[Python-Dev] Python-dev signal-to-noise processing question (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Thu Jul 22 14:22:52 CEST 2010

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:02:33 pm Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

OTOH I think as quick as possible an answer is a good idea here. It saves the intended audience the thought about whether to reply or not, and an instant, constructive answer says that somebody cares.

+1

I think that waiting "a day or two" as suggested by Average does nobody any good. It doesn't help the poster, who will almost certainly have given up by then, and may have concluded that we're stuck-up and rude for not answering a polite question. It doesn't help those who choose to reply, because we're sitting around wondering if we've waiting long enough.

If you consider posting a question to a list without making any effort to determine whether it is on-topic or not to be a social faux pas, and therefore worthy of a mild rebuke, the longer you wait the less effective the negative reinforcement is. Even if you don't see it like that, and just want to point the poster in the right direction, there's still no advantage in waiting.

But frankly, I think we're worrying too much. What exactly are we worried about? As I see it, the worst that can happen is a false negative, somebody will say "You've posted to the wrong list" and will be corrected by somebody else who says "No, you've misunderstood the question, this is the right list". No harm done.

The message should be "The people who will answer your question on python-dev are also on comp.lang.python, as well as many more (you may get a faster, and probably more complete, answer on comp.lang.python). The people on python-dev don't need to see the answer (they already know it), but the people on comp.lang.python are likely to be happy to learn it."

We don't need to make excuses for why we don't give the answer here. It's enough to give the reason -- it's off-topic for this list, which is about the development of Python. That and a pointer to the right list is, in my opinion, all we need to say. We don't need to sugar coat it -- we're all adults here.

-- Steven D'Aprano

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