Re: wierd scenes inside the gold mine

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

>>>>> "Craig" == C Oda <craig@example.com> writes:

    Craig> I *seem* to recall that the source for GNU make only had a
    Craig> single Makefile in top directory.

What *would* we do without Jim Schweiz around?  :-)  People really go
to town on these "newbie" questions.

Getting serious, I've noticed over and over again that a mailing list
(or newsgroup) with 5-20 active members, 50% of them "senior" (ie,
well beyond newbie, but not necessarily wizard), is the best
environment for getting help.  The senior members have a good time
playing with each others' "deep magical problems", everybody has time
for newbie questions, and the newbies thirst for they day when they
too can answer a few questions.

Then the list hits some high level of activity, and nobody has time
for newbie questions any more (especially not FAQs).  Time to
split....

The question I'm wondering about is, there ought to be a way to
coordinate dozens of TLUG-like lists so that FAQs from TLUG could
propagate to KLUG and NYLUG and so on.  Then you don't go around
reinventing the wheel so much, but you still get the "small town
helping hand" mentality.  Any thoughts?

Seems to me that if it was a user-level solution (like a Web browser),
this would be the next "killer app."  (NB: obviously, the coordination
would have to take place in a decentralized Web-like fashion, not
somewhat centralized like Usenet.  Otherwise, you'll just end up with
a better Usenet: a good thing, of course, but not killer.)

Steve

-- 
                           Stephen John Turnbull
University of Tsukuba                                        Yaseppochi-Gumi
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences  http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com
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