[JDEV] should we split this email list?

[Todd Bradley]

Having read JDEV religiously since August, I've been wondering if we should
split this email list in two lists--one for Jabber developers and one for
Jabber administrators.  Here's my thinking, and tell me if I'm wrong.

It seems like there are really two sets of people who read this list--people
developing software based on Jabber (clients, servers, transports, etc.) and
people installing and administering Jabber servers.  Early on, I think these
groups were one and the same, but as Jabber matures and becomes more and
more popular, I see the group of people USING Jabber--and by "using" I mean
running Jabber servers for fun or profit--vastly outnumbering the group of
people developing Jabber software.

Look at Apache as an analogy.  How many people run Apache?  Now, how many
people write Apache mods or fix bugs in the server code?  Jabber is quickly
headed to the same distribution of interested parties.

Now, I have another related supposition and that is that some Jabber
software developers get turned off by the high volume of install/config
related traffic on JDEV and tune out of the list.  And that's bad, just as
the flipside is bad--that people who just want to help each other get the
latest Yahoo! transport working get turned off by all the talk about
building SSL enabled clients and the esoterics of XML grammar.

I think what's inevitable is that there will have to be some kind of split
to keep the respective groups' S/N ratios high, perhaps into JDEV and a
JADMIN lists.  What do you think?


Todd.

ps.  One other thing I've noticed over the months is that whatever the list
is called, we need an FAQ that is regularly maintained and is sent to all
new subscribers to the list.  I can't count the number of times someone asks
a question on Wednesday, someone else answers it on Thursday, and then by
Monday a newcomer asks the same question (and usually gets ignored,
unfortunately).

pps.  Ironically, I fit into both the JDEV and JADMIN groups.  I'd subscribe
to JDEV, as I'm the maintainer of the Jabber Tcl client.  But I'd also
subscribe to JADMIN, since I'm responsible for Jabber.com's public Jabber
server and also provide commercial tech support to other administrators of
Jabber servers.  Maybe everyone's like me, but I doubt it.