[Python-ideas] From mailing list to GitHub issues

[Paul Moore]

On 13 August 2016 at 19:44, David Mertz <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:
> I find email list VASTLY easier to deal with than any newfangled web-based
> custom discussion forum. Part of that is that it is a uniform interface to
> every list I belong too, and I can choose my own MUA. With all those web
> things, every site works a little bit different from every other one, that
> imposes an unnecessary cognitive burden (and usually simply lacks some
> desired capability)

For me, the important point is "uniform interface to all lists". I
like email for the forums I participate in, simply because I only need
*one* browser tab open (gmail) and I don't have to remember or
bookmark a variety of URLs. On forums that have their own web
interface, I participate much less frequently, and tend to fall into
much more of a "drive by" interaction, only contributing to "my"
threads, rather than fully participating like I do on mailing lists.
Whereas with my email lists, I read pretty much everything (sometimes
only skimming, of course), which leads to me participating in threads
I would otherwise have ignored.

I can't really offer any opinion on the "mailing lists are more
efficient" debate, as I simply dump all my lists into gmail, with a
label per list, so I'm not exactly a power user, but the "single
website for everything" aspect is the huge bonus for me. Would I
follow python-ideas if it moved to a different forum? Certainly, if
the new forum let me just click on something and from there on
interact solely by email. Maybe, if I found that having a python-ideas
tab permanently open was worthwhile. Otherwise, I don't know. Likely
not, except on specific topics (but without an email feed, I don't
know how I'd find out about such topics). And my participation would
be much less frequent. (I leave it to others to judge whether that
would be a good thing ;-))

In my opinions, forums tend to encourage a much more focused style of
discussion. In one way, that's a good thing (and I'm sure many people
would prefer python-ideas to have more focus). But it *also* tends to
deter people from contributing - I can't quite express why, but
there's somehow less of a sense of being an open debate with a forum.
Maybe that's just me - it's certainly a subjective thing - but in a
forum I'd expect the quality of discussion to increase, but the
quantity (and breadth) to decrease.

While I'm mentioning random thoughts, email replies to a forum like a
github tracker are often a little disruptive, because etiquette is
different. Email users tend to quote extensively for context, and
often include signatures. Neither of these things is typically as
necessary on a tracker (minimal, careful quoting is frequent, but not
the extensive quoting common on mailing lists). So I could imagine a
"mixed" interface actually being *less* comfortable for both types of
participant.

Paul