[HCoop-Discuss] RFC: Subscribing new members to help and discussion lists by default?

[Adam Chlipala]

On 07/24/2013 09:55 PM, Jesse Shumway wrote:
> nudge - to coax or gently encourage, to touch or push, to prod gently, 
> typically with one's elbow.
>
> Make a sytem's default the behavior you wish to encourage… so sign 'em up!

Let me inject a bit of institutional memory here; I hope it's helpful.

Originally in 2002, HCoop was just a set of friends sharing a server.  
The earliest levels of evolution maintained group dynamics not too far 
from the starting point.  We had just one mailing list for everything, 
from "there will be downtime tomorrow" to "can you recommend me some 
blog software?".

At some point I realized that many members were not interested in 
reading the high volume of messages that can be generated in some 
threads (like this one, actually).  These members would start ignoring 
all HCoop-related e-mail, which causes a variety of logistic problems.  
That's why I created multiple mailing lists, including an announcements 
list that everything must be subscribed to and a discussion list that is 
opt-in.  There is a serious risk that opting certain members in to the 
latter by default will cause them to decide "HCoop sends too much 
e-mail" and ignore _everything_ we send.  We had some members who were 
intimidated at the thought of understanding what a mailing list is and 
how to control subscriptions.

 From this perspective, it's an especially bad idea to decide on a 
change by polling those members who happen to be paying close attention 
to hcoop-discuss.

Online social dynamics can change a lot in 10 years, so maybe it doesn't 
make sense to think too much about past experience, but it seems worth 
considering.
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