[Python-ideas] Clearer communication

Fri Feb 1 17:20:49 EST 2019

@Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>'s big answer
Hi, thanks for this complete answer. I might have been a bit confusing so
i'll clear some details ;)

I sent about 3 mails (may be 4) in this mailing list and the python dev's
one. If I sent those emails it's because I felt legitimate to give my
opinion, ie : I had enough knowledge to actually have an opinion and the
arguments I had were (imo) relevent. In many subjects I actually have an
opinion but not the knowledge to  argument. That's what I was trying to
express : mailing lists are kinda hard for newcomers.

> That sounds pretty spammy to me. The last thing I want to see is
> something (either technology or culture) encouraging people to flood the
> list with a bunch of content-free "+1" or "metoo!" messages.

I'm not suggesting to actually send emails. I was more refering to reddit's
possibility of voting and we couldn't do it on mails. Ofc, don't send a
mail to 1k people for a "+1", that's exactly what I'm saying : I'm not
gonna send an email to say "I agree" full stop.

> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to
> the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical
> mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit,
> not the number of votes.

That's not what I was suggesting either but I get it's confusing. The votes
I was talking about have no values of popularity it's just "agree",
"disagree", "neutral" like we would find in "classical" forums (this
<https://zestedesavoir.com/forums/sujet/544/mettons-en-musique-la-communaute/>
is an example of what I'm talking about, french site).

> But within reason, if you have something well thought out and/or
> important to say, you can and should just reply to a post and say it.

That's a point for mailing lists.

> I'm confused. First you complain that "a lot of emails are just
> explanations of what the authors meant". That's a *good* thing, surely.
> This is a technical discussion list, and if a message is unclear, then
> explaning what you meant should make it more clear.
> And then you say "a few messages exchanged ... would correct this" but
> what do you think those messages exchanged would be if not explanations
> of what the authors meant?

That's probably the most unclear point of my first mail !
On a forum (no matter the form), you can edit the original post. Thus, when
something was unclear, false or needed an edit, the author (or others) can
edit the original post. So when someone actually reads the original post,
s-he doesn't have to read the 20 mails of clearing things up to have a
clear idea of what's the proposal. This is a minus one for mailing lists in
my opinion.

Le ven. 1 févr. 2019 à 19:39, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> a
écrit :

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 06:42:33PM +0100, Adrien Ricocotam wrote:
> > I'm kinda new to those mailing lists and those are the only ones I ever
> > subscribed so I'm a bit in the audience you're targeting James.
>
> Hi Adrien, I see that you first posted in November and haven't posted
> since.
>
> > What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd
> often
> > like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the author
> I'm
> > with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.
>
> That sounds pretty spammy to me. The last thing I want to see is
> something (either technology or culture) encouraging people to flood the
> list with a bunch of content-free "+1" or "metoo!" messages.
>
> The occasional "I agree but have nothing else to say" message is okay,
> but I wouldn't want to see fifty a day.
>
> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to
> the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical
> mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit,
> not the number of votes.
>
>
> > In some of the recent threads,
> > some of the ideas I agreed with were just smashed by others. I couldn't
> > give my two cents and the debate juste ended and I couldn't say the
> author
> > I was behind him.er.
>
> I see that the Reply button on your email client does work, so you
> clearly *can* give your two cents worth (which is exactly what you are
> doing now).
>
> And the nature of email is that you can reply to any message in your
> inbox, no matter how old. You can reply to a ten year old message
> provided you still have it available in a mail folder, resurrecting
> the thread.
>
> Whether it is polite to resurrect such long-dead threads, or whether
> anyone else will respond, are separate questions.
>
> I realise that sometimes people are busy and cannot reply immediately to
> a discussion. There have been times that I have not been able to respond
> to a thread until long after it has faded away naturally, and I have
> *chosen* to not respond because I decided that the discussion had been
> settled and I didn't care enough to restart the discussion.
>
> (Sometimes a discussion settles to "nobody can decide so the status quo
> wins". See Nick Coghlan's blog.)
>
> But within reason, if you have something well thought out and/or
> important to say, you can and should just reply to a post and say it.
>
>
> > Another thing I think is not good is the absence of
> > little chit-chat
>
> This mailing list is often too busy as it is, without encouraging
> chit-chat.
>
>     "Hi Bob, how are the wife and kids? I've been pretty good myself,
>     thanks for asking, but my old injury has been aching a bit. Did I
>     ever tell you the story about that, its quite funny. What do you
>     think of Trump's latest shocking comment? Did you see that hilarious
>     video about a cat? Did you learn the latest trick that doctors don't
>     want you to know? Oh, I nearly forgot, your proposal for adding GOTO
>     to Python and removing for-loops is an awesome idea, +1."
>
>
> > and editing. Actually, a lot of emails are just
> > explanations of what the authors meant. That's pretty spammy and a few
> > messages exchanged + editing would correct this spammy thing.
>
> I'm confused. First you complain that "a lot of emails are just
> explanations of what the authors meant". That's a *good* thing, surely.
> This is a technical discussion list, and if a message is unclear, then
> explaning what you meant should make it more clear.
>
> And then you say "a few messages exchanged ... would correct this" but
> what do you think those messages exchanged would be if not explanations
> of what the authors meant?
>
>
> > In another hand, I think mailing lists are great to avoid short and
> useless
> > messages. There's no spammy message like "I'm ok" which could be replaced
> > by just a "+1" button.
>
> Which does what? Send a +1 email to a thousand people? That's pretty
> spammy.
>
> >  It forces us using LBYL principle (@poke Robert) and
> > it (imho) better fills the needs of such discussions.
> >
> > As you may have get it, I'd rather a forum like thing rather than mailing
> > lists but mailings lists are great.
>
> Mailing lists and web forums each have their advantages and
> disadvantages, but in general, I find web forums far noisier and of less
> value.
>
> In the future this list may be migrated to Mailman 3 which includes a
> more modern web-forum-like interface as well as email.
>
> http://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/userguide.html
>
> As I understand it, there have already been a few low-volume Python
> mailing lists migrated to Mailman 3, and if they end up being successful
> eventually the rest will follow.
>
>
> --
> Steve
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