On 4/21/23 23:04, Maxwell G wrote: > Hi Matthew, > > > On Thu Apr 20, 2023 at 17:20 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote >> As it is, devel list is too much for many people to follow — people >> we’d like to have around. > > I disagree. I find mailing lists much easier to deal with. They're all > in one place, they're synced between my devices, and I can use whatever > client I like. I can start writing a message on my phone, save it as a > draft, and send it from my laptop. I can filter messages to my heart's > content. Everything is threaded and I can choose to ignore the threads > I'm uninterested in. > > It's easy to skim the list and I can do so on my terms, as opposed to > being pushed towards a _centralized_, single point of failure, > javascript-heavy, bulky web frontend. I understand that Discourse has > functionality for interacting via email, but that's fundamentally not > its purpose, and it's apparent that email users are second class > citizens. With mailing lists, most messages are sent as plain text email > that displays properly in my TUI email client, and they're easy to quote > and splice to reply to the parts in which I'm interested. I can both > create new threads AND reply to existing ones. > Agree with this. > >> We’re scattered in actual practice >> ---------------------------------- >> >> Devel list may be the center, but we have _hundreds_ of Fedora mailing >> lists. A dozen or so are reasonably active (Test, Legal, ARM…) but most >> are inactive or dead. Some are just meeting reminders over and over — >> for meetings that aren’t even active anymore. It’s easy to make but >> hard to _unmake_ a mailing list. > > Yeah, I think the mailing lists could use more organization and cleanup. Closing inactive and low traffic lists and moving them to Discourse is fine. Cleanup is helpful. Associated ticket: https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/2982 > >> And, you can interact with it all by email. That interface isn’t >> perfect, but it’s way better than any other forum software I’ve seen. >> (I’ve written a guide: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/25960) >> At the same time, your individual email address is hidden, so it won’t >> be a spam magnet (or a target for off-list harassment, a problem we >> unfortunately have with devel list). > > Yeah, I'm not sure the email interface is really comparable to the ML > experience. You can't post directly via email without the whole > moderation queue thing mentioned in your linked post. Email interaction > seems to be a second class citizen. I'm not sure what the point in > moving off the mailing list is if you keep suggesting ways that people > can make forum software behave more like the mailing list that we > already have. > >> That said, it is web-first software. (Or mobile, if that’s your thing.) >> That requires some adjustment, I know. I hope opening up a Fedora >> Discussion tab – or keeping one open — becomes an easy habit. > > I wouldn't like that much. The only tab I always have open is Matrix, > and I'd prefer not to have to have more always open browser tabs. I > already have an email client. The web browser Matrix interface uses a lot of javascript and is very heavy and slow. Neochat and Nheko are much more performant than the electron based client. Have not tried the terminal based clients for Matrix. Discourse does seem to have an API, but email interaction is definitely a second class citizen. There is no lightweight performant text interface client for Discourse - it has not been designed for the power user. > > >> Concrete proposal >> ----------------- > > While I think it makes sense for new teams to consider adopting the > forums instead of mailing lists, I am not convinced that we should shut > down devel@ and alienate the _current_ devs who seem to favor the > current approach. > Much agreed. If it is challenging for people to join the development list, making some kind of email first bridge to Discourse or some other forum software is more reasonable. Not everything is meant to be web first. Some fragmentation in the Fedora ecosystem is good, it allows us to try new things. The bloated web is the reason for new protocols such as Gemini. > > Thanks for listening, > Maxwell > _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue
