Subject: Re: PGSQL-WINDOWS mailing list?

From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 17:11:20 +0100

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Josh Berkus [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: 11 August 2004 17:04
> To: Dave Page; PostgreSQL www
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] PGSQL-WINDOWS mailing list?
> 
> Dave,
> 
> > Are you really expecting that many platform specific 
> questions? With a 
> > separate list I can already see the confusion as users get bounced 
> > onto another list because their question is slightly more of a 
> > platform issue, or actually an SQL issue.
> 
> So far, I'm seeing a lot of them.   This could me because the 
> Win port is 
> still buggy, of course, but it might continue.

I'm seeing quite a few, but they are pretty much all installer and a few
initdb issues, all of which we will hopefully iron out. I'm not on
-general or -novice though, so I may be missing a whole heap of traffic
that you're not.

> Also, I *am* expecting the windows port to expand out active 
> online community by at least 1000 subscribers, if not 5 times 
> that.  My experience with other projects (like 
> OpenOffice.org) showed that when a mailing list gets too big 
> (somewhere between 60 and 100 posts a day) it becomes 
> prohibitive for the 
> entry-level user as a support mechanism.   Some people have 
> yahoo accounts, 
> you know?

That's a different issue altogether though (perfectly valid though). Is
there a more appropriate way to split the existing groups perhaps? I'm
opposed to shifting the windows users onto a platform specific group
just because there's a lot of them. I'm not opposed to shifting them if
we find there are lots of platform specific problems though.

> 
> So it's as much wanting to have another list of any kind as 
> having a windows-specific list.

Yup :-)

Regards, Dave.

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From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:30:22 -0700

Dave,

> we find there are lots of platform specific problems though.

Well, unfortunately, at least 70% of the Windows users can be counted on not 
to differentiate platform-specific issues from general ones.  And given the 
flakyness of the platform, I expect there to be continuous issues.  Also, I'd 
really rather not have a 25-post thread on PGSQL-SQL discussing how XP-SP3 
breaks PostgreSQL.   

While there are other possible lists we could add, the advantage of 
PGSQL-WINDOWS is that it would attract a substantial portion of the new 
users, which, for example, a list named PGSQL-INSTALL might not.

On a completely different topic, who's in charge of ODBC these days?  I'm 
getting breakage reports on IRC.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

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From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Aug 2004 13:17:43 -0400

> we find there are lots of platform specific problems though.

Josh, so you see the windows list duplicating ground from some of the
other lists?  Ie. the description of the windows list would be inclusive
of "admin"-ing on windows, "performance" on windows, and "general" usage
problems on windows?

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:48:09 -0700

Robert,

> of "admin"-ing on windows, "performance" on windows, and "general" usage

Yes.   I especially want to give the Win users someplace other than GENERAL to 
go; I've unsubbed from that list due to traffic. 

-- 
-Josh Berkus

______AGLIO DATABASE SOLUTIONS___________________________
                                        Josh Berkus
    Enterprise vertical business        [email-masked]
     and data analysis solutions        (415) 752-2500
      and database optimization           fax 752-2387
  utilizing Open Source technology      San Francisco

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 15:02:58 -0400 (EDT)

> getting breakage reports on IRC.

Dave Page is leading it and has gotten a few volunteers.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [email-masked]               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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From: Tom Lane <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 15:08:40 -0400

Josh Berkus <[email-masked]> writes:
> Yes.  I especially want to give the Win users someplace other than
> GENERAL to go; I've unsubbed from that list due to traffic.

I've got mixed feelings about this.  I agree with the fear that
Windows-related messages might drown out the rest of the traffic ...
but that may happen *anyway*.

Based on what I've seen (and I do sub to nearly all the pg lists),
we have too many lists, not too few.  People post into the wrong
list all the time, because they don't know about or can't be bothered
to subscribe to the one that their message would be most on-topic for.
Or maybe they just don't know enough to realize that their problem
relates to a particular area.  It's particularly bad for bug reports;
people will send messages describing bugs or possible bugs almost
anyplace.

I like the idea of trying to draw off Windows-specific traffic into
its own list, but I am worried that we will lose on both ends.  A
pgsql-windows list might end up becoming the default list for all sorts
of messages from Windows users, including things that really should be
on other lists.  And on top of that, if we get the kind of influx of
new users that people seem to be bracing for, we're going to have
significant levels of Windows-specific messages on all the other lists
too.  It's hardly likely that Windows users will be better at targeting
their messages than the existing user base.

So I'm not sure whether to vote for a new list or not.  It might do what
Josh is hoping for, or it might just contribute to the mess.

I'm kind of inclined to wait and see.  We can certainly add a list in
a few months if traffic levels rise to the point where we have to.
Perhaps they won't.

			regards, tom lane

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From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 21:11:37 +0200

Josh Berkus wrote:
> On a completely different topic, who's in charge of ODBC these days? 
> I'm getting breakage reports on IRC.

[email-masked], as usual, with Dave Page and myself currently 
doing most of the maintenance work.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 22:51:13 -0300 (ADT)

> users, which, for example, a list named PGSQL-INSTALL might not.

I'm not ant-pgsql-windows, but I fear that the one thing you are trying to 
avoid is going to happen if we do create it ... namely, all new windows 
users will subscribe to that one list and post everything under the sun to 
it, making that one list pretty useless :(

If anything, altho it might be long, let's do something like:

pgsql-general-windows
pgsql-novice-windows
pgsql-admin-windows
pgsql-sql-windows

or something like that ... so that its not just the one list ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [email-masked]           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 22:58:21 -0300 (ADT)

> people will send messages describing bugs or possible bugs almost

'k ... as a tangent to this thread, should we look at cleaning up / 
removing some lists?  Merging a couple or something like that?

I don't find any of them get a horrendously amount of traffic compared to 
other lists I'm on, but I use a threaded mail reader too, which helps 
reduce the index size ...

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From: "Gavin M. Roy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:59:14 -0700

Don't ya think pgsql-sql-windows  is a bit overkill?  It's not like pg's 
behavior re sql changes on windows.

Gavin

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> I'm not ant-pgsql-windows, but I fear that the one thing you are 
> trying to avoid is going to happen if we do create it ... namely, all 
> new windows users will subscribe to that one list and post everything 
> under the sun to it, making that one list pretty useless :(
>
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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 23:04:05 -0300 (ADT)

> behavior re sql changes on windows.

hey, I'm just throwing out suggestions :)  and .. agreed, that one would 
be overkill ...

>> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your

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