I get more cftalk than spam
Ok, that's not always true, but at the moment it is. I have had a lot of fun times on cftalk, learned a lot, and I still find it to be a valuable resource. But I don't like how extremely busy it is. I have had a few discussions with Michael Dinowitz about it, and we just disagree about how the list should be managed. But he is the boss, so he can run it however he wants.
What I would like to find is a mailing list that is as popular like cftalk (or at least nearly so), but doesn't have topics like these: "Importing Access data to MySQL" "Windows 2000 virus problems" "CSS positioning help" "Stored procedures in Oracle" See, I think that Michael is Ok with allowing just about any technical topic on cftalk. To be fair, there is moderation, but usually only when flame wars break out, or when non-technical topics crop up. And again, it is his list, so he is free to have whatever rules he wants.
I would love to find a popular ColdFusion mailing list that discusses just that: ColdFusion. If anybody knows of such an animal, let me know. I am already a member of the BlueDragon interest mailing list, cfeclipse users, and a couple of local lists. But these are either too specific (I wouldn't want to ask a general ColdFusion question), or they don't have enough experts to help in those "edge case" scenarios. And no, I don't like forums. I know there are a few of those around that are pretty good, but I prefer mailing lists.
Jake Munson
37 Yrs old
I think one thing that would help CF-Talk is if it was self moderated somewhat. I'm on a large motorcycle mailing list and one thing we do is prefix subjects off topic as such - so if you don't want to see that soft of stuff - you simply setup a filter and only see the on-topic posts. It works very well.
Of course, it is no where near the popularity of cftalk. Many days will go by without a post, but when there is one, the discussion can (and most often does) get very good.
And, you may be on there for all I know =)
Moderation is based on a group of volunteers who will view a thread and then label it. Subscribers can then select labels that they don't want to get mail about and any posts made to the labeled thread past the point that the label was applied will 'skip' over that subscriber.
The reverse is also possible with a subscriber rejecting all posts other than those given a specific label. Once the label is applied, they would get emails of all the posts they missed and any subsequent ones.
Voting is a more global system where people can vote for threads on a sliding scale (1-5) and subscribers can select the level after which they stop receiving mail on a thread. For example, if the votes on a thread pushes the rating to 2, then anyone who said that they don't want threads of 2 or lower will not get any new posts on a thread. A rating of 0 (or some other decided upon value) would get admin review for banning or moving the thread.
These work well as they do not force anyone to do anything they don't want to do. I'm all about freedom of choice.
There are other potential options such as subject keyword targeting, body keyword scanning and the like. These are far from exact, but might work for some people.
But as a side note, unless you are a monk, there's no way you can have more CF-Talk than spam. Looking at these stats:
Month Posts/Posters
January 2799/321
February 2777/364
March 3192/363
show about 3000 posts a month. I get that much in spam in less than a week and the lists block that much in spam a few times a day (one of the other advantages of CF-Talk)
Now, I am not saying that I want all kinds of topics on the CF-Talk - I would rather it be all ColdFusion. All I am saying is that I can understand the mentality and I think that what is going on is human nature. The ColdFusion community is so active and so helpful that I think this sort of behavior is going to be evident anywhere there is a big CF participation.
Ben, I agree - it's funny how these online 'communities' come together. On my motorcycle mailing list we talk about everything - guns, politics, marriage, etc and for the most part it's amazing how well everyone behaves.
I was on cfcdev for a while, but it seemed to be all framework zealots debating the pros/cons of various competing ideas. But this was a couple of years ago, so I don't know what it's like now. As far as popularity, I don't want a high traffic list. I want a list that has a /lot/ of subscribers, particularly gurus like Dave Watts and Ben Forta. I don't care if the traffic is very low, in fact I'd prefer that.
I totally agree. But the problem isn't that those kind of posts appear, its that they are allowed. We will /never/ have a mailing list where OT posts are non-existent. People are too lazy, uninformed, or just plain careless for that to happen. But take the BlueDragon list for example. There are OT posts on occasion, but Vince is very strict about the rules, /and/ he's very good about moderating the list. But the problem with cftalk is that there /are/ no rules, from what I've seen. And if there are, they aren't posted, and the moderation is close to zero.
My spam vs. cftalk comment was subjective. When I made that post yesterday, I had 40 something spam and 50 something cftalk messages. But like I said, I don't always get more cftalk than spam, and it totally depends on the person and their email address. Also, I was /not/ saying that I get spam through cftalk, that never happens (good job on that, btw).
"The problem is that most people are comfortable with what they have." I wonder if that's true. I have read blog posts/comments and talked to quite a number of people that say, "I don't like the huge volume of cftalk." Now, if all the OT were to go away, there would still be a lot of volume. But I'd be Ok with it at that point. But when we're talking about 3000 messages a month, and a good percentage of that is not specific to CF, we've got a problem, IMO.
I think you've laid out some good plans in your comment, and I'm very glad to see that. Personally, I think it would suffice to create some rules, post them on your site, and then ask for volunteers to be moderators. All they'd have to do is point people to the rules, and over time the OT would slow down.
That said, if you want to go to all the work of creating that system you outlined, have at it. I think that would work very well, and would help curb the 'problem'. But please, for the sake of keeping me and others like me on the list, do /something/. But again, I realize it's your list, so you can do whatever you think is best.
1. Just fine as is
2. Too busy for me
3. Too much off topic traffic
However, the problem with having the poll on cftalk is that you wouldn't get the people that have unsubscribed for various reasons. Also, I'd bet that if it was on cftalk, the majority of people would choose #1. Maybe I could do a blog entry with a poll...
I'll have to check out cfcdev again. I know it went through a 'purge' of sorts last year when they had problems with the server and had to do everything from scratch. It might be a completely different animal now. And I agree with your second comment, I do that all the time myself (delete a bunch of posts without looking).
CF-Talk is moderated but it's done in a way that you don't really see it. Spam is handled automatically. Really OT posts are moved to CF-OT without announcement. Flamewars, fights and arguments are handled directly and threads are blocked when needed. I don't like to be intrusive if I can help it, but the moderation is there (unless its a holiday or Judith has given birth)
I'll post a request for moderators to help out with moving posts to more specific lists. The problem is, when a post is moved, does the person automatically get subscribed to the new list? more intrusive than I'd like.
Sometime next week I'll look into a poll that can be distributed to other blogs to get some more general feedback.
One feature that's been on my plate for a while is to have a list of posters with what they've posted. This means that you can go to Ray's 'page' and see his latest CF-Talk posts and avoid reading most messages.
The moderation you talked about, that you're doing today, mostly occurs /after/ the emails have been sent. I don't read cftalk from your site, so if a 50 message thread is moved to cf-community in the background, that doesn't keep those out of my inbox. And the "without announcement" part doesn't prevent such things from happening in the future.
Seriously, go look at the archives for the bluedragon list, and you'll see what I'm talking about. I really doubt people are going to get mad and leave if there are rules in place and moderators that keep things in line. In fact, that is the way most other lists are handled, and people are used to it. But on cftalk, I think most people realize it's a free-for-all, and they can basically do whatever they want most of the time. Like complain about ColdFusion prices in the UK, and talk about easter (two recent topics).