Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Hi all,

I personally believe that the activity on the maemo-community list should be moved to the talk.maemo.org Community forum.

This forum is a low-activity forum (no crazy post-a-minute threads here) and it can be tracked without too much pain by the wider community just by visiting the Community forum's front page now and then.

Because talk.maemo.org is more user-centric than the mailing lists (which tend to be more developer-centric), and because talk.maemo.org is so regularly and thoroughly indexed by Google, posts in this forum will receive wider attention, which is important for community issues.

Anyway, that's my position. Discuss and debate! :)

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I don't use that mailing list, and I suspect you're right about moving it, because of the type of list it is.

However the one big problem I have with talk.maemo.org is that I haven't found any way to be notified of replies to messages I have posted. That makes responding to replies and therefore back-and-forth conversation nearly impossible. Some people seem to prefer forums anyway despite that. I don't understand why. But there are other redeeming features in forums like searchability, active topics etc.

My point is that on mailing lists, responding to replies to form a conversation is normal, and that's lost by moving to a forum like this one. The people who use the list might miss that, so maybe they should be asked :)

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

To get a notification of replies on a thread you are following, you have to subscribe to it:

http://content.screencast.com/users/...01-14_1301.png

And then choose "Instant notification by email."
http://content.screencast.com/users/...01-14_1304.png

The system will email you automatically of any replies to the thread. Links are provided in the email so you can easily go to that thread or reply.

You can unsubscribe to previously subscribed thread anytime.


EDIT: Another way is if you are creating a new thread or just posting a reply, if you are using the advanced editor, it will give you an option to automatically follow that thread:

http://content.screencast.com/users/...01-14_1310.png

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Two off-the-cuff comments before I mull it over at length.

One is simply that different people like different forms of communication. I know at least one person who gets all her Maemo news and info via twitter and won't post here. It's what works for her. Maybe some people simply prefer a mailing list.

Secondly, could it be that the reason the devs use the mailing is is precisely because this place has become highly user-orientated. In other words, they go there to escape us, and come here to find us when they want us. I am under impression there was a dev-specific IRC channel created recently, too , after #maemo has become a bit too user-focussed for some. (Can't say I noticed - about 95% of #maemo goes over my head so I assume a fair proportion are still devs!)

The question is, are you trying to remove a way for the devs to communicate amongst themselves away from the users? because if so, are you sure that's what they want?

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

True, I read both and some mailings already have a thread in here but even after asked to post here still mails on that topic come into my mailbox. Common sense? Does it need an integration of the community mailinglists into the forum? Automailing forum responses to the mailinglist?
It took me ages to get used to forums as the S/N sucks most of the time.


To keep the S/N ratio good I suggest to keep this subforum cleaner as any other. Or try to clean the whole forums. Dont know if deleting useless comments would help?! (Maybe collecting them in a special thread for Guiness is an idea too...)
Reading or not even reading... just scrolling one page of non'sense shouldn't be the case in here.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

It's funny-- the light traffic works for and against this place. It's great to avoid the spam... but disappointing when I'm looking for feedback on an important topic and get a mere handful of replies.

But then, the mailing list exhibits the same unfortunate behavior...

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I dont use the mailing list. Didn't even know there was one :D.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Could we reduce this to pointing to some FAQ please?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/faq.p...b3_board_usage

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

No, that's not what I mean. I mean there's no way to be notified specifically of replies to the comments you have posted yourself.

I'm already using the facility to auto-subscribe to threads where I have posted, and rather than get notification by email (which became too much email very quickly), I can use the "Control Panel" to see which threads I commented on have recieved more comments.

But if someone responds to something specific I've said, it is virtually impossible to find out except on the very low traffic threads, so It's virtually impossible to reply to their reponse. E.g. if someone asks a question, I won't be able to answer, and if I have a specific question, it's hard work to get at the answer - at least without catching up on whole threads. But the busier threads are too long for that. It takes too long to skim everything else; doesn't scale.

That's completely different from a mailing list, where you have threads, the ability to kill subthreads, and replies to your posts show up differently so you can respond to them immediately.

I suspect that's why development uses lists more than forums, and it tends to be lost when a list is changed to a forum.

This was somewhat discussed before and if I remember right, the main reason on having the mailing list is it is just easier for developers / Maemo team to reply via email.

I'm not really against it, but is it really necessary to maintain six mailing lists? I suggest to just maintain one and move others here at Talk.

The problem is there on both sides. I am subscribed to several mailing lists and I do get emails of topics I just don't care about. What's worse is that there is no unsubscribe for that particular topic, so I get all the email replies on that topic, forever... ;)

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

To clarify: I am only talking about the maemo-community mailing list. This is not a developer mailing list, it is supposedly aimed at the whole community.

I also think that maemo-users should be phased out, because it contains 99.5% of what is already posted here at t.m.o., but it isn't being used to discuss important community issues that effect everyone like maemo-community is. I don't really care much if people insist on posting on the maemo-users list instead of posting here, because I haven't seen any important discussions there.

There is less traffic on maemo-community (look how many posts this thread has received in 45 minutes!) and I think some people like that, but I think community issues need to be discussed in the most "public" space available, and I believe that is this forum.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

The biggest argument for keeping development on the maemo-community mailing list (apart from the ease with which one can track the really important community things) is the fact that the people who actually do the community work use it.

Whether you find the forum or not easier is, TBH moot, it's they who should be asked.

For example, having all the karma discussion on tmo is fine and dandy - until, like Brainstorm, some hair-brained, unimplementable and unrealistic scheme is dreamt up and then thrown over the wall to X-Fade, bergie et al and told "implement this".

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

For clarification: are you saying Brainstorm is that scheme, or one or more schemes lurking in Brainstorm?

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

There are schemes like this in Brainstorm which get voted highly because the voting and discussion doesn't include those who actually know the details (and complexity) of the possible implementations.

Similarly, discussions about karma are limited because of the technical limitations with the current karma system. Unless, in discussion with the folks who can implement it, the scope is increased into a full-blown redesign of karma (the biggest technical limitation at the moment, AIUI, is that the entirety of a user's karma is recalculated from scratch every time. It does not accrue).

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

-1, there's room for both.

I only count 5, and of those maemo-commits is completely inappropriate for talk and maemo-announce is pretty much dead (4 posts in the last year).

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Understood, thanks.

My feeling: use this talk forum for topics requiring more organization, and the mailing list for the "looser" stuff. Topics here could also be automatically bundled into a periodic digest and the links sent to the mailing list as an FYI.

But personally I tend to use both, often for the same topic, to reach the typically different audiences. And more and more I'm using my blog to bridge this Talk Community subforum and the mailing list, so subscribe and I'll help you out. :D

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Dude. How incredibly insulting. Bad form. :(

Since, by your definition, only a handful of people actually do the community work, it should be fairly straightforward to ask those people to check the Community forum on talk.maemo.org on a regular basis.

Or even better, post a notification on the -community mailing list when a thread is started in the Community forum on t.m.o.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I don't think Jaffa's comment was too out-of-line -- there's a lot of truth in it. But, I also have no problem with deprecating the mailing list in order to cohesify community-related communications. I like the mailing list format better, but coming here to perform community tasks takes just about the same amount of time. (And, yes, tmo -- regardless of the tools it provides -- is much more difficult to track than the mailing list.)

Tim

P.S. No, I'm not back. That is, unless I have to come here for community-related discussion instead of my Inbox.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I don't think it's really 'moot'. I think that the problem here is that the community ultimately gets divided and the discussions are scattered in several places.

I would think that a mailing list can still be used to announce something important, but it should include a link to the main thread here at Talk to discuss the topic in more detail -- similar to how Andrew just announced about this thread.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

This is a rather side issue, but I'd better mention it:

Depends on your mail tools. I believe some do let you "unsubscribe" or "hide" a thread including future posts on it, or unsubscribe from a subthread (in the tree) while getting the rest of the tree.

With lists you get to tailor your reading with your choice of tools and scripts. With forums you don't, although tmo is quite well equipped, as they go, with tools of its own. But not, unfortunately, the ability to track replies, so it tends to discourage that style of communication and encourage a more "room full of people talking at once" style instead :-)

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I spend much of my freetime to develop software diretcly targeting the maemo platform. I do not have much of this freetime, so it is essential for me to concentrate. For the communication to the community (and this included the community mailing list but is not restricted especially to this list), which includes:

• helping people
• participating in talks about my software
• getting to know what is really happening

It is essential for me to get information in the fastest way possible, not loosing development time. I also need a way to to clever batch mode communication, because I'm often away over the weekend, I'm in holidays or I'm simply to tired for a few days to check.

Talk simply fails for me doing this. It fails in tracking, it fails in batch working and other smaller ways (one of it beeing that I simply do not like forums I admit).

I simply do not have the time to regulary take a look at TMO. If you close this mailing lists (or all?) I will not move to TMO.

Closing down the community mailing list (and not forcing community related talks also into the list), I will loose another link to the rest of the community, further isolating me and people that act and think similar. I personally think of myself as beeing valuable to the comminity. I also think such people like me (prefering mailing lists) are valuable and while they are possibly now a (silent?) minority (proof?) they still exist, are important and can give valuable input.

I also understand that other people have other habbits, different timeslots or working behaviours and TMO ismore valuable for them. So I would not suggest to close down TMO :-)

This problem can IMHO only be solved technically, a technical solution was often requested and obviously never realized. I also see fragmentation of the community as a growing problem that will hurt and this suggested step is sadly in no way the solution to solve this. In opposite.

Please solve the problem and do not make the problem disappear by just making people disappear that could hint to the problem, even if that is easier than solving the real problem.

And it is funny that the request to close down the mailing list was first send to the forum. This sounds like not asking people which would be hit most by the decision :-/

The number of mailing lists is not a technical problem and there is also no technical reason to shutdown a low traffic mailing list.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Which bit? A subset of the stuff discussed here is currently important enough to discuss on maemo-community. How would you categorise the distinction between:

• stuff which is currently mainly discussed on -community with pointers to tmo,
• stuff that which is the other way around
• stuff that is only discussed on tmo
• stuff that is only discussed on -community.

My impression is that the "big" stuff (where to hold the summit, council elections, karma, QA process) are primarily discussed on -community. Things which are less cross-cutting (user meetups, testing pushes) are discussed/promoted here.

-community is the evolution of the migard2maemo list. It is currently intended that this is where the work around maemo.org is discussed. Since most of the work on the infrastructure of maemo.org is paid for; that is what I meant.

Canned responses apply:

• There's more noise on tmo; even in the Community sub-forum. Reggie's new "subscribed sub-forum" feature is a godsend to those of us who use the fora, but it's still a pull mechanism.
• Email is push.
• It's easier to work with mailing lists offline. Some of us travel a lot.
• It's easier to filter out threads which aren't of interest to you.
• It's easier to repackage a mailing list into other systems (such as gmane et al) than it is a forum.
• Threading is better on a mailing list.
• The SNR is higher. I don't know why; I'm not suggesting that the people on a mailing list are better; it just is. In our circumstance. That's not to say that there aren't excellent posts and posters here either.

Why not the other way around? Why not post a link to tmo everytime there's a new -community thread?

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I really don't get this debate, and the related animosity. This very issue has been solved ages ago (end of the last century/millenium...) on good old Usenet, with automated, two-way gateways between newsgroups and mailing lists.

This way everyone uses their preferred media and tool, but there is still only one debate in one place with the entire community.

Has this not been discussed here before ? Is it impossible to with forums in 2010 what was common thirty years ago ?...

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

This was where I was confused. I knew there was gateways to and from mailing lists.. I have participated in several securityfocus and other mailing lists that show up on websites and other places all over.

I don't see this argument getting anywhere.. because both mailing lists and forums have a very dedicated user base that will refuse to abandon their tool. Reason and/or logic play no part: They are simply dedicated to their way of doing it (this goes to both sides).

A gateway to/from this forum to the mailing-list is really the best option... I believe.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Yes, I have started doing that, and I will continue, whatever the outcome of this discussion is.

And I already can tell you the outcome of this discussion: nothing will change. That's OK, we're just chatting at the pub over a pint here.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Thats what I just said in my 1st post... merge them, even make TMO-community moderated. So you have both sides (mail vs forum) working together. With a good SNR.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Thank you for wasting my time and giving proof to impressions that there is more traffic at TMO but not necessarily more important ones in sum :-/

I want change, I want a two way gateway. Please do initiate change!

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Some people will refuse to use one or the other tool, and I don't want to lose the input of those folks just to centralize.

A certain spiteful part of me would note what an uproar posting community discussions that could affect Talk to -community caused in the past. . . .

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I am completely for moving all discussion from the Community-Mailing list to TMO.

I would be equally happy if the email integration could be done for the community mailing list. Any user should be easily able to post to the community discussion group.

http://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=43


If not, it should be moved into the forums. The problem is people on the mailing list come to a conclusion about something and then the people at TMO discuss it and have all kinds of different ideas.

We need to be on the SAME page from the start.

I have been a long time supporter of this idea.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

"Come to the dark side, Luke".

Sorry, people stating that they will not use TMO for various reason and then suggesting a complete move to TMO has no convincing logic for me. You see I have a problem with:

There are people discussing in two rooms. This is a problem. We shut down one room. All people in this room go home and never come back (OK, perhaps only 2/3). Afterwards there is only one room. Now all people are discussing together in one room. I'm happy.

Havn't you missed something (somebody?)?

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

This wasn't a problem in the old days when the 4 or 5 of us all thought alike.

/me ducks and runs.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

This quote is appropriate :D

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I avoided this forum a long time because I felt like I'm in a nutshell on a big ocean. For me the number of postings was (and is!) overwhelming. No chance to keep really up to date.

On the other hand it would be clearly not better to have all of the tmo noise on mailing lists. High traffic mailing lists are hard to follow too.

For me now it's only a question of organization. I read the mailinglists (sometime more, sometime less) and I get an instant mail notification from tmo threads I have subscribed to (actual more than 80 but I think only a few are "active"). New threads I normaly only get by searching or using seeing something interesting in the "Active topics" section. That opens the "tmo"doors for me :)

I can clearly understand if there are people not willing to read tmo every day. I also cann accept if there are people not willing to subscribe to mailing lists. I simply think there will be always people active in both (and more!) communication channels and willing to build bridges between them. And there are way more of these channels: irc, wiki, wiki-talk, bugzilla, ... I believe that there will be some kind of self regulation.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Maybe improving the web interface to the mailing lists (http://maemo.org/community/maemo-community/ ) would work?

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

This is a response to Dave from another thread.

So what you are saying is you are already missing many discussions that never made it to the mailing list?

Equally I have missed many discussions because they happened on the mailing list.

To me there are two options to fix this problem.

1) Put it all in one location


2) Sync them in some manner

When you get more people involved, there will be more noise.

Leaving them separate is NOT an option.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Again the statement to drop communication for a relevant minority. Sorry, 1) is not a first class solution, it is just a way to make the problem disppear. You are council member (representing all community members, since AFAIK we have no politic parties here) , how can you so lightheartly do this? For me 2) is the better and IMHO only option and I like to hear from you as a council member where the problem is with this approach? Syncing TMO and mailing lists is long discussed (and even long before current council if I remember correctly), but it never came. Why? Are there technical reason? If yes, they should at least be mentioned in this thread to make us start looking for alternative solutions? We now have several statements that TMO and mailing list may split the community and do harm and that people likely not move to the other side that easily that you wish they do.

Tim.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I don't see that penguinbait was favoring option 1 in his post-- rather, just pointing out the 2 diverse main solutions.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Hi,

I'll happily switch to using the community forum when it gets some features that I have with the maemo-community mailing list:

1. The ability to store messages offline, and tag or label them so that I can save and easily identify those messages which require action from me
2. Threaded discussions so that I can easily see who is replying to who
3. Automatic and immediate notification of all new posts to the forum
4. The ability to archive discussions that interest me to a separate view for later reference
5. A dynamically updating list of people who I reply to and which I can use to contact them offline privately

To be honest, email's great, and is a perfect work tool for storing & archiving selected discussions, building up an address-book of community contacts, and defining actionable messages which form the basis for a TODO list.

Is there any reason that using the community forum would make it easier for me to do the work I need to do?

Dave.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

Personally, I prefer email and keep forgetting about all of the forums.

Re: Move maemo-community mailing list activity to this forum
 

I far prefer email too.