On  Thu, 1 Mar 2012 14:40:42 +0000 Robert Mills
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Subject:
>
> Greetings to the -L,
>
> As a long time member of this list it was inevitable that
> when I joined an HP-UX shop I would also join the 9000-L.
>
> My expectations of the 9000-L was based on my time with
> the 3000-L. I am sad to say that the reality is no where
> near what I had become used to and was hoping for.
>
> So I have to ask:
>
> IF (you are at a mixed 3000/9000 shop) OR (have moved
> totally to the 9000 AND are still lurking on this list
> like me) THEN
>   IF Not a member of the 9000-L THEN
>     Did you join some other list? If so, which?
>   END-IF
> END-IF
>

I was a member of the HP9000-L for several years back in
the mid to late 90's and early 00's.  As I recollect that
list was focused solely on technical issues requiring a
definitive knowledge based solution, The list moderators
actively discouraged / prohibited the sort of wide ranging
discussions (and much of anything else) found on HP3000-L
then and now.  I do recall that having raised a question
one was expected to post the [SOLVED] result.  And you
were contacted if you did not.

That said, there were a LOT of really helpful and
knowledgeable people on HP9000-L when I was a member. 
There was also a list called hp-ux-admin but I cannot
recall anything about it.

My experience with technical mailing lists in general has
been similar to that with the HP9000-L list.  There is
wide-spread resistance within the online *nix technical
community to permitting the types of discussions that
happen here on HP3000-L.  I can only speculate that too
many of the moderators have experienced too many flame
wars in the past and are somewhat gun shy in consequence. 
Not that I blame them.

The result is that one is forced to subscribe to many
lists, each devoted to a specific technology (LVM, KVM,
Perl, Ruby, Sendmail, Postfix, MailScanner, yada, yada,
yada .  .  .) rather than a single catholic source like
the HP3000-L.  Raise a question that is considered off
topic on one of these and the best you can hope for is to
be ignored.

So called 'distribution' based mailing lists
(ubuntu-users, centos, etc.) tend to be somewhat more
flexible respecting topics but there the answer to
technical questions ofttimes seems to be: take this to the
XYZ list and have upstream deal with it.

-- 
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James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
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