In order to improve the communication methods, the question is, if
aspired improvements could be implemented for the email lists or not. If
they cannot be implemented for the email lists, then improvements are
unlikely to ever happen unless moving on to another communication
platform where the improvements are possible.
The very good things already achieved by email lists are:
(1) messages cannot be changed with retrospective effect; all
discussions stay well documented
(2) the structured view in threads and various search options, as
usually provided by the mail clients, help to effectively manage the
vast amount of messages
The things which need improvement are the messages themselves:
(3) quality over quantity
(4) more feedback without unnecessarily texting
To this regard, addressing (3) and (4) at the same time by the same
measure, various platforms introduced a scoring system for messages by
analyzing the explicitly provided reader's feedback about the quality of
messages and also building up a reputation score for the author. If the
scoring algorithm is well selected, then an improvement of communication
is indeed achieved by steadily stimulating the community to please not
shine through by the number of comments but to instead search for
satisfying reputation by considerably adding information to the topics.
Now, could the feedback be collected by a mailing list, and could each
message come accompanied by some reputation score? I doubt so. If the
list server would add a score to the mail subject, then the email client
would no more be able to view messages threaded, and if the score is not
added there, then the user will not have the score information available
at a glance. But without the score, no improvement of the communication
is systematically stimulated.
Could Discord (or other contenders) achieve this? Concerns (3) and (4)
are addressed at the push of a button by what you could call an
"Upvote", "Like", "Helpful", or alike feedback mechanism.
Concern (2) is addressed for the web interface, and an email interface
seems to be available for those who prefer this and could accept to stay
without the steady reputation stimulus.
Could Discord (or other contenders) achieve (1) ? I don't know.
In my opinion an improvement in communication would result from a
reputation generating scoring system, IF relying on an algorithm tuned
for quality in community participation. The default Trust Levels as
offered by Discourse are tuned for the opposite! They do not only rate
higher the amount of participation, the frequency of input from
chatterers, than the quality of participation, but even assign to
members with a higher score the right to edit the messages of others!
This violates above mentioned point (1) unless there would be a
possibility to reliably configure this towards the real needs of Debian.
The same need for a strongly adopted configuration targets the absurd
and ludicrous default set of "badges".
I suggest to have only one required badge available, and this to always
overlay to the avatar in order to be visible at a glance for each single
message displayed in the web interface: the score for the “Likes:Post
ratio” (or something similar pointing towards a quality:quantity ratio
of a member’s posts). The scoring algorithm could produce the integer
numbers 0 to 9, normalizing to the member with the best ratio receiving
a 9, and in general only placing a score number if the member has posted
already 20 posts. If in a rush browsing for some fast help to a problem
and not out for reading seesaw discussions about the preferences in the
personal workflow of some individuals, then I would find some kind of
guide in it for where it might be worth to start or stop reading a
thread. Finally I could honor the seminal messages by myself providing
my feedback at a push of a button. It would be helpful if a member "A"
is limited to not honor more than 20 messages of a member "B" in order
to prevent bias from personal friendships, and it would be great if
reputation scores could be calculated for each topical channel individually.
But trust levels which allow for editing posts are VERY problematic,
especially in the Debian community! Maybe allow to the original editor
of a post to correct its post in a short time window AND as long as no
reply was posted - for correcting of typos and alike. But beyond this I
doubt that giving somebody the possibility to edit a post - even if in
practice never becoming used - would destroy confidence in the medium
for discussing issues. The already difficult mixture of characters
making up Debian would not receive help by using such medium, but would
divide even more, if someone could impute message editing to some other
person.
If Discourse could be configured towards these ideas, then it would be a
win for the communication, if not then it would simply be another
platform but not an improvement for the community efficiency.
