Re: [HTCondor-users] Replacing the Email-List

[Oliver Freyermuth <freyermuth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi together,

I'd also like to echo this, with some more comments.

I'm following several projects using Discourse, and several projects using mail,
and always found mailing lists more accessible (but of course, part of that is just a matter of taste).

Taking some other large projects, Ceph is having quite a strong community exchanging information by mail,
and they have recently switched their frontend to HyperKitty (a Django-based frontend to mailman archives, GPL-3)[0],
which I personally find to be very easy to search through to access the knowledge contained within.
Other notable examples are kernel mailing lists (I follow some, the large ones via RSS to prevent my mailbox from dying, though)
and of course Debian which basically does everything by mail.

Amongst the projects I follow via Discourse, there are ROOT[1] and Foreman[2].
With ROOT, they switched a few years ago, and while I was following all mail discussions before, I found myself checking the Discourse only from time to time,
mainly when I had a specific question in mind.
While you can configure and subscribe to it like a mailing list (and it can be made to accept mail), and you can also use it via RSS,
the web UI itself encourages more chat-like usage, which basically means at some point you cannot / don't want to subscribe to everything anymore.

So I think mailing lists and Discourse have somewhat different audiences and tend to gather different content.

In my opinion, it's as follows:

Most mailing lists tend to become information exchange platforms with high information density.
Enthusiasts of the projects will subscribe to the list, and read through everything, and themselves try to ask very concise questions,
since they realize and know there are many subscribers. So information is quite condensed,
and some of the things which are discussed could easily be copy-pasted into a Wiki or into the documentation.

With forums such as a Discourse, the entry hurdle is lower (as also with many social media platforms),
but information also tends to become less dense, and its quite unlikely people who "subscribe to and read everything" will remain.

So both have their pros and cons. I'm personally delighted if I learn something I didn't even consider before
by following the mailing list — so I subscribe to the lists if I really enjoy a project.
Discourse is an ideal place to ask specific questions or to search for Q&A-like things, which is indeed nice to have in some cases,
but by design, it's not that successful at "let me join the community and read along what others are doing".

So I believe the answer is not straightforward. I personally love the mailing lists,
but HTCondor is important enough to me that I'd also follow along to Discourse, if that will end up to be the chosen way.
However, the format is different and I'd be unlikely to subscribe to everything.

Cheers,
	Oliver

[0] https://lists.ceph.io/hyperkitty/list/ceph-users@xxxxxxx/
[1] https://root-forum.cern.ch/
[2] https://community.theforeman.org/

Am 26.05.21 um 22:53 schrieb Lincoln Bryant:
> I want to echo the sentiment preferring email. Admittedly I rarely write to the list, but I often read it. Personally, I don't see myself using Yet Another Chat/Forum Software, no matter who hosts it.
>
> I guess there is an argument to be made that searching the archives could be improved. Replace it with another platform? Now I have two archives to trawl..
>
> --Lincoln
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* HTCondor-users <htcondor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Lee Damon <nomad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 26, 2021 3:32 PM
> *To:* htcondor-users@xxxxxxxxxxx <htcondor-users@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> *Subject:* Re: [HTCondor-users] Replacing the Email-List
> I disagree. I find the email list much more useful than a
> privately-owned 'real time chat system' - especially one that requires
> you to create an account to have any interaction with it. (Mailing lists
> need an email address if you want them to send you things but mailman
> archives are available without that.)
>
> I'll be staying on the mailing list as long as it exists.
>
> nomad
>
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--
Oliver Freyermuth
Universität Bonn
Physikalisches Institut, Raum 1.047
Nußallee 12
53115 Bonn
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Fax:  +49 228 73 7869
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