[Python-ideas] A bit meta

[Brett Cannon]

On Mon, 1 Feb 2016 at 00:12 M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:

> On 31.01.2016 22:11, Nicholas Chammas wrote:
> >> If both Discourse and Mailman can live side-by-side, with
> >> Discourse being the “web interface” to the Mailman list,I think we’d get
> >> the best of both worlds.
> >
> > Funny you ask that, since I wondered about exactly the same thing when I
> > looked into using Discourse for an Apache project. The Apache Software
> > Foundation has a strict policy about ASF-owned mailing lists being the
> > place of discussion, so the only way Discourse would have been able to
> play
> > a role was as an interface to an existing, ASF-owned mailing list.
> >
> > Here is the discussion I started about this
> > <
> https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-front-end-for-existing-asf-mailing-lists/23167/2
> >
> > on Discourse Meta around a year ago.
> >
> > In short, I think the answer that came out from that discussion is
> (quoting
> > <
> https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-front-end-for-existing-asf-mailing-lists/23167/2?u=nicholaschammas
> >
> > Jeff Atwood; emphasis his):
> >
> > """
> > This really depends on the culture of the mailing list. Discourse has
> > fairly robust email support (for notifications, and if configured, for
> > replies and email-in to start new topics), but it is still fundamentally
> > web-centric in the way that it views the world. There will be clashes for
> > people who are 100% email-centric.
> >
> > Do you have support from the “powers that be” at said mailing lists to
> make
> > such a change? Are they asking for such a change? We are very open to
> > working with a partner on migrating mailing lists and further enhancing
> the
> > mailing list support in Discourse, but it very much requires solid
> support
> > from the *leadership* and a significant part of the *community*.
> >
> > There’s a lot of friction involved in changes for groups!
> > """
>
> Jeff's reply doesn't sound overly optimistic.
>
> If the only way to get Discourse working for python-ideas
> (or any other PSF mailing list) is to *switch* to it, I'm
> firmly -1 on that approach.
>
> Forums are nice for things like Stack Overflow which are focusing
> more on questions and answer, with just a single linear
> thread being active going from the question to the answer.
>
> For discussions, which often branch in multiple sub-threads and
> don't necessarily start with a clear questions and final answers,
> I find mailing lists much more practical and closer to real life
> discussions in groups. Mailing list discussion "features" like
> being able to overhear something in another thread and the jumping in
> to participate should not be underestimated either.
>

I don't quite understand how any of that is exclusive to a mailing list? If
a forum has thread topics which are clearly marked with new content since
the last time you visited then how is that any different then a threaded
email client that tells you have new mail on that thread?


>
> I know that other tools have grown bridges between the UI client
> world and serial line communication protocols, e.g. Slack and IRC,
> which works reasonably well. If we could make that happen,
> I'd be +1 on giving Discourse a try in order to invite new
> input from people who prefer the forum style UI approach.
>

I guess what we need is someone who is going to want to stay on the
email-based side of things to look at the feature set of Discourse and let
us know whether its feature set is adequate, or if not what is falls short
of.

And I have not heard what HyperKitty offers either.


>
> PS: I've added some extra quoting chars to your reply. HTML
> emails don't work well for mailing lists - better use plain
> text to start with, so that the context is not lost when
> an email client or archiver converts messages to plain text :-)
>

That assumes you can even do that, e.g., I use Google Inbox and there is no
plain text option. I'm afraid this is an example of the OSS community
trying to swim against the stream where the rest of the world has moved on
and it is slowly making it harder to get new people to participate in OSS.

-Brett


>
> --
> Marc-Andre Lemburg
> eGenix.com
>
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