[erlang-questions] On announcements [ANN]

[Joe Armstrong]

Many announcements start appear in my inbox like this:

[erlang-questions] [ANN] SuperWonderFullThing 3.5.1  Released!!!

Now in many cases (even though I'm a frequent reader of this list)
I haven't a clue what this program does.

This is a common format:

   [ANN]   <name> <version> Released !!!!
   <details of feature> *
   <Name> is a <short description>

In extreme cases the short description of what the program does is omitted

May I respectfully request that all such announcements BEGIN with
a description

    <Name> is a ....

Where the ... dots tell me in plain non-technical English what <Name> is
... should be rather short - a few lines - not a Proustian paragraph.

This should be FIRST not LAST and should always be present.

<aside>
One thing that never fails to astonish me is arriving at a technical web site
and not having a clue as to what the information is all about.

I'm sure nobody on this list would do that :-)
</aside>

Doing this would probably help spread your wonderful contributions
- which I'm sure might be great if I knew what they did.

Cheers

/Joe