"a better global way to A) communicate across a medium that everyone uses daily B) archive to search and come back to"
How would we even validate or decide that? For discussions like this it is very easy to fall into confirmation bias. I use mailing lists all the time since it is the Apache Way, but I also admit there are potentially better ways for other projects. People that are used to mailing lists might think mailing lists are the best thing in the world, but the reality is that majority of the developers in this world, outside a few core open source projects, have never used mailing lists. If we talk to the QQ/Wechat/web-based-forum generation in China and force them to use mailing lists, they might comply because it is the Apache Way, but they will also develop the sentiment that the ASF refuses to change and adapt newer technologies. And to be honest, while I think mailing lists are great for simple voting and information dissemination, there are obvious downsides of mailing lists too. That's why a lot of projects also augment mailing lists via video discussions, google docs for commenting, wiki, etc. In reality, there are also legal reasons why we use mailing lists, and those are not as well known. We should document those and make them more visible too. On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 12:25 PM, Jeff Genender <jgenen...@apache.org> wrote: > > On Nov 13, 2016, at 11:33 AM, Gunnar Tapper <tapper.gun...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > As mentioned, the Apache Way is that "everything happens on the mailing > lists." As a matter of fact, key parts of being an incubator is to learn > how to operate per the Apache Way and to build communities. We even include > statistics about mailing list engagement as an indicator of community > building. > > > > Gunnar, I’m going to give you a big -1 to this. > > Unless you can come up with a better global way to A) communicate across a > medium that everyone uses daily B) archive to search and come back to, I am > in full disagreement. Since I have been with Apache (about 14 years), I > have yet to find a better medium than the lists, and its always been a > known fact that ultimately, any non-mail list discussions that result in > some form of a decision are brought to the mail lists for global discussion. > > Our mail lists are indexed by Google and others. Its easy to find what > one looks for. > > Jeff >
