[WikiEN-l] Time to reboot wikien-l

[Guettarda]

I would say that the easiest ways to improve the experience (if not that
atmosphere) here is to

a. as a reader, use a dedicated Gmail account (threads discussions, lets you
ignore threads you don't want), and
b. as a poster, use more descriptive titles

Only read the threads that look interesting.  Comment less often.  Edit the
things you quote from so people don't have to skim two pages of discussion
to find what you said.

While we obviously need to moderate people more, I strongly disagree with
the idea of banning people from here who are banned from Wikipedia.  In my
early days here I learned a lot from Pete (Skyring) - despite the fact that
he was on a long-term ban, he certainly had interesting things to say.  This
isn't the place to rant against "the system" or admins, or whomever you feel
like ranting against (if you want to rant, you can always start a blog.  If
you say something interesting, David will find your blog and tell the list
about it).  I don't like the idea of splitting the list further - that would
only mean having to either subscribe to more lists (each of which will
eventually grow into monstrosities like this one, or they will die), or
losing touch even more with what's going on in the world of the project.

The useful thing about this list is that it gives you a chance to say on top
of a lot of things with minimum effort.  Sometimes you don't even need to
read the thread - just look at the topic, and see how many people have
replied to it.  I gave up on the ANs and VPs long ago.  Of course, I say
that as someone who has largely gotten over their addiction to the list.  I
only read things with really interesting subject lines.  Which is how I read
this.