[swift-evolution] [Discussion] mailing list alternative

[Ted kremenek]

I had this same question in my mind — especially if one can reply to an email and it posts back to the forum.

The mailing list model works well for those who want to get the entire feed of traffic, and easily monitor which threads they want to follow/read using the standard affordances in their mail program (e.g., mail filters, flagging messages, and so on).

The forum interface provides a way for people to just jump in and participate on specific topics, provide better (standard) rendering of content — such as code (which can be nice for technical conversations), and better archiving and possibly be more searchable.

If Discourse supports participation via email, it seems we get the best of both worlds, as you say.  I'm not super familiar with what Discourse can do in this regards.

> On Jan 25, 2017, at 9:22 PM, Nevin Brackett-Rozinsky via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> Can a forum be configured to send each new post to the mailing list with proper subject line?
> 
> If so, that would enable a best-of-both-worlds scenario—or at least the ability to dip our toes in a forum to see if it works, while still showing everything on-list.
> 
> Nevin
> 
> 
> 
>> On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jan 25, 2017, at 6:57 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>>> Signing up for mailing lists is straightforward, yes—but that’s only a small part of it. Signing up for a mailing list is a *commitment.* Once you do it, your inbox will be inundated with mailing list posts, making it difficult to find messages that actually have been intended for you personally. Therefore, you’ll have to deal with that somehow. You can set up rules in Mail to route mailing list posts to a separate folder, but that won’t help you if you access your webmail from a public machine. 
>>>> 
>>>> FWIW, I subscribe to many mailing lists in gmail and have it auto filter emails to mailing lists into a separate mailbox (well, really, tags) for each list.  It works great for me.
>>>> 
>>>> This doesn’t detract from your point about it being a commitment though.
>>> 
>>> It does kind of imply a follow-up question, though: is it _undesirable_ that signing up for a mailing list is a modicum of commitment?
>> 
>> I’m mixed on that.  On the one hand, it is great to have some level of commitment before people inject their opinion into the mix for some discussion.  OTOH, I’m sympathetic to the desire that a lot of people want to just “follow along” without participating, and the mailman web interface is pretty uninspired.
>> 
>> -Chris
>> 
>> 
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> 
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