[Python-ideas] Digests (was Re: From mailing list to GitHub issues)

[cs at zip.com.au]

On 17Aug2016 02:44, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 12:11 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull
><turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:
>> Barry Warsaw writes:
>>  > On Aug 14, 2016, at 02:01 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>  > >The biggest problem I'm seeing is with digests. Can that feature be
>>  > >flagged off as "DO NOT USE THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ASKING
>>  > >FOR"? So many people seem to select digest mode, then get extremely
>>  > >confused by it.
>>
>> "So many"?  Of the 5018 posts on this list I've received since Sept
>> 24, 2015 (some were private replies etc, but only a handful), exactly
>> three were inappropriate replies to digests.
>> [chomp details]
>> I don't think this is anywhere near as damaging to the list as the
>> practice of top-posting (let alone the bottom-posts, which are more
>> frequent than reply-to-digest).
>
>It's not just this list, though. I've seen the same phenomenon on
>other Mailman lists too.

Yes, digests cause a lot of trouble when digest users switch from lurking to 
posting. (I also think they're a usability fail versus threaded messages).

But Stephen's numbers seem plausible. There are other lists where things are 
worse, I think. Here the noise lvel is low.

[...]
>> Is this really sufficient reason for eliminating a feature that more
>> than 1 in 4 subscribers has explicitly chosen?  Most of whom never post?

Personally I think digests are bad enough to actively discourage.

>> How about instead adding
>>     "^Subject:.*Python-Ideas Digest, Vol \d+, Issue \d"
>> to the spam filter, and so imposing moderation delay (or even
>> rejection) on the poster?
>
>That would be a decent idea. I was thinking more of the sign-up
>screen, though. How many of those 25% of subscribers really want
>digests, and how many of them completely misunderstood this:
>
>"""Would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?"""
>
>and picked "Yes" because they want to receive mail every day, rather
>than having to go to some web page to read it? My counter-suggestion
>is to simply remove that option from the front page. Anyone who
>genuinely wants a digest can go into their settings and request it;
>Mailman's settings pages are a lot more verbose than a sign-up page
>can be. The obvious default would then be the sane one.

This I support.

I think the other driver for digests is people who don't filter their email.  
They think digests keep their inbox low volume, and have never really looked at 
the benefits of filtering lists into topic folders.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au>