad to see James pulling away from the list, but I think
we have to bend before we break, so to speak. James is free to do as
he likes.

Of course. I'm not even hinting otherwise. I'm just quietly asking him
to reconsider.

The increases in hostile, flame-like rhetoric on the list in recent
times will not, I'm afraid, vary inversely with signal.

I've always found that killfiles work extremely well for getting rid of
empty content. For whichever definition of "empty" people choose to
use.

···

On Wed, 2006-20-12 at 13:33 +0900, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:

--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter@hotmail.com, mtr1966@hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966@jabber.cn

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists." --Abraham Lincoln

32

do you favor a ruby-beginner list or a ruby-advanced list split?

I favor a ruby-talk list and another, meta-ruby-talk list for threads
such as this :slight_smile:
(me being a relatively new rubyist)

···

---
Uma Geller

33

Hi Tom :wink: (Guy is "ts" BTW) maybe the later, ruby-beginner might be too
negative, what you think?

Cheers
Robert

···

On 12/20/06, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:

Robert Dober wrote:

> > But that is not Trans, or am I confused? Anyway thx for caring Simon!
> I thaught T was Tom, anyway the important thing is the quality/content
of
> his/her posts, and that is quite high.
> So coming back to all that has been said (not only by Simon and it was
not
> simple anyway;) I just would like to add my POV in slight favor of
splitting
> the ML.
> The conservatives' reasons are valuable but I feel that the auto-dynamic
of
> the ML just pushes us there...

do you favor a ruby-beginner list or a ruby-advanced list split?

T.

--
"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad
defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of
incomplete ideas."

- Alan Kay

34

James Britt wrote:

Mailing lists and developer communities change. That's life. It would
be quite sad if this list didn't see a constant shift in those offering
guiding hands to newcomers.

Maybe a better question to ask is, Who are the *new* experienced users
on the list?

And if we can't find them, then there's a real problem.

There are some "up and coming". But that is a good question.

T.

35

I still like Eric Raymond's classic FAQ:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

···

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

36

Now this I don't feel is needed or desired. I don't think we want to
start turning anyone away, period. There's no reason questions can't
still be answered here. There would just be a new resource, with a
comfortable beginner's environment. (I do feel it should be
moderated, though I realize many view that as a sin.)

I certainly wouldn't _want_ that to "turn people away," but if the
problem is that the signal to noise ratio is too high, one (perhaps
the only...I'm not sure) way to solve that is to (perhaps a better
word is...) suggest that they ask that on the newbie list. Think of
it in the same way that we suggest that things be asked on the Rails
list, even though _someone_ here certainly knows the answer. Proper
list for proper topics.

As has been pointed out, we do have an FAQ.

I feel a bot like this hurts the community interaction. Answers are
best let to the users, in my opinion.

I agree, but questions like "What is the best IDE?" could certainly be
answered by providing links to numerous previous discussions, no?

Ah, and this is a FAQ that I (obviously) was not aware of. See how
publicized it is? :wink: I shall bookmark it and refer people to it as
needed...thanks for pointing that out. I missed it earlier I suppose.

--Jeremy

37

James Edward Gray II wrote:

This is why many times there will be "xxx-talk" (or "xxx-users") and
"xxx-newbie" lists. I think perhaps Ruby has reached that "critical
mass" point where this split is in order (even though i'm sure this
has been discussed a number of times and decided against).

I was on perl-beginners for years. When I came to the Ruby community
I asked for the equivalent, but many members felt it wasn't needed or
even desired. While I think I came around to their point of view
over time, I'm not sure it still holds.

Though, many would probably argue that "no experienced programmer
would visit the newbie list."

I've seen this argument multiple times, but it certainly doesn't hold
true in the Perl community. See perl-beginners and Perl Monks.
Plenty of knowledgeable help on both. I enjoy helping others and
stayed on the list to do so when I was past the beginner stage, as
just one example.

To make this whole thing effective, though, the residents of this list
would have to be stringent about telling people to "take it to the
newbies" if their question is something that belongs there.

Now this I don't feel is needed or desired. I don't think we want to
start turning anyone away, period. There's no reason questions can't
still be answered here.

I've had this debate in a number of forums for different languages over the
years, and I have always taken your position on this. If a newbie newsgroup
were to be set up, IMHO it would decrease the quality of the replies to
newbies, and in some cases lead to a "blind leading the blind" syndrome.

Also, where this has been tried, it sometimes leads to newbies gradually
abandoning the newbie newsgroup because of the poor quality of replies and
also to avoid the stigma of posting to a newbie newsgroup.

Such things as RoR and perhaps Windows-specific newsgroups (e.g. for
Excel-related posts), if/when justified by the amount of traffic, make more
sense because they remain open to general questions and are appropriately
focused, but only when the amount of traffic justifies creation of a new
newsgroup.

Digression. My biggest annoyance about this forum is the degree to which
posts are not properly disseminated. Sometimes I reply to a post and the
originator very clearly never sees the reply even though it appears in
Usenet, or I see a reply to a post, the original of which never appears on
the Usenet forum. Sometimes the latter case becomes one of seeing only one
side of an exchange.

This problem would be solved by making this forum a pure, old-style Usenet
newsgroup with no imperfect connections to other ways of reading and
posting, but that simple arrangement seems to be falling out of favor for
some reason in modern times.

···

On Dec 19, 2006, at 7:52 AM, Jeremy McAnally wrote:

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

38

[snip]

> P.S. - It would also be mildly entertaining to have an auto-answer FAQ
> bot that parsed the language of a message and if it could decently
> figure out what they're saying, post an answer pointing to a
> (currently non-existent) Ruby FAQ...

As has been pointed out, we do have an FAQ.

I feel a bot like this hurts the community interaction. Answers are
best let to the users, in my opinion.

James Edward Gray II

As others have pointed out, and I mentioned in a thread I started just
on the faq, its poorly publicized, out of date, and is easily confused
with the short (basically unhelpful) rubycentral.com faq. Fixing
these issues could go a long way towards cutting off some of the
newbie questions.

- Rob

···

On 12/19/06, James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:

On Dec 19, 2006, at 7:52 AM, Jeremy McAnally wrote:

39

James Edward Gray II wrote:

This is why many times there will be "xxx-talk" (or "xxx-users") and
"xxx-newbie" lists. I think perhaps Ruby has reached that "critical
mass" point where this split is in order (even though i'm sure this
has been discussed a number of times and decided against).

I was on perl-beginners for years. When I came to the Ruby community I asked for the equivalent, but many members felt it wasn't needed or even desired. While I think I came around to their point of view over time, I'm not sure it still holds.

In addition to the newbie/guru split, there is also the possibility of a core/user split. The core list would be for discussions relating to the current and future status of the Ruby language itself, the core libraries, and more theoretical questions. The user list would be for discussions about 3rd party libraries, installation problems, and IDEs. =)

This split has the benefit of not making anyone feel like a newb, while still creating a separate area for hard core Rubyists to talk about serious issues without all the noise.

Tom

···

On Dec 19, 2006, at 7:52 AM, Jeremy McAnally wrote:

40

If you guys think this problem is bad here, you should see what the
Rails list was like right before they kicked me off. Amy Hoy wrote
that thing in March 2006, if anything it only got worse on that list
as time went on. I think the problem is partly that the incredible
ease of use of Rails makes it very appealling to lazy people.

I think it's very, very important to have a community that helps
newbies without tolerating laziness and help vampires.

I personally don't think there's a 'solution' to the 'problem' that Ruby
and the mailing list have become so popular that it's no longer mostly
hard core ruby geeks discussing esoteric idioms and proposing crazy
changes to the core language.

...

Ruby is getting popular. The startup days are gone, for better or worse.
You'll have to walk among the unwashed masses and hope that others you
wish were there will choose to do so.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for all manner of
signal-to-noise improvement projects

I think this is true, and an earlier post was very relevant:

I was on perl-beginners for years. When I came to the Ruby community
I asked for the equivalent, but many members felt it wasn't needed or
even desired. While I think I came around to their point of view
over time, I'm not sure it still holds.

> Though, many would probably argue that "no experienced programmer
> would visit the newbie list."

I've seen this argument multiple times, but it certainly doesn't hold
true in the Perl community. See perl-beginners and Perl Monks.
Plenty of knowledgeable help on both. I enjoy helping others and
stayed on the list to do so when I was past the beginner stage, as
just one example.

I think a Ruby Monks (or Ruby Wizards, the idea that the most skilled
people never get laid, I don't see how that's supposed to be
complimentary) would be a good thing. I think there are wizards still
on here helping out, certainly I'm a newbie and I've gotten
constructive help many times, and I've seen conversations sailing way
over my head, too. Of course by definition I have no idea what it was
like before I got here, but if there's some kind of clean, explicit
separation between newbie questions and experienced discussion, it'll
probably make life easier. As popular as Ruby has already become, I
think it's only going to get more so.

···

--
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org

http://gilesgoatboy.blogspot.com