[topicmaps-comment] Cross-postings, definition of lists scopes,and community building.

[Bernard Vatant <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>]

Preliminary note - This message is sent only to:
topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Feel free to forward it to any other relevant list :o)

Why are we so messy? Several good and bad general reasons, and reasons  specific to this community context  ...

General reasons:

1. Drawing frontiers between technical, conceptual, strategic, marketing or  whatever other aspects is arbitrary to a large extent.

2. We are generally lazy, so we prefer hitting the "reply" button than thinking  about it before. As a matter of fact, I generally don't know what I am exactly  going to write when hitting the "reply" button. I guess I'm not the only one ...

3. We are not rigourous, so we generally don't stick to a basic rule: one  message <=> one subject (and if possible, the subject defined in the thread  title). BTW the systematic non-observance of this rule, which is not particular to  our community, makes it very challenging to build a consistent TM over any  forum. I will follow that thread in another post.

4. The exact intended scope of a list is often widely fuzzy to, or ignored by its  subscribers. In fact people care more about answering to whatever is posted  than building collective intelligence in a definite scope. So we get most of the  time individual people speaking to each other (in the best case) or shouting  past each other (too often), but too rarely thinking in terms of relevancy to  usage of their post *by the community*.


Specific reasons in this community (if community there is).

What I understand of the scopes of different lists:

-- sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org 
This list is for specification and standard technical debate. As a matter of fact,  I'm not on this list, and like Scott, did not know its address before the recent  spilling over. So I won't venture more on this field. But, from the way I  understood the recent reorganization, all technical debates we had in xtm-wg  concerning syntax, data model, query language ... should go there.  

-- topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Subscribers here are mostly those who have been migrated from xtm-wg, but I  don't feel this forum has the same scope at all than xtm-wg, since all of the  technical debate should go either to the previous ISO list for normalization  work, either to specific TC lists for specific applications (like Published  Subjects). My view is that we should have here general debate concerning field  applications and use cases, marketing, coordination inside the community and  with other standards communities and industry, etc. That is the sense of  migrating inside OASIS. 

<Michel Biezunski>
I think the policy should be that whatever is a subject of
general interest for the topic map community should go
to the general interest topic map mailing list, while the two
other lists, sc34 and topicmaps-comment should be devoted,
and exclusively used for, the work currently being done by
the corresponding committee(s).
</Michel Biezunski>
I disagree for topicmaps-comment, which IMO is not the list for any (Technical)  Committee. TCs have specific lists. It should be the Member Section's list, but  the status of this Member Section is not clear to me at that stage of the  process. Is there formally a Member Section at all right now? What are its  name, status and purpose? Where and when was it formed? Who are the  members? Where is the Charter? All those questions we had to clearly answer  for starting Published Subjects TC through well-defined process. 
And we've seen press releases that may be misleading for that matter two days  ago. The OASIS press release does not speak of Member Section, but only of  Technical Committees, which is strictly conformant to the present situation.  See: http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis_news_10_02_01.shtml
But in XML Cover Pages release, we already read something slightly different,  speaking of "OASIS XTM". Is it the (to-be) Member Section referred to this  way? See: http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2001-10-02-a.html
A clarification of all that seems necessary. Knowing which list belongs to which  organization or process is a minimal requirement ... and what we lack now is  this requirement for topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, until the  Member Section has no clear status. It would be good if Karl Best or Eric  Freese could make a point right now on that.

--topicmapmail@infoloom.com
That one's scope I have the greatest difficulty to figure now given the change of  context. And as a matter of fact I don't post to it any more. I feel it either  redundant with topicmaps-comment, either to be redefined more accurately not  to overlap. Michel, you are the owner and moderator, you should pronounce on  that more accurately I think. "General interest" is too fuzzy. Everybody tends to  think one's present interest is general interest ... 

Regards

Bernard

PS: Michel told me a few days ago he felt me as the only one in this  community to be really concerned by "building the community". 
I agree it's one on my constant concerns everywhere I go, and this post is  certainly another proof of it, but I hope I'm not the only one ... 

Community Builders ... please move one step forward :))

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Bernard Vatant - Consultant
bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
Mondeca - "Making Sense of Content"
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