Re: why so many generic perl questions

Mike A. Harris (mharris@ican.net)
Sun, 27 Jun 1999 03:36:02 -0400 (EDT) 

On Fri, 25 Jun 1999, Jonathan W. Daniel wrote:

>The first time I found out about the LWP Forum was through a webpage whose
>URL I can't remember now... but it said that it was a mailing list for
>*any* LWP issues.
>
>That's probably why others are making the mistake of posting general LWP
>questions. But I don't why people are posting non-LWP questions!
>
>As I understand it, this is only for developers who are debugging LWP, or
>working on enhancements.

Out of the README file that comes with it:

Questions about how to use this library should be directed to the
comp.lang.perl.modules USENET Newsgroup.  Bug reports and
suggestions for improvements can be sent to the
<libwww-perl@ics.uci.edu> mailing list.  This mailing list is
also the place for general discussions and development of the
libwww-perl package.

You can join the mailing list by sending a message to
<libwww-perl-request@ics.uci.edu> with "Subscribe" as subject.


When I read this, I focussed in on the last line which reads:
"This mailing list is also the place for general discussions and
development of the libwww-perl package."

I read that as:

1) This mailing list is a place for general discussions of the
   libwww-perl package.

2) This mailing list is a place for development of the
   libwww-perl package.

I prefer mailing lists over newsgroups, and so I never really saw
the first line as reading "ONLY post to this USENET group".
After reading it all again, I still feel that the wording says
that either is fine.  "general discussion" to me is very open
sounding.  If it is a development list only, it should read:

"This mailing list is also the place for general discussion of
the development of the libwww-perl package."

If the above statement is true, then it is completely
unambiguous, whereas the statement that comes in the docs, is
vague.

If this mailing list IS for development only, and "general
discussion of development of the libwww-perl package" as I
corrected above (perhaps incorrectly) then please tell me as I've
no interest in the development of it, and would like to
unsubscribe if I'm in the wrong place.

TTYL