>So the question is, what is the problem we are trying to solve?
How to support BOTH quick and dirty questions:answers AND complex
technical discussions that require significant time from their
participants.
The problem of self-interest - people want to be able to ask their questions and get responses to those questions without being inundated with lots of other people asking questions that they don't have any intent to answer.
Our bug reporting mechanism works pretty well in this regard - which is why people choose to use it instead of -general. Most (all) respondents on -bugs will remember to Reply-All which is a critical element of making it work in a two-way flow. I don't know how much effort is spent moderating that list...
A mailing list configuration that will automatically add on the OP to any email in a message thread lacking the OP would work-around those list respondents who would use "Reply" instead of "Reply All". Keeping track of all respondents and adding them would be something to consider as well.
The above would address the problem of our inability to provide a limited engagement channel for people seeking help without forcing them onto the -bugs list.
I don't think that "quick and dirty" vs. "complex" is necessarily addressed here though likely the vast majority of posts would be of the former style. Maybe so much so that directing that traffic to a separate "-questions" list would let people discriminate their participation between the different traffic profiles there and on -general.
A second problem is how to easily allow people to join (both read-only and read-write) an ongoing conversation that isn't in their inbox. Asking for a "forum" seems to be expressing a problem of this nature. I'm deferring consideration of this problem-area for some other time.
David J.
