I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used.
On Jul 28, 2008, at 5:16 PM, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used.
Count me as a vote against. I much rather check in one place (Mail.app) than on a bunch of web pages, all with a different (and often annoying) UI.
Gerd
Gerd Knops-2 wrote:
Count me as a vote against. I much rather check in one place (Mail.app) than on a bunch of web pages, all with a different (and often annoying) UI.
Mail is where I want stuff that's sent TO ME.
The web is where I want large repositories of useful information I may or may not be interested in.
Forums can let you be notified by email of responses to a thread. (Oddly enough, Nabble does this by default which gets me two copies of everything in my mailbox until I turn it off.)
I regularly visit about five different forums and infrequently visit about thirty others. If this were all mailing lists, just deleting crap would be a full-time job. I actually have junk mail filters automatically deleting crap from old mailing lists I can't seem to unsubscribe to.
According to Gerd Knops:
Count me as a vote against. I much rather check in one place (Mail.app) than on a bunch of web pages, all with a different (and often annoying) UI.
Agreed. Web fora are a PITA to follow, especially when most of them don't have RS feeds...
Yeah, generally most software projects use mailinglists rather than forums. It's probably mostly tradition, but it's also much easier to follow other people's threads on a mailinglist than on a forum. And you don't have to create yet another account and come up with a username for the forum.
-1 from me.
- Chris
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 3:16 PM, podperson tloewald@gmail.com wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Actual-Forum--tp18700957p18700957.html Sent from the textmate users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
This isn't a "software project" it's a "software product". Not everyone interested in TextMate wants to hack on it.
Also note that the people "voting" on this topic are self-selected to be pro-mailing list since the pro-forum folks have given up OR are using a different product.
Mailing list says "pre-web mentality".
You're right, you don't need "another account" to use a mailing list, you just need to vomit a spurious copy of the entire thing into your most important account. That's like saying you don't need a library card if you're willing to build on an annex to your house and have a dumpster load of books stuck in it every day.
Chris Rebert wrote:
Yeah, generally most software projects use mailinglists rather than forums. It's probably mostly tradition, but it's also much easier to follow other people's threads on a mailinglist than on a forum. And you don't have to create yet another account and come up with a username for the forum.
-1 from me.
- Chris
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 03:02:28PM CEST, podperson tloewald@gmail.com said:
This isn't a "software project" it's a "software product". Not everyone interested in TextMate wants to hack on it.
Also note that the people "voting" on this topic are self-selected to be pro-mailing list since the pro-forum folks have given up OR are using a different product.
Mailing list says "pre-web mentality".
Same, some people won't go to a web forum because it does not fit them.
(I personnaly find web forums very hard to read, because discussions are presented as a list and nobody knws to whicvh message an anser responds).
Erwan David wrote:
Also note that the people "voting" on this topic are self-selected to be pro-mailing list since the pro-forum folks have given up OR are using a different product.
Same, some people won't go to a web forum because it does not fit them.
Some people won't download software from websites... Some people won't use cellphones... Anyone who uses TextMate is probably using a web browser to download software.
If I didn't like TextMate enough, I'd have been turned off by its lack of a forum because, in my experience, developers who don't provide forums tend to be less responsive to their users and have less inclusive user communities.
(I personnaly find web forums very hard to read, because discussions are presented as a list and nobody knws to whicvh message an anser responds).
Within a thread, this can be a problem. Of course in this mailing list I end up writing twenty replies to different variants of the same point because they're in trivially different subtrees.
Let me add to the head count (Lord knows I can't match the volume) on this.
I greatly prefer a mailing list, especially for a topic like TextMate, which is well-defined and comparatively low-traffic. Most of the traffic is interesting. If the topic were something like "DSL service," with its exponential variants of vendor, hardware, locale, usage... then a searchable, hierarchical knowledge base makes sense. This list doesn't come close to those requirements.
I also like it that when I ask a question on a mailing list, the answer itself gets delivered to me. On a forum you essentially have to go through a separate mailing-list subscription process for each thread of interest -- and even then, the mailing contains a link for logging in to read the response, not the response itself. Again, probably useful if the topic isn't focused, but not on a list that can be doubled in volume over the question of whether it should be a list.
It is idle to say a forum generically indicates (to one person) that a vendor provides better support, or that there is a better community. In the real-world case of TextMate, the vendor and community support are excellent. Whether a mailing list "says" to one person's mind that there isn't support, or that the sponsor isn't way-cool, is irrelevant. In the real world, the support is there, and the way-cool goes into the product, not into customizing a forum and prosecuting its innumerable bugs.
Foregoing excellent product support, or even an excellent product, just because some of that support doesn't come through a web browser, is perverse.
The title of this thread, "Actual Forum," is really pretty patronizing. This mailing list is an effective tool by which a healthy community does in fact communicate, and well. It doesn't need a centralized server to validate it, or make it more "actual."
— F
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On 30 Jul 2008, at 5:40 pm, Fritz Anderson wrote:
Let me add to the head count (Lord knows I can't match the volume) on this.
(FYI, I'm now wearing my serious hat again here, for avoidance of doubt)
I greatly prefer a mailing list, especially for a topic like TextMate, which is well-defined and comparatively low-traffic. Most of the traffic is interesting. If the topic were something like "DSL service," with its exponential variants of vendor, hardware, locale, usage... then a searchable, hierarchical knowledge base makes sense. This list doesn't come close to those requirements.
I concur. Forums seem to be a slightly bastard child of mailing list and wiki - they're a bit clunky for actual *discussion*, with their value lying more in the threads that get archived for future finding.
Mailing lists have been criticised for searchabality - most have archives, some have searchable archives, but that side of them is a bit hidden away compared to the main discussion interface; I often find mailing list archives when I google for information, and then have to spend a bit of time stepping through irrelevant replies to the email with the question to conclude what the answer was. With forums, due to the active moderation (they seem to need a LOT more moderation effort), good responses seem to be gathered manually into persistent places.
A pretty sweet combination, I think, is a mailing list plus a wiki, so the wiki can function as a community-managed FAQ list for the long term stuff, while the discussion happens on a mailing list. I see mailing list archives are more useful for going back and looking at the discussion that led to a conclusion for historic purposes than for actually being a repository of knowledge; they're too full of noise for that.
Forums are more accessible, certainly. Less technical people find a forum more approachable than a mailing list. It's the endless tradeoff in UI design - easy to get started versus easy to keep using; it's hard to have both. I think there's work to be done in hybrid systems that have email *and* web-based interfaces to the same discussion with decent integration to a wiki (eg, making it easy to link to postings from the wiki and vice versa, much like how trac nicely merges wiki/tickets/svn).
But because of this, we do have a generation who have grown up comfortable with forums and thus find a mailing list a bit strange purely due to unfamiliarity, much like how somebody who learnt to program in Perl and has done so for years will almost always, if forced to work in another language for a few weeks, quickly come to the definite conclusion that the other language is an absolute pile of unusable tripe.
Now, we can we get onto a more constructive discussion... such as how to set the Reply-To headers? :-)
ABS
- -- Alaric Snell-Pym Work: http://www.snell-systems.co.uk/ Play: http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/alaric/ Blog: http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/?author=4
On 30 Jul 2008, at 15:02, podperson wrote:
Mailing list says "pre-web mentality".
No it doesn't. Mailing list says "we chose to set up a mailing list".
You're right, you don't need "another account" to use a mailing list, you just need to vomit a spurious copy of the entire thing into your most important account.
Take a second to investigate imap. No need to copy anything anywhere if you don't want to.
H.
Hamster-4 wrote:
Take a second to investigate imap. No need to copy anything anywhere if you don't want to.
So which is it, pine or IMAP? Low bandwidth or high? Different or not different? Up or down?
On 30 Jul 2008, at 16:04, podperson wrote:
So which is it, pine or IMAP? Low bandwidth or high? Different or not different? Up or down?
That's the advantage of a mailing list. You get to choose. You can use whatever mail reader you want, using whatever protocol you want (imap or pop), giving you the choice of high bandwidth access or low bandwidth access.
Your outburst there makes me wonder if you understand how email works. "pine or imap" makes no sense at all. Pine can be used for either imap or pop, no there's no "or".
H.
Hamster-4 wrote:
That's the advantage of a mailing list. You get to choose. You can use whatever mail reader you want, using whatever protocol you want (imap or pop), giving you the choice of high bandwidth access or low bandwidth access.
Your outburst there makes me wonder if you understand how email works. "pine or imap" makes no sense at all. Pine can be used for either imap or pop, no there's no "or".
I stand corrected. When I used pine it did not support IMAP ;-)
IMAP and POP are both pretty high-bandwidth if you've got a bunch of mailing lists dumping into them, so it's hard to see where the choice is. You can always surf the web using lynx.
On Jul 30, 2008, at 3:02 PM, podperson wrote:
This isn't a "software project" it's a "software product". Not everyone interested in TextMate wants to hack on it.
Also note that the people "voting" on this topic are self-selected to be pro-mailing list since the pro-forum folks have given up OR are using a different product.
This is true. But let me say that I've also noticed than the quality of discourse on TextMate's mailing list is very high. The same is true for ##textmate on freenode.
Mailing list says "pre-web mentality".
I think that this isn't true. Basically everybody on this particular mailing list have grown up with the web, do we have a pre-web mentality?
People still use mailing lists be they are more convenient than forums for some purposes. Especially for those who follow multiple lists or those who follow a single list for the long term. New messages are delivered directly to the mail reader, you don't have to keep checking web page.
There are plenty of ways to deal with mailing lists. For instance, you can trivially set up a filter in every email client i've used to redirect mailing list messages into their own folder. You can set up rules to flag messages you might be interested in. As I type this, I see that Hamster has suggested a bunch of other ways to deal with mailing lists, some of which are not even possible on a forum.
Forums are terribly inconvenient for following discussions. You have to continually come back to the webpage to see if their are any new posts (unless the forum emails you when a new post occurs, but what does that remind you of?)
You're right, you don't need "another account" to use a mailing list, you just need to vomit a spurious copy of the entire thing into your most important account. That's like saying you don't need a library card if you're willing to build on an annex to your house and have a dumpster load of books stuck in it every day.
It seems like you don't hate mailing lists, you just hate their implementation. I can agree with you there. It would be beautiful if mailman supported per-thread subscriptions and had a built in forum interface. But it doesn't. wouldn't it be awesome if you could submit a message to a mailing list without having to first register, and then be automatically subscribed to the new thread?
podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used.
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
Instead, try a mail/usenet app that does proper threading:
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/TextMate/gmane-thunderbird.png
-Jacob
Jacob Rus-4 wrote:
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
I agree. Forums don't suck. Forum-like web interfaces suck.
podperson wrote:
Jacob Rus-4 wrote:
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
I agree. Forums don't suck. Forum-like web interfaces suck.
Find me a forum with a desktop app as its interface, and we’ll talk.
Until then, you get a -1 from me on any forum proposal. Given that, as far as I know, most of those who work on TextMate bundles, including Allan himself, feel somewhat the same way, you aren’t going to make it too far with this, so spending hours repeating it, unless you have some more concrete proposal, is a waste of time.
-Jacob
Also a -1 from me.
I think with a forum you need moderators, maintenance , etc... This works great for me ..
Regards J.
On Jul 31, 2008, at 12:02 AM, Jacob Rus wrote:
podperson wrote:
Jacob Rus-4 wrote:
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
I agree. Forums don't suck. Forum-like web interfaces suck.
Find me a forum with a desktop app as its interface, and we’ll talk.
Until then, you get a -1 from me on any forum proposal. Given that, as far as I know, most of those who work on TextMate bundles, including Allan himself, feel somewhat the same way, you aren’t going to make it too far with this, so spending hours repeating it, unless you have some more concrete proposal, is a waste of time.
-Jacob
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
Jacob Rus-4 wrote:
Find me a forum with a desktop app as its interface, and we’ll talk.
How about Safari? It's as much a desktop app as Mail.
Or Fluid if typing URLs is too hard.
It's faster to search through my gmail inbox than my Mail.app inbox (which is much smaller), and it's faster to search through a forum by using google (using "site:" to restrict the search to the forum's domain) than to use most forum's search engines. Indeed, I bet it's faster to search through this mailing list using google + "site:nabble.com +textmate" than to search through your lovingly maintained mailbox in a desktop application on an 8-core Mac Pro.
Desktop apps have their benefits, but so do web apps. And even when they're "much of a muchness" web apps have the virtue of being accessible from almost any place, any machine, and any platform (yes, TextMate is a Mac-only program, but what if you want to check documentation on a spare PC laptop or iPhone?)
Using mail as a broadcast medium is just silly and wasteful. (I have a label in my gmail acct called "Not Quite Spam" which is applied to all mailing list detritus.)
Given that, as far as I know, most of those who work on TextMate bundles, including Allan himself, feel somewhat the same way,
How would you know? A bunch of Unity folks work on bundles for developing in Unity using TextMate. I don't see them here, yet they're very active on Unity's forums. I realize you think hacking bundles is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate hacks bundles. They probably don't sync their changes to svn because it's a PITA, and they don't talk here because it's a PITA.
TextMate has been successful because it's very easy to use and powerful and it's easy to extend and customize it. Oddly enough, it's easier to extend and customize it than participate in the online community, which is kind of sad.
you aren’t going to make it
too far with this, so spending hours repeating it, unless you have some more concrete proposal, is a waste of time.
It certainly does appear to be a waste of time.
I've figured out how to turn off all the email alerts / digests / etc. from this list while still being "subscribed" to it, and am reasonably happy with Nabble as a front end, so I'll simply live with that.
It would be really neat if you could set yourself up to treat the mailing list purely as a forum in a relatively straightforward manner (I still need to uncheck "alert me be e-mail when someone replies to my message" every time I post something).
In the end, I think Forum vs. Mailing List is very similar to GUI vs. Command Line. One is an intuitive, visual medium, the other is arcane with hidden states and magical commands you either know or don't. One is easy for "noobs" to use, while the other is hard so those who bother to learn how feel cooler and more powerful.
I can keep countering each of these points as they get made over and over again, but it's clear that this isn't a rational argument, it's an emotional one, and that yes, it's a waste of time.
On Jul 31, 2008, at 9:39 AM, podperson wrote:
I can keep countering each of these points as they get made over and over again, but it's clear that this isn't a rational argument, it's an emotional one, and that yes, it's a waste of time.
It isn't rational because _you've_ made it emotional through outright troll-ish tactics such as talking past people's points, begging the question, and rampant ad hominem.
If a forum is so important to you, MAKE ONE. No one is stopping you. Stop polluting this list with your aggrieved whining.
On 31 Jul 2008, at 18:00, Daniel Stockman wrote:
On Jul 31, 2008, at 9:39 AM, podperson wrote:
I can keep countering each of these points as they get made over and over again, but it's clear that this isn't a rational argument, it's an emotional one, and that yes, it's a waste of time.
It isn't rational because _you've_ made it emotional through outright troll-ish tactics such as talking past people's points, begging the question, and rampant ad hominem.
If a forum is so important to you, MAKE ONE. No one is stopping you. Stop polluting this list with your aggrieved whining.
The rudeness in this thread is not coming from podperson.
If this thread doesn't end now I will unsubscribe from this list.
Patrick
Daniel Stockman wrote:
It isn't rational because _you've_ made it emotional through outright troll-ish tactics such as talking past people's points, begging the question, and rampant ad hominem.
I haven't made any ad hominem remarks that I can recall. If I've "talked past" someone's points it wasn't deliberate. I made a couple of mistakes confusing two different people with each other (harder to do on a forum by the way) and apologized for them.
If a forum is so important to you, MAKE ONE. No one is stopping you.
I addressed this point already -- fragmenting an online community is not productive. It's akin to the way Linux deals with UI issues -- forking.
Stop polluting this list with your aggrieved whining.
Would pointing out that you're the one using "troll-ish tactics" be considered ad hominem at this point. Or merely "aggrieved whining"?
I think I'll stop "polluting" this list with my presence.
[Jacob Rus]
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
[podperson]
I agree. Forums don't suck. Forum-like web interfaces suck.
[Jacob Rus]
Find me a forum with a desktop app as its interface, and we’ll talk.
Until then, you get a -1 from me on any forum proposal.
[podperson]
How about Safari? It's as much a desktop app as Mail.
Why do I get the feeling you’re not really reading the responses you’re getting here?
I cannot read a web forum in either NNTP readers, nor desktop mail readers. I can read this mailing list in my browser in about 4 different ways, including some that look like most web forums but better. I can also read it in any mail client, usenet client, or rss feed reader. I can munge its plain text messages in a program written in any language I like. I can trivially make the Bubbles voice read each message out loud on my laptop as it arrives, if I so desire.
[Jacob Rus]
Given that, as far as I know, most of those who work on TextMate bundles, including Allan himself, feel somewhat the same way,
[podperson]
How would you know?
Sorry, by “TextMate bundles”, I meant “those TextMate bundles which are in wide public use”. I thought that was clear, but apparently not.
I realize you think hacking bundles is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate hacks bundles. They probably don't sync their changes to svn because it's a PITA, and they don't talk here because it's a PITA.
You aren’t making any friends here by being patronizing.
(Or for added snark: I realize you think that using email is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate has also used email.)
I doubt you really want an answer to this, but actually I think no such thing. I was “hacking bundles” within a couple of days of using TextMate, before I had much understanding of it at all, and had hopped on IRC and contributed a bit myself within the first week (ironically, the “bulletin board” bundle, for syntax highlighting the god-awful markup used by most web forums).
Oddly enough, it's easier to extend and customize it than participate in the online community, which is kind of sad.
It’s surprisingly easy if your outlook is positive and cooperative, and your goal is solving practical problems. If your communication style convinces everyone in the community that you’re just trolling, then that “ease” depends on your definition of “participate”, I guess.
It would be really neat if you could set yourself up to treat the mailing list purely as a forum in a relatively straightforward manner
Feel free to write that software, or convince someone else to. Mail messages are a very well understood format, trivially mappable to whatever kind of front-end you like.
Alternately, go complain at the Gmane people if you don’t like their implementation(s) (it has most of the advantages you cite for fora: searchable, always available from anywhere, see all the replies to a thread in one flat page, etc.).
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.editors.textmate.general/26173
-Jacob
I think we're all missing the most crucial mistake in this discussion:
The plural of forum is NOT forums. It is fora. Keep focused people, we don't want to lose track of what's important.
--Evan "data, stadia, millennia, curricula, atria, bacteria, errata, fulcra, memoranda, momenta, sera, FORA" Berkowitz
On Jul 31, 2008, at 1:36 PM, Jacob Rus wrote:
[Jacob Rus]
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
[podperson]
I agree. Forums don't suck. Forum-like web interfaces suck.
[Jacob Rus]
Find me a forum with a desktop app as its interface, and we’ll talk.
Until then, you get a -1 from me on any forum proposal.
[podperson]
How about Safari? It's as much a desktop app as Mail.
Why do I get the feeling you’re not really reading the responses you’re getting here?
I cannot read a web forum in either NNTP readers, nor desktop mail readers. I can read this mailing list in my browser in about 4 different ways, including some that look like most web forums but better. I can also read it in any mail client, usenet client, or rss feed reader. I can munge its plain text messages in a program written in any language I like. I can trivially make the Bubbles voice read each message out loud on my laptop as it arrives, if I so desire.
[Jacob Rus]
Given that, as far as I know, most of those who work on TextMate bundles, including Allan himself, feel somewhat the same way,
[podperson]
How would you know?
Sorry, by “TextMate bundles”, I meant “those TextMate bundles which are in wide public use”. I thought that was clear, but apparently not.
I realize you think hacking bundles is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate hacks bundles. They probably don't sync their changes to svn because it's a PITA, and they don't talk here because it's a PITA.
You aren’t making any friends here by being patronizing.
(Or for added snark: I realize you think that using email is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate has also used email.)
I doubt you really want an answer to this, but actually I think no such thing. I was “hacking bundles” within a couple of days of using TextMate, before I had much understanding of it at all, and had hopped on IRC and contributed a bit myself within the first week (ironically, the “bulletin board” bundle, for syntax highlighting the god-awful markup used by most web forums).
Oddly enough, it's easier to extend and customize it than participate in the online community, which is kind of sad.
It’s surprisingly easy if your outlook is positive and cooperative, and your goal is solving practical problems. If your communication style convinces everyone in the community that you’re just trolling, then that “ease” depends on your definition of “participate”, I guess.
It would be really neat if you could set yourself up to treat the mailing list purely as a forum in a relatively straightforward manner
Feel free to write that software, or convince someone else to. Mail messages are a very well understood format, trivially mappable to whatever kind of front-end you like.
Alternately, go complain at the Gmane people if you don’t like their implementation(s) (it has most of the advantages you cite for fora: searchable, always available from anywhere, see all the replies to a thread in one flat page, etc.).
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.editors.textmate.general/26173
-Jacob
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
-1 from me, too. Even with rss-feeds forums are imho not as easy to use as my mail client and even with rss I have to go to the information. Google groups is nice though but only because I am using gmail and can subscribe to everything via mail.
Sent from my iPod
On 29.07.2008, at 00:16, podperson tloewald@gmail.com wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Actual-Forum--tp18700957p18700957.html Sent from the textmate users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
On 29/07/2008, at 2:37 PM, Niels Kobschaetzki wrote:
-1 from me, too. Even with rss-feeds forums are imho not as easy to use as my mail client and even with rss I have to go to the information. Google groups is nice though but only because I am using gmail and can subscribe to everything via mail.
Google Groups is great in that the participants can have things either way: used as a forum or used as a mailing list depending on your individual preference.
I much prefer forums when I'm not interested in every post, and conversely with mailing lists: better when everything is interesting.
Will
Will Robertson wrote:
I much prefer forums when I'm not interested in every post, and conversely with mailing lists: better when everything is interesting.
A very reasonable preference, especially since I have *never* encountered a mailing list where *everything* is interesting.
On 29 Jul 2008, at 00:16, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Hi, I'd like to register my preference for staying with a mailing list. I find forums horribly unmanageable.
Hamster.
On 29/07/2008, at 4:59 PM, Hamster wrote:
On 29 Jul 2008, at 00:16, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Hi, I'd like to register my preference for staying with a mailing list. I find forums horribly unmanageable.
Don't forget: a Google group can be accessed either as a mailing list or a forum. You can either post to the list via a web form or through your email client. Ditto for browsing. It's not just the best of both worlds, it *is* both worlds.
Just saying you don't need to lose one for the other!
Will
Google groups could be a solution just for that: - I can receive emails and directly answer them getting an immediate answer to my questions, just like we are doing now - or I can just use the web interface for any reasons (I am not at my Mac, or, like I do, I don't want to keep all emails in my email application so I can consult the web repository, and so on)
Just my 2c, I vote for Google groups.
Il giorno 29/lug/08, alle ore 09:37, Will Robertson ha scritto:
On 29/07/2008, at 4:59 PM, Hamster wrote:
On 29 Jul 2008, at 00:16, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Hi, I'd like to register my preference for staying with a mailing list. I find forums horribly unmanageable.
Don't forget: a Google group can be accessed either as a mailing list or a forum. You can either post to the list via a web form or through your email client. Ditto for browsing. It's not just the best of both worlds, it *is* both worlds.
Just saying you don't need to lose one for the other!
Will _______________________________________________ textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
(((Bonsai Studio))) - Giuseppe wrote:
Google groups could be a solution just for that:
- I can receive emails and directly answer them getting an immediate
answer to my questions, just like we are doing now
- or I can just use the web interface for any reasons (I am not at my
Mac, or, like I do, I don't want to keep all emails in my email application so I can consult the web repository, and so on)
SproutCore uses Google Groups and I prefer Nabble + Mailing List to Google Groups :-)
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 11:38 AM, podperson tloewald@gmail.com wrote:
SproutCore uses Google Groups and I prefer Nabble + Mailing List to Google Groups :-)
why? what don't you like about google groups?
as others have mentioned, it's one of the few implementations that allow you email, forum, and RSS-based interfaces for viewing messages. it's not perfect, but it covers most bases reasonably well.
and while i'm at it, what's your favorite forum implementation? can you provide a link to a forum that works the way you like?
my experience with vBulletin on AVS Forum leaves me with a really bad taste in my mouth. some threads i'm interested in are over 200 pages long at 50 messages per page. i can't keep up with it -- the 'forum' is horribly organized with the good content being buried in super general threads on page 114, with ugly-ass overdone themes. <sigh>
with apologies for adding fuel to the fire by adding my two cents,
-justin
On 29 Jul 2008, at 09:37, Will Robertson wrote:
On 29/07/2008, at 4:59 PM, Hamster wrote:
On 29 Jul 2008, at 00:16, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Hi, I'd like to register my preference for staying with a mailing list. I find forums horribly unmanageable.
Don't forget: a Google group can be accessed either as a mailing list or a forum. You can either post to the list via a web form or through your email client. Ditto for browsing. It's not just the best of both worlds, it *is* both worlds.
By my opinion that's point. What's the main difference between a forum and a mailing list? Actually I don't see a difference. Why should we change it thus? Mailing lists are in some sense clean structured without any fancy stuff and ads. If you like a forum-like view switch to view threaded or use an app which can displayed it. The next point is if you want to follow a discussion on a mobile device (like my iPhone) it is much easier to use a mailing list than to browse to a forum. Then it's often the case that forums allow to create sub-categories to be "clearly arranged". But this could lead to be confusing, and sometimes I do not know where to post my question.
Furthermore I'm often in areas of the world where I have limited access to the internet and with a very low bandwidth. In order to follow a list I'm using the good old UNIX pine to read my mails without any fancy images etc.
And regarding to Google groups. Well, these are not bad, but you find the word "Google" in it. What happens if Google will become insolvent ;)
Thus I plead to use a minimalist mailing list.
--Hans
Hans-Jörg Bibiko wrote:
By my opinion that's point. What's the main difference between a forum and a mailing list? Actually I don't see a difference.
There's no difference, but you're against forums.
Why should we
change it thus? Mailing lists are in some sense clean structured without any fancy stuff and ads.
Ads are an orthogonal issue. You can have ads on mailing lists or no ads on forums.
<forum>If you like a forum-like view switch to view threaded or use an app which can displayed it.</forum>
I'm looking at this thing using Nabble right now because mailing lists are horrible/impossible to reply to in digest mode. (Digest mode also ironically gives you ten copies of everything because each message tends to include a huge chunk of the preceding thread, but at least it's not ten separate messages.)
Nabble definitely sucks ... but a proper forum wouldn't (suck as much).
I'm not saying forums don't suck, they just suck less.
The next point is if you want to follow a discussion on a mobile
device (like my iPhone) it is much easier to use a mailing list than to browse to a forum.
Only if the forum isn't set up for iPhone access, and even then it's arguable.
Then it's often the case that forums allow to
create sub-categories to be "clearly arranged". But this could lead to be confusing, and sometimes I do not know where to post my question.
Right and there's only four mailing lists to pick from. You can make a forum equally disorganized or not, your choice.
Furthermore I'm often in areas of the world where I have limited
access to the internet and with a very low bandwidth.
And it's a joy to have to download all that extra email when you've got extra low bandwidth. Especially if you subscribe to, I dunno, more than one mailing list.
In order to follow a list I'm using the good old UNIX pine to read my mails
without any fancy images etc.
Yes, I know when I'm in a remote area with limited bandwidth, being able to keep up with mailing lists using pine is my top priority.
And regarding to Google groups. Well, these are not bad, but you find
the word "Google" in it. What happens if Google will become insolvent ;)
Good point. Use a proper forum.
On 30 Jul 2008, at 15:15, podperson wrote:
Hans-Jörg Bibiko wrote:
By my opinion that's point. What's the main difference between a forum and a mailing list? Actually I don't see a difference.
There's no difference, but you're against forums.
Err actually there's a huge difference between forums and mailing lists.
On a forum you can't sort and organise posts.
On a mailing list I can delete the threads I'm not interested in, I can move the ones with helpful tips into one folder, I can move messages relating to particular topics into other folders and basically organise the incoming emails into whatever system works best for me. I can block emails from people that I don't want to hear from, I can set entire threads to ignore.
And if I don't want to have the mails locally, I don't have to do that either. I can just read them via imap.
Forums are just page after page after page of HTML links. I can't move them around, organise them or delete them.
To me, that's a huge difference and the reason I don't like forums. I can't organise anything to my liking - mailing lists are far more flexible.
H.
Hamster-4 wrote:
and a mailing list? Actually I don't see a difference.
There's no difference, but you're against forums.
Err actually there's a huge difference between forums and mailing lists.
You do realize you're arguing against *yourself*. OK, sorry, I've beaten that dead horse enough.
On a forum you can't sort and organise posts.
The forum is organized already so you don't have to do it. OK you may not *like* the organization much as you may prefer Dewey Decimal to Library of Congress (those are Library cataloguing systems by the way) but it's certainly easier for most people not to have to sort through the library themselves.
On a mailing list I can delete the threads I'm not interested in
Yes, because you have to keep a complete copy of the darn thing yourself. Of course if you're not on the right machine or don't have access to the right mailbox you're SOL.
I can move the ones with helpful tips into one folder, I can move
messages relating to particular topics into other folders and basically organise the incoming emails into whatever system works best for me.
I'm one of those strange people who prefer to let Librarians catalog libraries.
I can block emails from people that I don't want to hear from,
I can set entire threads to ignore.
Most forums let you ignore specific users. Some let you ignore threads.
And if I don't want to have the mails locally, I don't have to do that
either. I can just read them via imap.
Forums are just page after page after page of HTML links. I can't move them around, organise them or delete them.
Yes there's no software on the planet for managing lists of HTML links. Oh wait, there is.
To me, that's a huge difference and the reason I don't like forums. I
can't organise anything to my liking - mailing lists are far more flexible.
Once again, they're flexible because you have to maintain your own complete copy of the thing.
I dragged Real Software kicking and screaming to using forums (they still use mailing lists as well). I did it over a period of *years* by maintaining my own forum site that got more traffic than their (official) mailing lists.
Their basic mailing list's thread list viewed as a web page is *41 screens high* for *July*.
Their forum has over 100,000 posts (in about two years) and -- owing to design I don't care for -- is about 1.5 screens high.
On 30 Jul 2008, at 16:27, podperson wrote:
Hamster-4 wrote:
and a mailing list? Actually I don't see a difference.
There's no difference, but you're against forums.
Err actually there's a huge difference between forums and mailing lists.
You do realize you're arguing against *yourself*. OK, sorry, I've beaten that dead horse enough.
What? I never said they're the same thing. That was a different poster. Check your facts before getting abusive.
H.
Hamster-4 wrote:
What? I never said they're the same thing. That was a different poster.
Oops! My bad.
Check your facts before getting abusive.
Abusive?
On 30 Jul 2008, at 14:15, podperson wrote:
There's no difference, but you're against forums.
There is one huge huge huge difference.
In a forum you (or the person controlling the forum) decides how it looks to me, how I search it, how I interact etc. With a mailing list I decide how it is presented, filtered, organised, searched. With a mailing list I also have a standard storage form to work with (an RFC822 message), with a forum its all locked up in someones little paradise....
Even if you get the "ideal" forum software, your ideal may not be my ideal.
You can tell me how to do those things if you wish, however my response will be "fuck off" unless I an close enough to just hit you.
Frankly forums are implemented by people who misunderstand mailing lists.
So if you tell me that I need to use a forum the answer is "Over your dead body!" (and yes the pronoun is correct).
-- [ Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham@InTechnology.com ] [ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]
Nigel Metheringham wrote:
In a forum you (or the person controlling the forum) decides how it looks to me, how I search it, how I interact etc.
I think it's easier to customize forums (or provide themes) than to write your own email client.
With a mailing list
I decide how it is presented, filtered, organised, searched. With a mailing list I also have a standard storage form to work with (an RFC822 message), with a forum its all locked up in someones little paradise....
Yes, the web is a much less useful standard than RFC822.
Even if you get the "ideal" forum software, your ideal may not be my
ideal.
Your ideal isn't my ideal since my ideal is not a mailing list.
You can tell me how to do those things if you wish, however my
response will be "fuck off" unless I an close enough to just hit you.
So if you're telling me that by switching to forums I'll be missing out on this high level of discourse, I don't think you're making much of a point.
Frankly forums are implemented by people who misunderstand mailing
lists.
"Frankly"? I think you mean "In my opinion".
The word "frankly" implies that, up to this point, you have been dissembling. I might accuse you of many things but I wasn't going to include dishonesty.
So if you tell me that I need to use a forum the answer is "Over your
dead body!" (and yes the pronoun is correct).
Wow, first expletive now death threats. I definitely vote for whatever format is least likely to involve Nigel.
On 28 Jul 2008, at 23:16, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used.
when people call for forums, on mailing lists, I wonder why they don't just set one up and invite people to join.
I detest forums - whenever I go looking for information in Google I usually end up finding my exact same question asked on a forum somewhere, *but* very rarely answered.
every mailing list I'm on provides instant answers to my questions.
Who has time to trawl through forums?
when people call for forums, on mailing lists, I wonder why they don't just set one up and invite people to join.</forum>
1. I take it from the fact that of my two initial posts to this list -- one asking for information on autocomplete to which I got ZERO replies and this one which has received a deluge including insane garbage verging on death threads -- that I'm not the first person to ask for a forum.
You know, mentioning "forum" here is like mentioning "usability" on the blender forum.
2. Fragmenting a community is not a positive contribution.
I detest forums - whenever I go looking for information in Google I
usually end up finding my exact same question asked on a forum somewhere, *but* very rarely answered.
And how often do you find it answered on a mailing list by searching on Google?
every mailing list I'm on provides instant answers to my questions.
Thanks to someone being willing to answer it for the nth time.
Who has time to trawl through forums?
I find mailing lists a much bigger pain to deal with than forums.
Hi
I am glad you mentioned this. I very much prefer good forums to mailing lists.
I think the phpbb forum is very good and easy to set up with a MySQL database. The disadvantage with it is no RSS :(
My own feeling is that forums reach a very much larger audience than mailing lists.
It's just a hunch, but I feel a great many people don't want to "sign up" to a mailing list because they don't want endless emails coming in :)
I also think that for some people they like to just know there is a forum even if they don't ever use it. The reason for this is that they like to know that if they have a problem with the program, then at least there is a forum that they can pop along to and just ask a question. They don't have to subscribe to mailing list etc. So, it is good methinks to have a forum at the software web-site.
I think the problem with posing the question "actual forum?" here is that the group of people here using this list are the kind of people who like discussion lists, that's why they are here :) - so they are less likely to be favourable towards a forum.
A good point made by someone is, "well why don't you set up a forum then?", however the problem with a forum or email list is moderating it and personally I am not sufficiently interested in doing that.
I do moderate one forum for a different subject and a mailing list for a further subject, so on the "moderating" front I'm not doing too badly :)
However I feel that the TextMate people (or person) might like to consider a forum.
Just my two cents (although in UK where I'm from we don't use cents).
Patrick
On 28 Jul 2008, at 23:16, podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Actual-Forum--tp18700957p18700957.html Sent from the textmate users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
To add another bikeshed color to the discussion, there's RForum which powers http://www.ruby-forum.com - there are some pretty high-traffic mailinglists centralized and it works very well.
You set it up and have it subscribe to any mailinglist (i.e. no need to move to Google groups). It will then act transparently as a gateway to the mailinglist.
-- sven fuchs svenfuchs@artweb-design.de artweb design http://www.artweb-design.de grünberger 65 + 49 (0) 30 - 47 98 69 96 (phone) d-10245 berlin + 49 (0) 171 - 35 20 38 4 (mobile)
I was firmly in favor of mailing lists over forums until I started receiving all the messages in this thread.
Now I'm on the fence.
On Jul 30, 2008, at 10:31 PM, Sven Fuchs wrote:
To add another bikeshed color to the discussion, there's RForum which powers http://www.ruby-forum.com - there are some pretty high-traffic mailinglists centralized and it works very well.
You set it up and have it subscribe to any mailinglist (i.e. no need to move to Google groups). It will then act transparently as a gateway to the mailinglist.
-- sven fuchs svenfuchs@artweb-design.de artweb design http://www.artweb-design.de grünberger 65 + 49 (0) 30 - 47 98 69 96 (phone) d-10245 berlin + 49 (0) 171 - 35 20 38 4 (mobile)
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
I think that's pretty similar to how Nabble works. Do you think the UI of ruby-forum is better then Nabble2?
I like the idea of getting the best of both worlds.
Over at MooTools we just closed down the Forum that we've had for years and moved over to Google Groups. The transition has been a bit rocky since so many people are so used to the Forums. But I personally thing Google Groups is a good compromise between the two.
The Quicksilver.app forum was recently replaced by a Google Group too.
The one major advantage I've seen with the Mailing Lists vs. Forums is that the signal to noise ratio is usually much better. As much as I hate to stereotype... n00bs usually don't use Mailing Lists and non- n00bs usually hate Forums.
I guess it's up to Allan if he wants to create a Forum, none of us really have any say in it, except to make our own Unofficial Forum. But, since Allan certainly falls into that ladder category, I don't think there's likely to be much hope of it. Sorry.
—Thomas Aylott / subtleGradient
On Jul 30, 2008, at 10:31 AM, Sven Fuchs wrote:
To add another bikeshed color to the discussion, there's RForum which powers http://www.ruby-forum.com - there are some pretty high-traffic mailinglists centralized and it works very well.
You set it up and have it subscribe to any mailinglist (i.e. no need to move to Google groups). It will then act transparently as a gateway to the mailinglist.
-- sven fuchs svenfuchs@artweb-design.de artweb design http://www.artweb-design.de grünberger 65 + 49 (0) 30 - 47 98 69 96 (phone) d-10245 berlin + 49 (0) 171 - 35 20 38 4 (mobile)
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Some poor deluded people wrote:
Forums are miles better than mailing lists
Some other poor deluded people wrote:
Mailing lists are miles better than mailing lists
As *everybody* who deserves access to any form of communication system capable of transmitting messages further than a hundred metres knows, the only correct Internet discussion system is Usenet.
Duh.
ABS
- -- Alaric Snell-Pym Work: http://www.snell-systems.co.uk/ Play: http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/alaric/ Blog: http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/?author=4
Hi! Here +1 vote for mailing list. I like ability to read this even offline. Especially threads like this (40+ messages for now). And i'm sure forums are good for community of 1000+ ppl who write and do it often. Say World of Warcraft forum -- its useless as mailing list. But its good as forum: many categories, many authors, huge amount of threads. And mods that can delete thread you didn't read yet ;)
-- Alexey
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 02:16, podperson tloewald@gmail.com wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Actual-Forum--tp18700957p18700957.html Sent from the textmate users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/listinfo/textmate
podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
Nabble works surprisingly well, but it's still pretty painful compared to any forum I've used.
Coming to this thread a bit late, but +1 for mailing list.
Forums have categories and each of those categories is likely to be separated into X messages per page. Number of categories times number of pages in each one equals a ton of pages I have to load just to read what's going on (with all the HTML/CSS/JavaScript/image overhead that entails). Even if I only care about one category, their subjective so I don't know that everything I care about got placed into the right one (so I pretty much have to check them all). Fuck that. And since each application would have its own forum, multiply the number of pages you have to load by that as well. Or, I can just skim down a list of quick-loading text in my mail client. So what if the "whole thing" comes to me? My mail client lets me delete things.
You need to filter your mail. Have your mail client look for this header and stick the matching messages in a folder.
List-Id: TextMate users <textmate.lists.macromates.com>
Bottom line: Even if there were a forum, those of us that can actually answer your questions are going to be here on the mailing list - not looking at everyone's stupid animated GIF avatars. So, do you still want a forum? Or would you rather have your questions answered?
<snip snip>
And now a thing someone mentioned that you can't do with a mailing-list: ignoring a thread. I mute it now in gmail (or would set-up a rule in a mail-client of my choice) and therefore it moves directly to the archive.
Btw. imap can be low-bandwidth. I don't know what kind of mailing-client you are using but any client i saw 'til now can only download the headers of mails and you download only more if you open a mail.
Btw. forum -1 (that would be a second one from me) I have to use for some things in my life forum's and everytime I think it sucks because even with good mobile interfaces they usually suck on mobile browsers (like blackberry or opera) and mail clients work. On stationary machines it's just a website more I have to go to check if there's new information because I've never seen a forum with a good rss-feed.
Niels
podperson wrote:
I know there are people who (for some reason) prefer mailing lists to actual forums, but I'd like to cast my vote for a proper forum.
podperson wrote:
A very reasonable preference, especially since I have *never* encountered a mailing list where *everything* is interesting.
Okay, your post, and its trolling follow-ups have now created a nice flame-war. You have effectively reduced the signal:noise ratio of this mailing list, and showed that even mailing lists might need moderation sometimes. Are you satisfied?
Nigel Metheringham wrote:
Frankly forums are implemented by people who misunderstand mailing lists.
++
And that’s not all they misunderstood. Ever looked at various forum markup syntaxes?
Alaric Snell-Pym wrote:
As *everybody* who deserves access to any form of communication system capable of transmitting messages further than a hundred metres knows, the only correct Internet discussion system is Usenet.
Duh.
That’s certainly how I access this list. :-)
-Jacob
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Actually, all this discussion only illustrates one thing:
Neither Mailing-Lists, Message Boards or Wikis are a silver bullet.
I for example love message boards because of the easy administration and accessability. One must see that i often use different computers that do not have a mail-client installed. For example: reading ruby- talk without a good Mail program is not managable - even with nabble. Reading it via webmailer is impossible.
But having a mailing list as a local copy is great, too. I am often working while i'm sitting in a train across the country. Still being able to read all the stuff is great in that regard.
Wikis are cool for accessing evolving information, but have problems when it comes down to discussions. Also here: no offline accessibility and/or ability to edit.
All this is entirely subjective.
Maybe it's time again that someone thinks out of the box and eighter mixes all three to something cool or comes up with an entirely new idea.
Regards, Florian Gilcher
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Florian Gilcher flo@andersground.netwrote:
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Actually, all this discussion only illustrates one thing:
Neither Mailing-Lists, Message Boards or Wikis are a silver bullet.
<--snip-->
Maybe it's time again that someone thinks out of the box and eighter mixes all three to something cool or comes up with an entirely new idea.
I suscribe to one mailing list that added a two way connection to a web forum a few months ago, in an attempt to have the best of both worlds. This made the mailing list much less easy to use, as many of the posters in the web forum didn't understand that their posts would be sent to a mailing list, so we got bombarded with posts with no context, multiple posts each time an existing forum entry was editted, and a number of very knowledgeable list members left in disgust, greatly reducing the knowledge pool to draw from. The web forum users were subjected to a bunch of whining from e-mail list users, complaining about the posts with no context, the posts from multiple edits, and complaints about fora in general. In my opinion, it rather ended up with the worst of both worlds.
Folks who prefer e-mail lists should use e-mail lists, folks who prefer fora should use fora, and never the twain should meet.
Kevin Horton
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- Giuseppe -
Alaric Snell-Pym -
Alex Ross -
Alexey Blinov -
Chris Rebert -
Daniel Stockman -
Dennis -
Eric Abrahamsen -
Erwan David -
Evan Berkowitz -
Florian Gilcher -
Fritz Anderson -
Gerd Knops -
Hamster -
Hans-Joerg Bibiko -
Jacob Rus -
Jasper van der Meulen -
justin blecher -
Kevin Horton -
Niels Kobschaetzki -
Nigel Metheringham -
Ollivier Robert -
Patrick James -
podperson -
Rob McBroom -
Sven Fuchs -
Thomas Aylott -
Thomas Bohn -
Tony Crockford -
Will Robertson