The Coq mailing list

[Beta Ziliani <beta AT mpi-sws.org>]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Alexandre Pilkiewicz
<alexandre.pilkiewicz AT polytechnique.org>
 wrote:
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> I'm sorry if I made anyone think I was suggesting we should stop
> answering trivial questions. Like anyone else, I have been a beginner
> in Coq, and I still often ask pretty trivial things. I've been lucky
> enough to be able to ask most of those questions to people in offices
> next to mine, but I would never want to denies other the right to ask
> them on a mailing list (even if I support the suggestion of Matthias
> to create a beginner list, to allow people to ask basic questions
> without being impressed by discussion on W-types, and without imposing
> a maximum number of questions, and believe that IRC might be better
> for that)
>
> That being said, a friendly community doesn't mean a community without
> any rules or any ways of protecting itself against trolls. And I think
> someone who keeps asking trivial questions, does not read the answers,
> does not follow any advices, and keeps accusing the tool of being
> badly designed before trying to understand it falls in the "troll"
> category.
>
> Cheers,
> Alexandre
>
>

Here my 2cts to the discussion.

I agree with the characterization of this person, and I believe we
should not take further actions to regulate the list. Just identifying
and isolating trolls should suffice for now, I think, as there weren't
that many postings before the troll.

I think it's a good thing to have experts and beginners asking
questions in the same list. As long as the number of messages is
manageable, I will encourage us to maintain this setting.

Best,
Beta