Mmmm... My own preference is generally for forums, as I don't tend to be heavily involved with any given community so I vastly prefer it if I can sign up for a forum and just get the email notifications for the topics I am actively participating in. The fact that mailing lists send me everything (with no way to cut out that which I'm not participating in) doesn't result in me being overly fond of mailing lists. It's not so bad for ones with fairly low traffic, but for others it would be really unpleasant (e.g. the Linux Kernel). I'm sure that I could, with some amount of effort, get Gmail to auto-mute threads that I'm not actively participating in, but I'd prefer not to have to go that effort for every mailing list I need to deal with, especially if I'm just asking one question about something fairly specific...
I can certainly understand why people would prefer mailing lists, and this thread has brought up a few things I hadn't really thought of in that regard, but it looks like there's an almost insurmountable gap between what people who prefer mailing lists want, and what people who prefer forums want out of the whole deal. Just my thoughts on what I prefer. - Andrew On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 10:24 PM, Paul Speed <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 9/13/2011 4:38 AM, Luke Daley wrote: >> >> On 13/09/2011, at 9:14 AM, Jeppe Nejsum Madsen wrote: >> >>> Hans Dockter<[email protected]> writes: >>> >>> [...] >>> >>>> So this forum is planned to be a primary entry point for all kind of >>>> things. >>>> We also want it to be deeply integrated with the other tools we are >>>> using. >>>> In that respect it is much better for the newbie. But the way we plan to >>>> use >>>> it will also make it very useful for the advanced users and hopefully >>>> they >>>> stay involved. We will definitely provide the input that makes it >>>> interesting for them to stay. >>>> >>>> For me this is an important piece in our effort to improve communication >>>> with the community. >>> >>> Let me just outline how I currently participate (here and elsewhere). >>> >>> I follow the mailing lists and glance through the postings, reading a >>> few interesting posts, but can (I try to convince my self :-) follow >>> status, any major issues etc. I can do this for 30+ communities in >>> <30min using the same email program (if there are no large topics etc). >>> >>> If the only interface is web based, I will not read it on a daily >>> basis, it's just too slow. I will only go there if I had a problem. This >>> in turns mean I will not answer any posts that I knew the answer to, >>> never figure out clever ways to do things etc. because I would never see >>> it unless I actively googled it. >>> >>> Juts my 2c.... >> >> The new forum has the option of sending email notifications for all new >> postings, or all new postings and all new replies. >> >> Here's an example of the email notifications: >> https://skitch.com/ldaley/f2t53/new-idea-proposal-dont-show-skipped-tasks-inbox >> >> If you elect to only receive notifications of new topics, for any topic >> that interests you you can click the “Notify me when people reply” to >> subscribe to that thread. >> > > There are people who like forums and there are people who like mailing > lists. Though, respectfully, telling e-mail preferrers that they can get > notifications is a little like telling forum preferrers that they already > have that since the mailing list has a web-based archive. > > It's just too bad there wasn't a way to make both work. While it's a little > kludgy, I've seen it done in other communities with some kind of bridge. > > You will definitely lose people when the mailing list dies. You will > probably gain some folks on the forum (though anyone who couldn't figure a > mailing list out is going to be totally lost in groovy+gradle, frankly... so > good luck with that in the case of "easier to use". ;)) > > I may try it... but I'm sort of leaning towards not bothering. Which I know > doesn't amount to much. But I have a feeling that's the way every e-mail > preferrer will feel... a little bit like they don't amount to much. > > Grumble-grumble, wah, wah, etc. ;) > -Paul > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from this list, please visit: > > http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, please visit: http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
