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?
It's just you. I've not noticed any such situation. I've seen a rise in new user questions, many of which are being handled by people other than the Top Ten Regulars (a list that exists only in my head, and probably comprises 15 people). Any signal to 'noise' (depending on what you're looking for) ratio will be affected by changes to either signal or noise. I suspect this is what's causing your perception.
It's just you. I've not noticed any such situation. I've seen a rise in new user questions, many of
which are being handled by people other than the Top Ten Regulars (a list that exists only in my head,
and probably comprises 15 people). Any signal to 'noise' (depending on what you're looking for) ratio
will be affected by changes to either signal or noise. I suspect this is what's causing your perception.
yes. i'm sure that's part of it. i'm just not so sure that's all of it.
some time ago i can recall long discussions on deep topics. today they
seem very rare. and the topics themsevles seem pretty basic, yet i
don't think the overall volume has gone up that much. actually, when's
was the last ruby weekly news (http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/\)? and i
recall in the few of those, tim mentioning an interesting topic and
saying "there's been no replys".
It's just you. I've not noticed any such situation. I've seen a rise in new user questions, many of
which are being handled by people other than the Top Ten Regulars (a list that exists only in my head,
and probably comprises 15 people). Any signal to 'noise' (depending on what you're looking for) ratio
will be affected by changes to either signal or noise. I suspect this is what's causing your perception.
yes. i'm sure that's part of it. i'm just not so sure that's all of it.
some time ago i can recall long discussions on deep topics. today they
seem very rare. and the topics themsevles seem pretty basic, yet i
don't think the overall volume has gone up that much. actually, when's
was the last ruby weekly news (http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/\)? and i
recall in the few of those, tim mentioning an interesting topic and
saying "there's been no replys".
Well, you know, for most of us, it's winter, a time when people are
tired, sick, and usually without much extra energy for things like
raising deep and interesting subjects on ruby-talk. At least, that's the
way I feel now, and from my (very careful...) observation, many people
around me are.
It's just you. I've not noticed any such situation. I've seen a rise in new user questions, many of
which are being handled by people other than the Top Ten Regulars (a list that exists only in my head,
and probably comprises 15 people). Any signal to 'noise' (depending on what you're looking for) ratio
will be affected by changes to either signal or noise. I suspect this is what's causing your perception.
yes. i'm sure that's part of it. i'm just not so sure that's all of it.
I believe that volume went significantly up in the group over the course of this year.
some time ago i can recall long discussions on deep topics. today they
seem very rare. and the topics themsevles seem pretty basic, yet i
don't think the overall volume has gone up that much. actually, when's
was the last ruby weekly news (http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/\)? and i
recall in the few of those, tim mentioning an interesting topic and
saying "there's been no replys".
Personally, I post less because I lack interest in repeating discussions we had in the past. And since there are more people around and more knowledgeable people as well, chances are that someone else has posted a reply that I would have; I try to prevent this kind of duplication as well.
Another reason is probably that it's more difficult to find interesting topics if overall volume goes up. I would not call that signal to noise ratio because that has a negative connotation. It is just that the ratio of topics that I am interested in went down - partly because of the change in traffic here, partly because my interests seem to have changed.
As a side note, I actually did not observe an increasing amount of heated debate - but then again, I'm probably better at ignoring it now and see less of it by my choice of topics.
Personally, I post less because I lack interest in repeating discussions we had in the past. And since there are more people around and more knowledgeable people as well, chances are that someone else has posted a reply that I would have; I try to prevent this kind of duplication as well.
Of course they can do this because they have a *very* good and extensive FAQ - I am not sure if there is something analogous in the case of Ruby - but I am quite sure Ruby also has a searchable list archive.
It is also not just an existence of a FAQ or rules (although I guess the mere existence of such rules could improve the signal vs noise ratio) , but that they are somehow respected on the XSLT list. I don't know how are they doing this over there, but the first step should be to do something similar in the case of Ruby. What do you think?
Of course this is not the only one problem, but I think a relevant one,
and maybe a possible starting point...
Well, you know, for most of us, it's winter, a time when people are
tired, sick, and usually without much extra energy for things like
raising deep and interesting subjects on ruby-talk. At least, that's the
way I feel now, and from my (very careful...) observation, many people
around me are.
That might explain it, don't you think ?
Actually, this is the time of year when I spend a fair amount of time on line, plus working on personal open source projects. But yeah, deep and interesting subjects tend to die off slowly after RubyConf. And it's a little rare that people ask questions in one of my areas of expertise anyhow (performance engineering, numerical computing, old-timers in computing, Linux, bizarre programming languages of the past or classical music.)
Personally, I post less because I lack interest in repeating discussions we had in the past. And since there are more people around and more knowledgeable people as well, chances are that someone else has posted a reply that I would have; I try to prevent this kind of duplication as well.
I've not noticed any such situation. I've seen a rise in new user questions, many of which are being handled by people other than the Top Ten Regulars (a list that exists only in my head, and probably comprises 15 people). Any signal to 'noise' (depending on what you're looking for) ratio will be affected by changes to either signal or noise. I suspect this is what's causing your perception.
