Mailing list go about remotestorage.io

[xMartin]

This is getting ridiculous. Is it a good idea to use Github issues as a mailing list? I don't know. Maybe. But can we discuss this and think it through first? This was decided by two people between midnight and 2am CET. Please slow down! No-one's getting hurt if such a decision takes a week. Every move including the move off the unhosted Google group was premature.

Librelist seems to forget about some mails. Did anybody try Librelist or did some research before? Don't think so.

Riseup is a bit slow for me. And @jancborchardt can't figure out how to add managers. Again, did someone try and research before making everybody else move? Not really. And isn't Riseup something we might want to support, be it by giving them feedback about how hard it is to add managers?

I know Github seems to be the hip solution for everything these days. There are definitely some pros for using it as a mailing list (mailing lists suck anyway, no?). But this should be discussed by the team. In case there are cons we have to move again.

So what I'm trying to say: Give these decisions time. A week maybe, I'd say. So people can articulate their opinion and experiences. And try stuff out and if issues try to solve them instead of just changing your mind instantly. I'm not saying there should be months-long evaluations as in an enterprise world, but isn't a week reasonable?

My thoughts about Github:

• I assume it's a very usable solution. The interface is ok, it works with email. And user account management is done here anyway so it eliminates the hassle of administrating the list and accounts.
• Github is a proprietary, closed, central platform (yes, even though they're cool and free (as in beer) for open source code. They could change the issue tracker at any time.
• I'm against using the website repo's tracker. Same argument I had when switching from ToS;DR website tracker to dedicated tracker for browser extensions. There should be a tracker dedicated for the website. I don't agree that the website repo is all about remote storage. It is about the website remotestorage.io. So create a new repo as a mailing list replacement thing.

Grumpy old man has spoken.

[jancborchardt]

First, sorry for moving so fast. It might have looked like it was just 2 people in the middle of the night, Michiel agreed in person and Ken also replied with it being ok, although only sent to my personal mail, not to the list. We tried both Librelist and Riseup – but we used and use Github issues for discussion anyway so we’re used to it and there’s no configuration. I’m sick of looking for a solution, apparently all »discussion / mailing list« software (including Google Groups!) want me to have pain in some way.

I tried Librelist before, I know other projects which used it, and many had problems and didn’t like there was 0 configuration. If there are lost mails on multiple occasions and no way to find out wtf is it about, my patience is just over. Riseup on the other hand is full of configuration. I can’t even figure out how to handle the moderation settings and I don’t want to bother with it. I’m a volunteer like we all are and I don’t want to waste my time with this bullshit. We tried the available solutions before (also Google Groups and OnlineGroups) and for this project they seem all inferior to Github.

I don’t want to know how much time I wasted thinking about and trying out platforms, and about giving feedback to seemingly open source hosted software which »just needed to fix something« and just losing so much time and nerves on it instead of actually work.

The Github proprietary argument is of course true. Then again, we already use it for the code and discussion about the code. Having the »mailing list« here makes the way for people shorter to actually act upon what is said or what they say. Mailing lists are often only used for talking and not for making or at least veer off into that. Also, there are issue exporters we can run. Riseup and Librelist can also always change or shut down their service, this is true for any web service, regardless if it’s open source or not. And we’re not spinning up a server just to host our own discussion list.

I was thinking to establish a »discussion« repo and just use the issues in there, but it doesn’t make much sense to separate that. The comparison to ToS;DR is different, because the extra repo is for extensions only, not for the whole thing.

[silverbucket]

I think it makes sense to go with the path of least resistance in this
case, if github discussions work (which they seem to do) then I'm for it.

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Jan-Christoph Borchardt <
[email protected]> wrote:

First, sorry for moving so fast. It might have looked like it was just 2
people in the middle of the night, Michiel agreed in person and Ken also
replied with it being ok, although only sent to my personal mail, not to
the list. We tried both Librelist and Riseup – but we used and use Github
issues for discussion anyway so we’re used to it and there’s no
configuration. I’m sick of looking for a solution, apparently all
»discussion / mailing list« software (including Google Groups!) want me to
have pain in some way.

I tried Librelist before, I know other projects which used it, and many
had problems and didn’t like there was 0 configuration. If there are lost
mails on multiple occasions and no way to find out wtf is it about, my
patience is just over. Riseup on the other hand is full of configuration. I
can’t even figure out how to handle the moderation settings and I don’t
want to bother with it. I’m a volunteer like we all are and I don’t want to
waste my time with this bullshit. We tried the available solutions before
(also Google Groups and OnlineGroups) and for this project they seem all
inferior to Github.

I don’t want to know how much time I wasted thinking about and trying out
platforms, and about giving feedback to seemingly open source hosted
software which »just needed to fix something« and just losing so much time
and nerves on it instead of actually work.

The Github proprietary argument is of course true. Then again, we already
use it for the code and discussion about the code. Having the »mailing
list« here makes the way for people shorter to actually act upon what is
said or what they say. Mailing lists are often only used for talking and
not for making or at least veer off into that. Also, there are issue
exporters we can run. Riseup and Librelist can also always change or shut
down their service, this is true for any web service, regardless if it’s
open source or not. And we’re not spinning up a server just to host our own
discussion list.

I was thinking to establish a »discussion« repo and just use the issues in
there, but it doesn’t make much sense to separate that. The comparison to
ToS;DR is different, because the extra repo is for extensions only, not for
the whole thing.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/2#issuecomment-9338288.

[nilclass]

I agree with @xMartin that this was quite a quick decision, and that using a proprietary platform isn't the most sensible thing to do for a FOSS project - same thing applies to using google groups.
On the other hand, I love github discussions somehow :)

How about we don't try to find that one solution, that everyone can agree with, but instead use the polyglot approach?
We could put up a gateway exchanges messages between the riseup list and this board on github. It would need it's own email address & github account - and that's about it.

What do you think?

[raucao]

-1 for putting the ML here. For all reasons stated. Also, seriously, respect other people's time!

The ideal situation is that we don't need the mailing list anyway, because all discussions are held in GitHub issues, either as suggestions or with/on actual code, in the respective repos. Looking at what's happening on the ML on riseup since I joined, that's already the case.

[xMartin]

Just for the record: We use this issue tracker as our official mailing list, still.