Discuss mailing list

[Alex Nordlund <deep.alexander AT gmail.com>]

Has anyone suggested discourse yet? 

On 4 Dec 2016 6:19 p.m., "Jonah Aragon" <jonaharagon AT gmail.com> wrote:

While it's certainly not ideal, the mailing list's archive page has rudimentary functions for browsing (https://lists.opennicproject.org/sympa/arc/discuss/2016-12/) and replying to posts from the website. That is, if you really desire a web interface for some reason.

I don't think a forum is necessary and it would encourage apathy towards the project for the reasons a few people have already mentioned here and on IRC, the nature of mailing lists is a push notification style of message, while forum posts you have to seek out yourself. It would stop the frequent reminders to participate that some people need. For example: Yesterday. We had a surge in mailing list posts following the .o approval and some other various discussions about infrastructure and the future of .free, and that's only because every time someone initiated a conversation the mailing list actively pulled new opinions in.

The mailing list currently suits our needs quite nicely and I see no reason to fix something that isn't broken.

Jonah

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 6:12 AM Aaron J. Angel <aaron.angel AT gmail.com> wrote:

The obvious solution is to integrate two. I imagine could easily add the ability to send/post to the archive. I too have no interest in going to a web-based forum to check and read posts. I'd probably drop out completely if that were the case.

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016, 7:06 AM Philipp Schafft <lion AT lion.leolix.org> wrote:

Good morning,

by the way, I'm not a fan of the taste of TOFU.


On Sun, 2016-12-04 at 02:20 -0800, vv AT cgs.pw wrote:
> Well I don't think we'll lose anybody. :)
> Those of us who don't prefer mailing lists
> are currently using the mailing list with
> only a modicum of griping. :)


> I doubt there
> is anybody here who will not use a forum on
> principle, or because of technical or
> accessibility issues.

Considering myself, yes, we would.


> That said, when it comes to talking about
> the number of people, I'd say that mailing
> lists don't really scale very well. It's fine
> with a few people and a few posts a day. But
> when it comes to larger numbers then a forum
> can handle any amount with ease. The ML had
> over 80 messages today, I think.

Sure. Why don't you filter out the mails you don't like? My MUA offers
that I flag a thread and then I can follow that and ignore other
threads.


> Also, I would point out that forums do not
> need to have a huge amount of graphics and
> stuff that distracts. In fact they can be
> very business like. Here is one that I set
> up some years ago, but abandoned. One good
> feature is that it has sections that are
> not visible unless you are logged in. And
> there is also a section that only certain
> listed members can see, which can be of use
> for administrative use.
>    http://ykix.org
> I show that only as an example of readability
> and proof of concept that light grey text is
> not a given and there is actually no technical
> need to make us older folks feel unwelcome.
> The CSS on forums is easy to change to anything
> you want.


> Another thing about forums is the personal
> message function. You can do conversations
> in the background as PM without others reading
> them. This is not just a privacy thing, but
> helps keep the general communication clean when
> what you want to say is either off topic or
> personal comment.

I perfectly can do that with the same MUA as I do for the list. In fact
I have two buttons, one to answer to the list and one for a personal
reply that is not going to the list.

And that perfectly works without breaking threading ;)



> Note too, that on a forum, other people don't
> see your email address. This is particularly
> important in a public setting where people will
> be finding us through search engines. So even
> though the public can read the messages and
> learn from them, they cannot spam you. This
> makes a forum a little like the best of both
> IRC and ML.


> As it is now there is a curious aspect to the
> way we are communicating. We are hiding from
> the public. Yes, with some work, our conversations
> can be found, but they are not going to come up
> in Duckduckgo or Google when someone is searching
> for OpenNIC information. A forum becomes a public
> record and shows transparency.

Or a list archive.


This is my most important point:
Forums are always PULL based. So you need to invest time to actually
find out there is nothing new that is relevant to you.
MLs are PUSH. I'm informed when there is a new message. (Please do not
answer with 'but you can enable e-mail notifications!', yes. I could do.
r I could also just get the message by email and not being spammed with
mails that have no value on their own.)

My experience is that those few people who really run the infrastructure
are short on time. Exactly because they run it all. And often not for
just one project. You may gain Tom and Jack from the street. But you
will likely loose those who really run the infrastructure. The number of
users increasing doesn't mean the user actually bringing a project
increase as well.

That being my personal opinion based on many years of work in similar
projects. Also I'm not going to push this too much. OpenNIC inner
politics aren't my business. But I think that moving off the operative
aspects into a forum could harm the peering as information would stop
flowing.

If you want a forum just for the Tom and Jack, little chatting, doing
some end user support or whatever that is not really about operative
aspects or voting I don't care at all.

(my problem with voting is that with a forum I will no longer have a
copy of it. With ML you can actually have a significant, digitally
signed copy of the result. With a forum you need to trust that the
operator will keep the information up and correct for as long as you may
need it. Depending on stuff that may for legal reasons be many years.)

Have a nice day,

with best regards,


> Regards,
>         Ole Juul
>
>
> On Sun, 04 Dec 2016 09:11:03 +0000
> Philipp Schafft <lion AT lion.leolix.org> wrote:
>
> > Good morning,
> >
> > On Sun, 2016-12-04 at 05:38 +0000, dc0 wrote:
> > > This sounds like a great idea honestly and could make
> > > discussions related to OpenNIC more assessable to those
> > > who are allergic to mailing lists.
> >
> > And loose all those allergic to forums ;)
> >
> > with best regards,


--
Philipp.
 (Rah of PH2)


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