Proposal: new "plug-offtopic" email list

[Matt Graham]

From: Alan Dayley <alandd at consultpros.com>
> Craig White wrote:
>> On Thu, 2008-02-07 at 09:59 -0700, Alan Dayley wrote:
>>> I propose that we create another email list.  It would be called
>>> "plug-offtopic" and would be the place for everything not Linux/FS/OSS
>>> related. 
>> no one will subscribe 
> That is a danger but I disagree for the following reason.
> 
> Right now off topic discussions have one resolution: the participants
> "shut up" or go private.  I don't know how many times going private is
> successful but telling people to be quiet when they feel they have
> something worth saying is an off-putting thing.
> 
> With the creation of an off topic list, the conversations have a place
> to go. In other words we will have stronger topic enforcement here 
> while welcoming wider topics in the new list.
> 
> It will work, I think.

FWIW, on many, many, web forums devoted to topic $FOO, there is generally
a "Things that are not $FOO and are offtopic" area.  This area tends to
get quite a bit of traffic.  While mailing lists are not web forums, at
least a comparison between the 2 would be comparing mammals to other
mammals.  I think.