Hello.

  I can't agree to have separated mailing lists.  I believe
the separation won't result in benefits for both novice
squeakers and hackers.

  Ok, There will be four kind of people after splitting the
mailing list.  The first is who will read neither squeak nor
squeak-help.  We can forget them.

  The second is who reads both.  They will be bothered each
time when he is trying to post an article: "Should I move
this topic to the other mailing list?  Or should I post this
one to both of them? No no, I don't want people to read same
article twice..."

  The third is who reads only squeak mailing list, but doesn't
read squeak-help.  He thinks he can decide what he should
read and what he doesn't have to read.  Probably it is true.
(I believe even experienced smalltalker sometimes randomly
clicks the Browser for no particular purpose and finds
something he didn't know.  The same thing will happen if he
reads the squeak-help.  But, anyway, it's his choice.)

  The fourth is who read only squeak-help.  This is my
concern.  If he is new to Squeak and Smalltalk, how can
he figure out what he is trying to post is advanced enough
for "squeak mailing list" or not?  Or if he just knows there
are two separated mailing lists, how can he figure out which
mailing list he should subscribe?

  Or there may be a guy who has much experience with
Smalltalk but just new to Squeak.  He may ask advanced
question to squeak-help if he is a humble type.

  Alan Kay sometimes posts very suggestive articles about
history of Smalltalk.  I think the articles are very
interesting even for those who doesn't have much experience
with Smalltalk.  The fourth kind of people miss them, or the
second read them twice?

  This is the problem: The presence of separated mailing
lists is a signal for newbie that means Squeak community
make a distinction.  That may be an unvisible barrier for
people coming to the community.

  One reason for the saparation is that some topic in squeak
mailing lists overwhelm the newbie.  But it is quite usual
in this kind community that there are topic which a part of
people can't understand.  Usual person with moderate brain
is supposed to be able to filter the topic by himself.

  The other reason is that newbie may hesitate to ask a
"stupid" question where others discuss advanced topic.  But
he will be much encouraged if he found there are "stupid"
questions AND they are answered.  it's much effective for
newbie to post his question than separating the list.  (A
Japanese saying: "Asking is a shame for one moment, not
asking is a shame for life." (better translations?))

  The other reason is the volume of the mailing list.  Many
mailing lists have been splitted for this reason.  But
currently the traffic is 10-30 for a day, I BELIEVE it is
not too much.  And the criteria of the separation should be
topic centric. (squeak-morph, squeak-sci-cal, ..)

  Smalltalk is not a combination of unrelated parts: the
knowledge of a part tends to be useful for the other part.
And unlike other language, the wall between the implementor
and the user is very low.

  My conclusion is: We are a community, we have a mailing
list and everyone post his own article to it.

  Thank you.

                                             OHSHIMA Yoshiki
                Dept. of Mathematical and Computing Sciences
                               Tokyo Institute of Technology 

# I have a question that didn't get answered...