What should a community manager do?

[Joel Newkirk]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:18:31 +1030, Rod Whitby <rod at whitby.id.au> wrote:
> Joel Newkirk wrote:

>> WRT your final point, we already have the 'Support' mailinglist - my
>> impression is that the intent of that list (not necessarily the actual
>> usage though) is as a place for the 'user' to go when seeking answers
> and
>> fixes, rather than seeking to involve themselves in the actual quest for
>> those answers and fixes.
> 
> Indeed, the trouble is there is a third list "community" which muddies
> the waters between "devel" and "support", and the five word descriptions
> on lists.openmoko.org don't give people enough guidance on which list to
> use for what.  Nor is there a community manager who is consistently and
> politely but firmly requiring people to use the correct lists ...
> 
> -- Rod

I think you've hit the mark there...  A clear conception of what list is
the appropriate venue for certain matters, a clear explanation of that, and
someone designated to publicly but politely police posts could help a great
deal.

My impression has always been that Devel was for people (largely within OM
,I'd assumed) who were working on core development within the heart of the
OS and relating more directly to the hardware, Support was for end-users to
raise end-user concerns, and Community was basically for everything else,
which at this point in the life of said community is largely relating to
development and testing.

If that, or just about any other reasonably logical division, were clearly
stated and at least loosely enforced, and posts were required to include
[FSO] etc identifying the relevant distribution in the subject, things
could function much more smoothly.

j