I think we all agree that general is having to much traffic and according to CyberShadow [1] this again is just an approval issue, however I expect this a bit controversial, so please no OT! Only other category proposals.

Proposed categories:

- DMD
- DRuntime
- Phobos
- Language design (or Idea pool)
- D Foundation + resources
- Events
- Other (formerly known as General)

I want to stress that whatever categories we pick, we have to adapt them anyways if we realize that something is noisy again or too silent.

https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed/issues/66

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 17:07:54 UTC, Seb wrote:
> Proposed categories:
>
> - DMD
> - DRuntime
> - Phobos
> - Language design (or Idea pool)
> - D Foundation + resources
> - Events
> - Other (formerly known as General)
>

I would worry about splitting it in to too many categories. There are already are DMD DRuntime and Phobos categories. Study is kind of like Language design, but maybe a more formal version of it. I feel like Events already tend to go in Announce and don't see a reason to duplicate it.

On 05/26/2016 07:07 PM, Seb wrote:
> Proposed categories:
>
> - DMD
> - DRuntime
> - Phobos

Already there, but not used a lot. Druntime and Phobos are just being spammed by GitHub.

I suggest combining the three into one Development group that also covers dlang.org, official tools, etc. Switch the GitHub thing off, and tell people to use it instead of General for everything that touches on code in the dlang repositories.

Enforcing the use of that group (or the three that are there already) would reduce the traffic in General by a good amount.

> - Language design (or Idea pool)

Sure.

> - D Foundation + resources

Does the foundation really need its own channel, yet? I don't see many threads about it.

What does "resources" mean?

I think this can stay in General/Other for now.

> - Events

What would be posted there? Announcements of events should go in Announce. I think this can stay in General/Other, too.

> - Other (formerly known as General)

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 17:45:59 UTC, ag0aep6g wrote:
> On 05/26/2016 07:07 PM, Seb wrote:
>> Proposed categories:
>>
>> - DMD
>> - DRuntime
>> - Phobos
>
> Already there, but not used a lot. Druntime and Phobos are just being spammed by GitHub.
>
> I suggest combining the three into one Development group that also covers dlang.org, official tools, etc. Switch the GitHub thing off, and tell people to use it instead of General for everything that touches on code in the dlang repositories.

I proposed two weeks ago to turn off the bot, but it seems some people like it.
Github is already high-traffic, so I expect if we have a mailing list it to be similar, so the seperation into groups make sense.

> Enforcing the use of that group (or the three that are there already) would reduce the traffic in General by a good amount.

That's exactly the idea!

>> - Language design (or Idea pool)
>
> Sure.
>
>> - D Foundation + resources
>
> Does the foundation really need its own channel, yet? I don't see many threads about it.

Let's hope it will, but you are right not for the moment :/

> What does "resources" mean?

What you put under Development (dlang.org, downloads, etc.)

> I think this can stay in General/Other for now.
>
>> - Events
>
> What would be posted there? Announcements of events should go in Announce. I think this can stay in General/Other, too.

Convinced.

>> - Other (formerly known as General)

So incorporating your feedback it would be:

- DMD
- DRuntime
- Phobos
- Official tools and resources (dlang.org, download, ...)
- Language design (or Idea pool)
- Other (formerly known as General)

or turning off the bot instead for the first three categories (preferred solution).

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 17:07:54 UTC, Seb wrote:
> I think we all agree that general is having to much traffic and according to CyberShadow [1] this again is just an approval issue, however I expect this a bit controversial, so please no OT! Only other category proposals.

I disagree.  You don't have to read every thread, I certainly don't.

> Proposed categories:
>
> - DMD
> - DRuntime
> - Phobos

Those forums already exist and get no traffic now, other than automated notices.

> - Language design (or Idea pool)

I guess you could combine all four of these into a Development forum and see what happens?  For example, Andrei's RCStr thread would probably go there.

> - D Foundation + resources

Sure?

> - Events

Announce, which btw people routinely have to be told about in General.

> - Other (formerly known as General)

Bad idea, the name General is actually a good catch-all, which is why it's the most trafficked.  Whatever scheme is chosen, what's most important is that the core team actually uses it that way.  The fact that threads like RCStr and the one about floating point are regularly posted in General by the language architects and not in the existing dmd/phobos forums tells everyone else those forums are a joke.

Of course, maybe they're just being pragmatic, because General gets the most eyeballs.  But that doesn't seem to imply they see a problem with everything being in General.

> I want to stress that whatever categories we pick, we have to adapt them anyways if we realize that something is noisy again or too silent.
>
> https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed/issues/66

Or we could just go by topic and not bother with separate forums too, as it has largely failed so far.

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 18:38:30 UTC, Seb wrote:
> I proposed two weeks ago to turn off the bot, but it seems some people like it.

Yet the DMD group doesn't get them anymore, and no one is complaining (loud enough).

> Github is already high-traffic, so I expect if we have a mailing list it to be similar, so the seperation into groups make sense.

GitHub traffic is going to stay on GitHub. The dev group(s) are only going to get what's currently ending up in General.

[...]
> So incorporating your feedback it would be:
>
> - DMD
> - DRuntime
> - Phobos
> - Official tools and resources (dlang.org, download, ...)
> - Language design (or Idea pool)
> - Other (formerly known as General)
>
> or turning off the bot instead for the first three categories (preferred solution).

More like:

- Development (about everything under github.com/dlang, replacing the DMD, Druntime, and Phobos groups)
- Language Design
- General

Though I wouldn't mind separate groups for the github.com/dlang stuff. I just don't think they're exactly necessary.

But I do think that the GitHub thing needs to be turned off if we want to use the groups for discussion.

I prefer "General" over "Other", because
1) that's what it's called now. Less disruption is better. And
2) "Other" sounds like it's for borderline off-topic stuff, which the group isn't.

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 18:38:30 UTC, Seb wrote:
>
> I proposed two weeks ago to turn off the bot, but it seems some people like it.

Most projects I can think of have separate *-commits lists for automated spam like that.

-Wyatt

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 19:12:44 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> Or we could just go by topic and not bother with separate forums too, as it has largely failed so far.

The General/Learn split is working pretty well. It works because people who ask learning questions in General get told to post to Learn the next time. If we (including Walter and Andrei) would do that with development stuff, it would work.

On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 19:32:31 UTC, ag0aep6g wrote:
> On Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 19:12:44 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> Or we could just go by topic and not bother with separate forums too, as it has largely failed so far.
>
> The General/Learn split is working pretty well. It works because people who ask learning questions in General get told to post to Learn the next time. If we (including Walter and Andrei) would do that with development stuff, it would work.

Oh, I agree, I was only talking about how to split General.  I think the only way it works is with a few broadly defined forums, as you said, not with many smaller ones.

I think it's high time many of the smaller ones were consolidated: there really need to be separate IDEs and debuggers forums?  There were eight threads with any posts this month in those two forums combined.

On Thursday, May 26, 2016 17:07:54 Seb via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> I think we all agree that general is having to much traffic and according to CyberShadow [1] this again is just an approval issue, however I expect this a bit controversial, so please no OT! Only other category proposals.
>
> Proposed categories:
>
> - DMD
> - DRuntime
> - Phobos
> - Language design (or Idea pool)
> - D Foundation + resources
> - Events
> - Other (formerly known as General)
>
> I want to stress that whatever categories we pick, we have to adapt them anyways if we realize that something is noisy again or too silent.
>
> https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed/issues/66

It may be that we want to create another list or two for some specific
stuff, but trying to split stuff across a bunch of groups is going to cause
its own problems. We already have enough issues with folks posting in the
wrong group as it is (e.g. Learn questions keep ending up in the main
newsgroup). And any time that you have a thread with cross-cutting concerns,
you have problems, and they're only going to get worse the more lists
there are.

I'm honestly inclined to argue that the problem is not so much that we need
more lists so much as we simply have too much OT chatter going on
lately (which is not a problem that we've had on anywhere near this level in
the past).

So, while we may need another group or two for some specific stuff, I don't think that we should be in a rush to split up the main newsgroup. As it is, the Phobos list basically died off, because things that were being discussed there needed to be discussed more widely. A bunch of specialized lists risks having little to no traffic for what gets posted there. We've seen that in the past. Heck, just a few months ago, the dlang-study group basically died shortly after it was created. Nothing has been posted there in months.

If we create a new list, it needs to be for a specific purpose that is either really isn't appropriate for general discussion, because it needs to be separated out so that folks can have a low traffic to find it in (like is the case with Announce), or because it's a topic with a lot of traffic in its own right which makes sense separate from the main list. And very little is going to match those criteria.

- Jonathan M Davis