[Python-ideas] Moving to another forum system where moderation is possible

[Cameron Simpson]

On 20Sep2018 20:55, Mikhail V <mikhailwas at gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 11:21 AM Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au> wrote:
>> On 20Sep2018 10:16, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal <chris.barker at noaa.gov> 
>> wrote:
>> >Let's just keep it on email -- I, at least, find i never participate in any
>> >other type of discussion forum regularly.
>>
>> As do I. Email comes to me. Forums, leaving aside their ergonomic horrors
>> (subjective), require a visit.
>
>So you are ok with 100 emails / day, like it happened when
>inline assignment discussion erupted?

A drop in a bucket to me. Since I autofile my email, such messages all land in 
my python folder. Since my mail reader threads, 100 messages on a single topic 
are easy to follow, or easy to delete/archive/defer if that particular 
discussion is not of interest to me. And I was interested in the inline 
assignment discussion.

So yes, totally ok.

>I think there are forum systems which allow you to post by email so
>it is possible to get the same effect as with mailing list, if you really want.

The point by point response, such as this one, is hard in a forum, generally.  
Qualification: in my deliberately limited experience.

And few forums provide email mirroring/posting. Were I choosing the forum that 
would be an essential feature to me.

>I think most people want the ability to choose what topic they want to
>receive notification and its not possible.

It is perfectly possible. I get hundreds of message by email every day, and 
arrange notifications only for a tiny subset of those.

>As for ergonomics - it depends on forum software and design. If I use some
>site frequently and it has bad layout/colors/fonts, then I use Stylish plugin to
>customize the CSS. Therefore I'd prefer forum with minimalistic CSS
>to easily customize the look.
>
>OTOH if the mailing software has bad ergonomics, I can't do much with that.

You can switch clients. With email, there are many clients. Most forums provide 
only one: a single web interface.

>Or if people post a word and leave 5 pages quote below or messed up formatting -
>I can't do anything with that.
>On a good forum systems such things are less probable = less annoyance
>in general.
>
>I see 2 major problems:
>1. The mentioned mass mail delivery
>2. PEPs and discussion browsing is far from effective - I'd  like a better
>way to browse PEPs - for example filtering by topics, eg. "syntax", "module X",
>by their status, etc, and of course discoverable relevant discussion.
>
>Systems used in Stackoverflow, Github already offer these features.
>I personally would like Stackoverflow-like format for presenting PEPs
>+ discussion
>below, so everybody can easily browse PEPs and related info in one place.

Clearly these work well for you.

How well does that work offline? My laptop collects email continuously, and I 
visit the relevant folders on my own schedule. If that schedule is on a train 
with no internet, I'm fine. I can read. I can reply (the message will go out 
when I'm next online).

A forum providing a _good_ email mirroring/posting service might make us both 
happy.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au>