If anyone is interested: In "comp.misc", there's a discussion
about the use of mailing lists in software development.

Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms

(I did not create this subject!)

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On 10/01/2023 08.46, Stefan Ram wrote:

If anyone is interested: In "comp.misc", there's a discussion
about the use of mailing lists in software development.
Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms
(I did not create this subject!)

(and I don't read comp.misc)


There is an increasingly relevant question though: how do we 'reach' as
many people as possible, without diluting the (community) value of
responses?

At one time, if you wanted to talk/hear certain folk you felt compelled
to join Twitter (see also AOL, MySpace, Facebook, ...). Recently many
more people have realised that a single, centralised, (and
corporately-owned) 'service' has its down-sides.

If there are too many channels for communication, it increases the
difficulty for any one person to 'keep up', eg python-list and python-forum.

On the other hand, by splitting the community, eg python-list and
python-tutor, there are benefits of relevance and focus.

What some don't seem to appreciate is that whilst a conversation such as
"how do I ..." seems to have the objective of (quickly) solving that
(one) person's problem, at that one point in time; it also (potentially)
forms a 'knowledgebase' for people who have the same problem, at some
later time.

For those brought-up with, or in the mode of, 'instant messaging', there
is no concept of future-value. This is evidenced by the many folk who
fail to scan the mailing-list archives before posting a question 'here'
(who may not even realise that archives are kept, and for that very
purpose).

This in-turn, feeds the notion of splitting 'learners' from 'core
developers' (for example). How many times have you seen a question about
how to use Python for the very first time after installing on Windows?

See also the wisdom of enabling comp.lang.python and python-list as
'mirrors', enabling those who prefer one mechanism/client to another,
yet maintaining a single 'community'.

--
Regards,
=dn

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On Tue, 10 Jan 2023 at 09:37, dn <PythonList@danceswithmice.info> wrote:

On 10/01/2023 08.46, Stefan Ram wrote:

If anyone is interested: In "comp.misc", there's a discussion
about the use of mailing lists in software development.
Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms
(I did not create this subject!)

(and I don't read comp.misc)

There is an increasingly relevant question though: how do we 'reach' as
many people as possible, without diluting the (community) value of
responses?

At one time, if you wanted to talk/hear certain folk you felt compelled
to join Twitter (see also AOL, MySpace, Facebook, ...). Recently many
more people have realised that a single, centralised, (and
corporately-owned) 'service' has its down-sides.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1810/

ChrisA

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dn <PythonList@danceswithmice.info> wrote:
[snip]

See also the wisdom of enabling comp.lang.python and python-list as 'mirrors', enabling those who prefer one mechanism/client to another,
yet maintaining a single 'community'.

Yes, this is important I think. Plus, if possible, if it's decided to
move to a forum format make that accessible by E-Mail.

--
Chris Green
·

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On 01/10/23 11:33, dn wrote:

On 10/01/2023 08.46, Stefan Ram wrote:

If anyone is interested: In "comp.misc", there's a discussion
about the use of mailing lists in software development.
Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms
(I did not create this subject!)

(and I don't read comp.misc)

There is an increasingly relevant question though: how do we 'reach'
as many people as possible, without diluting the (community) value of >responses?

At one time, if you wanted to talk/hear certain folk you felt
compelled to join Twitter (see also AOL, MySpace, Facebook, ...).
Recently many more people have realised that a single, centralised,
(and corporately-owned) 'service' has its down-sides.

If there are too many channels for communication, it increases the
difficulty for any one person to 'keep up', eg python-list and
python-forum.

I remember there was once a hot thread in this python-list discussing
about abandoning this mailing list and move all the discussion to the
forum.

Has anyone known about any status quo about the decision?

I personally strongly preferred mailing list. It is open-format,
open-archive and easy to download and retrive information using your
preferred indexing tools and homemade scripts.

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Chris Green wrote at 2023-1-10 08:45 +0000:

...
Yes, this is important I think. Plus, if possible, if it's decided to
move to a forum format make that accessible by E-Mail.

I much prefer a mailing list over an http based service.
With mailing lists, all interesting messages arrive in my email
reader, i.e. at a central place; with http based services,
I have to visit the various sites to learn whether there is
relevant new information.

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On 10Jan2023 08:45, Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

dn <PythonList@danceswithmice.info> wrote:

See also the wisdom of enabling comp.lang.python and python-list as
'mirrors', enabling those who prefer one mechanism/client to another,
yet maintaining a single 'community'.

Yes, this is important I think. Plus, if possible, if it's decided to
move to a forum format make that accessible by E-Mail.

There's a Discourse forum over at discuss.python.org. I use it in
"mailing list mode" and do almost all my interactions via email, exactly
as I do for python-list. Posts come to me and land in the same local
mail folder I use for python-list. My replies land on the forum as
expected (and of course also go by email to those members who have
turned that mode on).

So I'm using both the new forum and the currently mailing list still,
and broadly in exactly the same way.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au>

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Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au> wrote:

On 10Jan2023 08:45, Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

dn <PythonList@danceswithmice.info> wrote:

See also the wisdom of enabling comp.lang.python and python-list as
'mirrors', enabling those who prefer one mechanism/client to another,
yet maintaining a single 'community'.

Yes, this is important I think. Plus, if possible, if it's decided to
move to a forum format make that accessible by E-Mail.

There's a Discourse forum over at discuss.python.org. I use it in
"mailing list mode" and do almost all my interactions via email, exactly
as I do for python-list. Posts come to me and land in the same local
mail folder I use for python-list. My replies land on the forum as
expected (and of course also go by email to those members who have
turned that mode on).

So I'm using both the new forum and the currently mailing list still,
and broadly in exactly the same way.

Yes, Discourse is one of the few web forums that also provides full
E-Mail access.

--
Chris Green
·

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Cameron Simpson wrote at 2023-1-11 08:37 +1100:

...
There's a Discourse forum over at discuss.python.org. I use it in
"mailing list mode" and do almost all my interactions via email, exactly
as I do for python-list. Posts come to me and land in the same local
mail folder I use for python-list. My replies land on the forum as
expected (and of course also go by email to those members who have
turned that mode on).

I am also using the Plone `Discourse` forum in "mailing list mode".
It now works quite well but it took some years before reaching this state.

For a very long time, my mail replies did not reach the forum reliably.
My latest complaint (more than half a year ago): when I had visited
the forum via `http` (I did this occasionally to verify
my reply has reached the forum), it sometimes thought, I had
seen a new message and did not inform me about it via mail.
Meanwhile, all replies seem to arrive reliably and I no longer
use `http` for access. Therefore, I do not know whether
the behavior described above still persists.

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On 11Jan2023 19:10, Dieter Maurer <dieter@handshake.de> wrote:

Cameron Simpson wrote at 2023-1-11 08:37 +1100:

...
There's a Discourse forum over at discuss.python.org. I use it in
"mailing list mode" and do almost all my interactions via email, exactly
as I do for python-list. [...]

I am also using the Plone `Discourse` forum in "mailing list mode".
It now works quite well but it took some years before reaching this state.

Some of this kind of thing will be because the Doscourse devs, as you
might imagine, are forum/web-first people while you and I are
email-first people. So they won't notice email shortcomings as readily.

That said, they do seem very engaged and willing to chase and fix bugs
if they can be identified.

For a very long time, my mail replies did not reach the forum reliably.
My latest complaint (more than half a year ago): when I had visited
the forum via `http` (I did this occasionally to verify
my reply has reached the forum), it sometimes thought, I had
seen a new message and did not inform me about it via mail.

There's certainly still an issue where some messages are not reliably
sent via email when the inbound needs-spam-review filter flags a
message/post, particularly the first post; they're fixing that right now
:-)

Meanwhile, all replies seem to arrive reliably and I no longer
use `http` for access. Therefore, I do not know whether
the behavior described above still persists.

One day everything will be perfect!

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au>

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