>> ... I wonder whether this is an inbuilt,
>> unavoidable problem with free software projects once they reach a certain
>> level of popularity.
> Funny you should mention PHP. I talked to Rasmus about the email volume
> when I first met him in the fall. He said the volume of email is so
> great that just reading the subject lines takes a long time.
> We aren't there yet, but we are heading in that direction.
Yes, the shape of the curve is pretty clear --- it's already not
possible for the key developers to respond to everything, and that'll
get worse. We have to start thinking about ways to spread out the load
better.
> Second, I have started to skip emails
> with subjects that contain obvious questions, relying on other users to
> answer these.
I still try to read everything, but I'm trying to train myself not to
answer the easy questions ;-). Other folks should step up and answer
if they know the answer.
Aside from persuading more people to spend time answering email
questions, I agree we need to work harder on making answers findable
outside the mailing lists. Improving the docs, making the mail archives
more easily searchable, etc etc. I dunno if an "annotated manual" would
help --- I've never used one --- but if people want to try one, it can't
hurt. The main problem is to get the work done. We need volunteers to
actually do some of these things, not just suggest them ...
regards, tom lane