[TAG] found something in the attic...

[Karl-Heinz Herrmann]

Hi,

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:25:55 -0800
Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Benjamin A. Okopnik (ben at linuxgazette.net):
> > I'm getting the feeling that some folks would feel a lot more
> > constrained about what they can or can't say on a public list, and
> > that's an effect I'd prefer to avoid.
> 
> Oh?  _That_ is something nobody has said.

Well -- at least something along that line (not posting as freely as
on a newsgroup) was said here:

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 23:13:58 +0100
Karl-Heinz Herrmann <kh1 at khherrmann.de> wrote:
>   Or I've just been thick and didn't get
>   the question or an answer. Until now these posts have been edited
>   and the relevant parts have been selected for TAG column, and I
>   think rightly so. That gave the "freedom" to try an answer and be
>   corrected by others if wrong. I wouldn't "try an answer" on a
>   newsgroup. 


But maybe we should go back to a more interesting point: Why public? 
What's in the archives that can not be found in the LG TAG column? I
think almost all technically interesting bits are published, most of the
very fascinationg linguistic threads are there as well. 

On Sun, 8 Jan 2006 13:26:51 -0800
Peter Knaggs <peter.knaggs at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/7/06, Benjamin A. Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:

> > I like the idea of articles at all levels, from the very basic to
> > relatively complex, of interest not only to newbies but to
> > professionals as well. I want LG to appeal to a broad audience.
> 
> I was wondering if part of the reason for less
> participation in the LG mailing list itself
> was due to it being written in a way that
> would tend to make it less google-icious i.e.
> it's more of a free flowing discussion. But
> I guess it's just because the TAG list
> archives aren't public so google doesn't
> index them.

I don't get this point at all. Why would google find a discussion thread
less interesting? google (last time I was interested in that) was
ranking by cross linking, i.e. more links on other pages, higher rank.
Now articles might simply be more visible, more valuable to actually
link to. 

I do not see why publishing the same discussion style thread should
suddenly get high rankings in google just because the parts which
got edited out are back in. 

Also when googling for some problem I often enough end on huge pages
with the full text of a forum like version of some mailing list -- And
I'm quite often less then thrilled to search around for the same
keywords I just googled for, especially since google takes keywords but
has no "near" feature. So I might look for A in case of B and find
articles on A and articles on B but not the combination. Lots of wasted
time. 

BTW: Would the htmlized  mbox be a forum like threaded thing just
without posting feature? A large page containing all the thread is
definitely worthless even if its first hit in google because it contains
any and all keywords imaginable. But then you've got the Library of
Bable: http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html
Everything is there, but how to find it? 

> So I guess the puzzle becomes how to get
> folks, who aren't necessarily trying to
> become authors, to participate in a list
> where we first figure out answers, then try
> to set a discussion frame with the end
> goal being not only to provide the solution
> but also to create a readable article about
> the topic. Tricky :)

Well -- in my oppinion TAG is quite an interesting place to hang out
because I *don't* have to provide complete articles. I can contribute
with whatever I might think helpful. The discussion will decide if it
actually was helpful and then it might end up in the TAG column. If not
why bother publishing it?


So again my few cents. If you do publish everything I would like to ask
you to run a s/khh at khherrmann.de/kh1 at khherrmann.de/ and
s/K.-H. at khherrmann.de/kh1 at khherrmann.de/. If there are still others like
the @fz-juelich.de I don't mind. That one is outdated and hopelessly
spammed anyway.



K.-H.