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What makes web forums (in general) more attractive than mailing lists (Was: Employees and the community (II))
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Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
Jun 6, 2012, 9:16:17 PM6/6/12
to Zack Weinberg, Mozillians, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
(Cc+ mozillians)
(12/06/07 3:47), Zack Weinberg wrote:
> I'd like to reiterate this question and generalize it.
>
> *What makes web forums (in general) more attractive than mailing lists,
> for their adherents?*
This is more or less off topic so I am changing the subject. Also cc+
mozillians because I think this discussion belong there.
Here are the reasons I can think of:
* To have a successful user experience using mailing list, one must
learn how to use email filters (or otherwise it blocks the basic
functionality of a mail client being a way for private communication),
and that alone already excludes many users.
* Gmail sucks but yet no one would bother downloading a decent mail client.
There is also a small reason form me but I don't think that's too
important in general (since people don't like to use hyperlinks in general).
* Creating/Following hyperlinks in a mail is just silly (the [1][2][3]),
but it has already been established as a convention that HTML emails are
avoided.
This is a commonly asked question and I sort of hope that it can have a
dedicated page (on Wikipedia or wiki.moziila.org maybe). I think many
people have iterated many reasons (and the converse) last time this was
discussed[1] on www-...@w3.org...
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Jan/thread#msg114
Cheers,
Kenny
(12/06/07 3:47), Zack Weinberg wrote:
> I'd like to reiterate this question and generalize it.
>
> *What makes web forums (in general) more attractive than mailing lists,
> for their adherents?*
This is more or less off topic so I am changing the subject. Also cc+
mozillians because I think this discussion belong there.
Here are the reasons I can think of:
* To have a successful user experience using mailing list, one must
learn how to use email filters (or otherwise it blocks the basic
functionality of a mail client being a way for private communication),
and that alone already excludes many users.
* Gmail sucks but yet no one would bother downloading a decent mail client.
There is also a small reason form me but I don't think that's too
important in general (since people don't like to use hyperlinks in general).
* Creating/Following hyperlinks in a mail is just silly (the [1][2][3]),
but it has already been established as a convention that HTML emails are
avoided.
This is a commonly asked question and I sort of hope that it can have a
dedicated page (on Wikipedia or wiki.moziila.org maybe). I think many
people have iterated many reasons (and the converse) last time this was
discussed[1] on www-...@w3.org...
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Jan/thread#msg114
Cheers,
Kenny
Stephanie Daugherty
Jun 6, 2012, 10:43:21 PM6/6/12
to Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu, Mozillians, Zack Weinberg, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
To me, web forums are exactly the opposite, and it's a case of trading one
problem for another.
Rather than getting the messages where I want them, and being able to reply
to them with whatever software I choose to do so with, web forums are by
design a wallled garden, that I have to register and remember an account to
use, and that constrain me to whatever interface the forum provides. Don't
like it or find it awkward, confusing, and cumbersome? Too bad.
A web forum does improve the average experience, but it also condemns the
experience to be just that, average - no chance for me to improve the
experience by using a better email client, setting up filters, or any of
the things that power users do.
The internet deserves better, but I'm not sure how to go about it, because
we're held back by a least common denominator of users for whom forums
really are easier, if only because they don't know how to use email
correctly.
> _______________________________________________
> mozillians mailing list
> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians
>
problem for another.
Rather than getting the messages where I want them, and being able to reply
to them with whatever software I choose to do so with, web forums are by
design a wallled garden, that I have to register and remember an account to
use, and that constrain me to whatever interface the forum provides. Don't
like it or find it awkward, confusing, and cumbersome? Too bad.
A web forum does improve the average experience, but it also condemns the
experience to be just that, average - no chance for me to improve the
experience by using a better email client, setting up filters, or any of
the things that power users do.
The internet deserves better, but I'm not sure how to go about it, because
we're held back by a least common denominator of users for whom forums
really are easier, if only because they don't know how to use email
correctly.
> mozillians mailing list
> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians
>
Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
Jun 6, 2012, 11:24:28 PM6/6/12
to Stephanie Daugherty, Mozillians, Zack Weinberg
(Cc- governance)
(12/06/07 10:43), Stephanie Daugherty wrote:
> To me, web forums are exactly the opposite, and it's a case of trading one
> problem for another.
>
> Rather than getting the messages where I want them, and being able to reply
> to them with whatever software I choose to do so with, web forums are by
> design a wallled garden, that I have to register and remember an account to
> use, and that constrain me to whatever interface the forum provides. Don't
> like it or find it awkward, confusing, and cumbersome? Too bad.
For what its worth, as compared to the current forum systems, I still
prefer mailing lists. But yes, I agree that this is trading one problem
for another. *Both have problems*. It's not like forums are definitely
inferior to mailing lists.
> A web forum does improve the average experience, but it also condemns the
> experience to be just that, average - no chance for me to improve the
> experience by using a better email client, setting up filters, or any of
> the things that power users do.
Using better email client, yes. But given that we can't even get most of
the mailing lists to use HTML instead of plain text as the main format,
it's not hard to see the limit of those you mentioned (better email
client, filters, power users things).
The email protocol stack is just stalled. There's no general interest in
improving it.
Having said that, I do think Thunderbird (or its extensions) should opt
in a feature that when someone subscribes a mailing list, a new folder
is automatically created (the most common patter for filters, as far as
I can tell).
> The internet deserves better, but I'm not sure how to go about it, because
> we're held back by a least common denominator of users for whom forums
> really are easier, if only because they don't know how to use email
> correctly.
I think no body has the interest in improving the email stack because no
one can get money out of it. Though personally I think the advertisement
model just sucks.
The vision of the Semantic Web, or the notorious RDF thingy, is supposed
to make the Web more customizable and more mailing-list like, but well,
Mozilla in general doesn't seem to have much interest anyway.
I do hope that Browser ID succeeds.
(By the way, what is the right mailing list for ranting about the future
of Internet? Not this one I suppose.)
Cheers,
Kenny
(12/06/07 10:43), Stephanie Daugherty wrote:
> To me, web forums are exactly the opposite, and it's a case of trading one
> problem for another.
>
> Rather than getting the messages where I want them, and being able to reply
> to them with whatever software I choose to do so with, web forums are by
> design a wallled garden, that I have to register and remember an account to
> use, and that constrain me to whatever interface the forum provides. Don't
> like it or find it awkward, confusing, and cumbersome? Too bad.
prefer mailing lists. But yes, I agree that this is trading one problem
for another. *Both have problems*. It's not like forums are definitely
inferior to mailing lists.
> A web forum does improve the average experience, but it also condemns the
> experience to be just that, average - no chance for me to improve the
> experience by using a better email client, setting up filters, or any of
> the things that power users do.
the mailing lists to use HTML instead of plain text as the main format,
it's not hard to see the limit of those you mentioned (better email
client, filters, power users things).
The email protocol stack is just stalled. There's no general interest in
improving it.
Having said that, I do think Thunderbird (or its extensions) should opt
in a feature that when someone subscribes a mailing list, a new folder
is automatically created (the most common patter for filters, as far as
I can tell).
> The internet deserves better, but I'm not sure how to go about it, because
> we're held back by a least common denominator of users for whom forums
> really are easier, if only because they don't know how to use email
> correctly.
one can get money out of it. Though personally I think the advertisement
model just sucks.
The vision of the Semantic Web, or the notorious RDF thingy, is supposed
to make the Web more customizable and more mailing-list like, but well,
Mozilla in general doesn't seem to have much interest anyway.
I do hope that Browser ID succeeds.
(By the way, what is the right mailing list for ranting about the future
of Internet? Not this one I suppose.)
Cheers,
Kenny
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jun 7, 2012, 11:11:55 AM6/7/12
to Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu, Mozillians, Zack Weinberg, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
Hi
In mailing list: You <- Information
In forums: Information -> You
In mozilla you can choise:
* Newsgroup (using usenet)
* Mailing list (using mailman)
* Web for Newsgroup (using google groups)
More info at http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
2012/6/6 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kenn...@csail.mit.edu>:
--
Fredy Rouge - Leader, Créatif, Autodidacte et Geek ☺
In mailing list: You <- Information
In forums: Information -> You
In mozilla you can choise:
* Newsgroup (using usenet)
* Mailing list (using mailman)
* Web for Newsgroup (using google groups)
More info at http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
2012/6/6 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kenn...@csail.mit.edu>:
Fredy Rouge - Leader, Créatif, Autodidacte et Geek ☺
Daniel Mills
Jun 7, 2012, 11:28:16 AM6/7/12
to Fredy Rouge Rouge, Mozillians, Zack Weinberg, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org, Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
On Jun 7, 2012, at 8:12 AM, Fredy Rouge Rouge <fredy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> In mailing list: You <- Information
>
> In forums: Information -> You
>
> In mozilla you can choise:
> * Newsgroup (using usenet)
> * Mailing list (using mailman)
> * Web for Newsgroup (using google groups)
In my experience, this does not work reliably enough (not even close) to present it as a solution.
> Hi
>
> In mailing list: You <- Information
>
> In forums: Information -> You
>
> In mozilla you can choise:
> * Newsgroup (using usenet)
> * Mailing list (using mailman)
> * Web for Newsgroup (using google groups)
I've created multiple Mozilla group/list monsters, and:
* they take *months* to fully set up, sometimes not at all. We depend on favors from Google to set up the Web access, it's not a standard feature.
* they sometimes do not work:
** messages will not end up on the Google group
** subscribing via the Google group appears to succeed but actually does nothing (this is the worst, I don't even know how many contributors I have lost because of this)
* problems often take a while to resolve (if at all), often accompanied with "shrug, it's a Google problem" or similar (and maybe it is - but why are we using a solution so unreliable?)
I have also used standalone Google groups -- they are (or were) the norm for Labs projects. It wasn't all rosy, to be sure, but:
* creating new groups was self-service (no need to ask, you can just do it) and near instantaneous.
* messages were always delivered, via the Web or the mailing list
* subscriptions always worked
* I don't know how long problems would take to resolve, because it never failed
TBH, that is the *low bar* for modern communications software. How Mozilla as a community accepts anything less is absolutely beyond me.
Dan
Jeff Hammel
Jun 7, 2012, 12:29:59 PM6/7/12
to mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
To kick an at least tired horse....
I find it sad that it is 2012 and there is no particularly wonderful
forum/mailing list software. Mailman is, for OSS, about as close as it
exists, and while in some ways it is good, in other ways it is awful.
I like mailing lists because they go directly to my inbox. If there is
a stream of information that isn't pushed to me, I likely won't be able
to consume it well. I could use e.g. rss/atom/other, but currently I
don't (and the fact that firefox no longer alerts me that a page even
has RSS in the awesome bar tells what Mozilla probably correctly thinks
of feeds in this day and age: not that important). My mailbox is my
main inbox, for better or worse, and I am not the only person in this boat.
I like forums/archives as they let me point people to posts who may not
be on a list. An inbox is not a good place to keep public information.
If I join a mailing list, I probably want the ability to see what has
happened before I've joined. Ideally, and I don't know why this is hard
in 2012, any message to me from said list in my inbox should contain the
URL of the post so I can easily reference it. If someone wants to
contribute to the discussion but doesn't want to join a list, that
should be an option to.
None of this is hard, though it is a huge amount of work. As far as my
point, I suppose it is that (for me) both lists and forums have their
place and (really) you kind of need both to have a complete picture.
I find it sad that it is 2012 and there is no particularly wonderful
forum/mailing list software. Mailman is, for OSS, about as close as it
exists, and while in some ways it is good, in other ways it is awful.
I like mailing lists because they go directly to my inbox. If there is
a stream of information that isn't pushed to me, I likely won't be able
to consume it well. I could use e.g. rss/atom/other, but currently I
don't (and the fact that firefox no longer alerts me that a page even
has RSS in the awesome bar tells what Mozilla probably correctly thinks
of feeds in this day and age: not that important). My mailbox is my
main inbox, for better or worse, and I am not the only person in this boat.
I like forums/archives as they let me point people to posts who may not
be on a list. An inbox is not a good place to keep public information.
If I join a mailing list, I probably want the ability to see what has
happened before I've joined. Ideally, and I don't know why this is hard
in 2012, any message to me from said list in my inbox should contain the
URL of the post so I can easily reference it. If someone wants to
contribute to the discussion but doesn't want to join a list, that
should be an option to.
None of this is hard, though it is a huge amount of work. As far as my
point, I suppose it is that (for me) both lists and forums have their
place and (really) you kind of need both to have a complete picture.
Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
Jun 7, 2012, 5:37:07 PM6/7/12
to Fredy Rouge Rouge, Jeff Hammel, Mozillians, Zack Weinberg
(12/06/07 23:11), Fredy Rouge Rouge wrote:
> In mailing list: You <- Information
>
> In forums: Information -> You
Mind explaining this a bit more? The arrows both point to "You" and I am
> In mailing list: You <- Information
>
> In forums: Information -> You
not getting it.
> In mozilla you can choise:
> * Newsgroup (using usenet)
> * Mailing list (using mailman)
> * Web for Newsgroup (using google groups)
>
that some people seem to not see that forums have *some* value. Given
that the Mozilla community has been around for years, we should have a
collective database of the reasons why forums are good (and the
reverse). It would help us pick a better tool that suits the audience
when we have a new community. Also, if Thunderbird can use that as a
source of ideas of improving mailing list user experience, it will be great.
(12/06/08 0:29), Jeff Hammel wrote:
> I like forums/archives as they let me point people to posts who may
> not be on a list. An inbox is not a good place to keep public
> information. If I join a mailing list, I probably want the ability to
> see what has happened before I've joined. Ideally, and I don't know
> why this is hard in 2012, any message to me from said list in my
> inbox should contain the URL of the post so I can easily reference
> it. If someone wants to contribute to the discussion but doesn't
> want to join a list, that should be an option to.
header for each mail which contains a URL to an archived page. The
Mozilla system uses "References:", which is some opaque identifier that
you can't open with Firefox. It also has some other problems:
1. In Thunderbird3 (sorry I haven't updated for a while because iLeopard
Mail isn't updated yet) these headers don't have a UI except in a folder
under a newsgroup account.
2. The UI isn't very responsive.
Conversely, if I open an archived page on Firefox, I can't easily get to
that corresponding mail in Thunderbird even if I know a copy of it is in.
Firefox <-> Thunderbird interaction is just not working.
In general, you can view Thunderbird as a site-specific browser for the
archived pages, but it seems that all people just have given up the
approach about site-specific browser, structured data, feeds, etc. It is
understandable (because there are always financial reasons why this
hasn't happened), but it's sad.
Cheers,
Kenny
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jun 7, 2012, 7:21:04 PM6/7/12
to Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu, Zack Weinberg, Jeff Hammel, Mozillians
Hi
2012/6/7 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kenn...@csail.mit.edu>:
The real problem is:
* Some people don't love forums
* Some people don't love mailing lists
* google groups works but mozilla not have the control
In the context: Mozilla is working for develop a plataform for work
(mozilla grow)
My idea:
Develop (mozilla) a gropus software (web, mail, rss/atom, news) as
module for the new plataform.
2012/6/7 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kenn...@csail.mit.edu>:
> (12/06/07 23:11), Fredy Rouge Rouge wrote:
>> In mailing list: You <- Information
>>
>> In forums: Information -> You
>
> Mind explaining this a bit more? The arrows both point to "You" and I am
> not getting it.
Sorry is: In forums: You -> Information
>> In mailing list: You <- Information
>>
>> In forums: Information -> You
>
> Mind explaining this a bit more? The arrows both point to "You" and I am
> not getting it.
The real problem is:
* Some people don't love forums
* Some people don't love mailing lists
* google groups works but mozilla not have the control
In the context: Mozilla is working for develop a plataform for work
(mozilla grow)
My idea:
Develop (mozilla) a gropus software (web, mail, rss/atom, news) as
module for the new plataform.
Nikos Roussos
Jun 8, 2012, 4:08:05 AM6/8/12
to mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
On Thu, 2012-06-07 at 19:21 -0400, Fredy Rouge Rouge wrote:
> Hi
>
> 2012/6/7 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kenn...@csail.mit.edu>:
> > (12/06/07 23:11), Fredy Rouge Rouge wrote:
> >> In mailing list: You <- Information
> >>
> >> In forums: Information -> You
> >
> > Mind explaining this a bit more? The arrows both point to "You" and I am
> > not getting it.
>
> Sorry is: In forums: You -> Information
>
> The real problem is:
> * Some people don't love forums
> * Some people don't love mailing lists
> * google groups works but mozilla not have the control
>
> In the context: Mozilla is working for develop a plataform for work
> (mozilla grow)
You should check Mairin's work (from the Fedora Project) on mailman, and
> Hi
>
> 2012/6/7 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kenn...@csail.mit.edu>:
> > (12/06/07 23:11), Fredy Rouge Rouge wrote:
> >> In mailing list: You <- Information
> >>
> >> In forums: Information -> You
> >
> > Mind explaining this a bit more? The arrows both point to "You" and I am
> > not getting it.
>
> Sorry is: In forums: You -> Information
>
> The real problem is:
> * Some people don't love forums
> * Some people don't love mailing lists
> * google groups works but mozilla not have the control
>
> In the context: Mozilla is working for develop a plataform for work
> (mozilla grow)
her ideas.
Mailman devs are planning for a new WebUI on version 3. So maybe these
changes will give the opportunity to the people who love mailing
lists... to keep loving them :) and for those who love Web UIs to
interact with the mailing from their web browser. I'd suggest that
Mozilla should contact mailman devs to see their roadmap and maybe join
forces.
PS. "Privacy is dead" mostly for people who don't care about their
privacy ;)
--
Nikos Roussos
Nikos Roussos
Jun 8, 2012, 4:21:50 AM6/8/12
to mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
links that didn't pass through:
http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2012/02/29/7750-pixels-of-mailing-list-thread/
http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/fedora/mailing-list-improvements/
http://wiki.list.org/display/DEV/Web+Interface
Stephanie Daugherty
Jun 8, 2012, 5:09:16 AM6/8/12
to Nikos Roussos, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
I can think of some improvements we could make to mailman on top of this,
learning from a number of tools.
One would be the ability to CC someone into a thread and let them get
participate in a thread (or even in subthread) without subscribing to the
list. We do this now in a way in our Bugzilla workflows - when we have a
question for a specific person, they get CCd, and I think the newest
version of the propriatary Basecamp service does something like this with
it's "loop in" feature. This should be simple, and to keep with the social
mindset, may as well do it with @mentions or something like that, since
it's a well-understood concept, and it's a concept that carries over well
to both web and email interfaces.
On the bugzilla subject, tight bugzilla integration would also be useful.
An ideal tool would let us seamlessly move a discussion out of Bugzilla
comments onto a relevant discussion area and back again as often
as necessary, preserving links and summaries so as to give everyone
context, and shunting away bugspam.
Also, we need to look at this from a perspective of being able to replace
all other similar discussion tools. It should drop in to replace the SUMO
contributor forums, the wiki.mo talk pages, and similar tools, so that we
can get a unified discussion platform. Subprojects adopting their own
walled gardens is IMO very bad for mozilla-wide community and collaboration.
learning from a number of tools.
One would be the ability to CC someone into a thread and let them get
participate in a thread (or even in subthread) without subscribing to the
list. We do this now in a way in our Bugzilla workflows - when we have a
question for a specific person, they get CCd, and I think the newest
version of the propriatary Basecamp service does something like this with
it's "loop in" feature. This should be simple, and to keep with the social
mindset, may as well do it with @mentions or something like that, since
it's a well-understood concept, and it's a concept that carries over well
to both web and email interfaces.
On the bugzilla subject, tight bugzilla integration would also be useful.
An ideal tool would let us seamlessly move a discussion out of Bugzilla
comments onto a relevant discussion area and back again as often
as necessary, preserving links and summaries so as to give everyone
context, and shunting away bugspam.
Also, we need to look at this from a perspective of being able to replace
all other similar discussion tools. It should drop in to replace the SUMO
contributor forums, the wiki.mo talk pages, and similar tools, so that we
can get a unified discussion platform. Subprojects adopting their own
walled gardens is IMO very bad for mozilla-wide community and collaboration.
Asa Dotzler
Jun 8, 2012, 11:16:52 AM6/8/12
to
On 6/6/2012 6:16 PM, Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu wrote:
> This is more or less off topic so I am changing the subject. Also cc+
> mozillians because I think this discussion belong there.
Because most Mozilla engineers, the ones engaged in this discussion in
> This is more or less off topic so I am changing the subject. Also cc+
> mozillians because I think this discussion belong there.
.governance, probably do not subscribe to .mozillians, I suspect you've
effectively ended their participation in this conversation. Just another
downside of mailing lists / nntp :(
- A
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jun 8, 2012, 9:16:12 PM6/8/12
to Asa Dotzler, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
Hi again
I wil try explain my point of view:
1- In general we have software for comunications
2- The actual software is fragmented (irc, mail, forums, chat, blog,
microblog, bugtracker...)
3- The people and participation is fracmented
How to solve it?
1- creation of abstraption layer for diferent kinds for comunicate
2- Integration of this tols in a hig level in a social network (mozillians)
If any in mozilla (foundation/corporaton) is interested i can made a
draf of a desing (not code, one diagram)
Sorry if it isn't clear, my english is not good, i am learning using rosetta.
2012/6/8 Asa Dotzler <a...@mozilla.org>:
I wil try explain my point of view:
1- In general we have software for comunications
2- The actual software is fragmented (irc, mail, forums, chat, blog,
microblog, bugtracker...)
3- The people and participation is fracmented
How to solve it?
1- creation of abstraption layer for diferent kinds for comunicate
2- Integration of this tols in a hig level in a social network (mozillians)
If any in mozilla (foundation/corporaton) is interested i can made a
draf of a desing (not code, one diagram)
Sorry if it isn't clear, my english is not good, i am learning using rosetta.
2012/6/8 Asa Dotzler <a...@mozilla.org>:
> _______________________________________________
> mozillians mailing list
> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians
> mozillians mailing list
> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians
Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
Jun 9, 2012, 3:22:05 AM6/9/12
to Asa Dotzler, Mozillians
(12/06/08 23:16), Asa Dotzler wrote:
> On 6/6/2012 6:16 PM, Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu wrote:
>
>> This is more or less off topic so I am changing the subject. Also cc+
>> mozillians because I think this discussion belong there.
>
> Because most Mozilla engineers, the ones engaged in this discussion in
> .governance, probably do not subscribe to .mozillians, I suspect you've
> effectively ended their participation in this conversation.
Seriously speaking, this sort of discussion is just lame. The forum vs.
> On 6/6/2012 6:16 PM, Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu wrote:
>
>> This is more or less off topic so I am changing the subject. Also cc+
>> mozillians because I think this discussion belong there.
>
> Because most Mozilla engineers, the ones engaged in this discussion in
> .governance, probably do not subscribe to .mozillians, I suspect you've
> effectively ended their participation in this conversation.
mailing list discussion on www-style made the historical peak of that
list in January 2012. The problem has been pretty obvious: everyone has
billions of ideas about a bright future of the Internet but no one is
seriously driving this forward.
I think I actually did a favor and kept the the "Employees and the
community (II)" thread focusing on proposals that are more interesting
(to me) and potentially more implementable such as enrolling more
participants to the work weeks.
Also, Zack, who is probably the person who has the most interest in
answers to this question, is in loop for the first few mails, so I think
it was fine.
> Just another downside of mailing lists / nntp :(
download previous discussions with NNTP. I actually joined "Employees
and the community (II)" thread this way via Thunderbird after a folk in
our local community talked about it.
Cheers,
Kenny
Robert Kaiser
Jul 3, 2012, 2:32:40 PM7/3/12
to
Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu schrieb:
Exactly. What we are missing is a really awesome web messaging
implementation that runs based on an NNTP backend. Even if that would
just be "mirror what Thunderbird's NNTP support does in a web interface,
that would already be so great. Right now, many people seem to think
that the Google Groups implementation is what newsgroups/NNTP are about,
even though it hugely sucks - and that makes NNTP look like it majorly
sucks. It's only good on desktop client implementations, but sucks in
web implementations. If that changes, we'd have a system that can cater
to the needs of many different people.
Robert Kaiser
implementation that runs based on an NNTP backend. Even if that would
just be "mirror what Thunderbird's NNTP support does in a web interface,
that would already be so great. Right now, many people seem to think
that the Google Groups implementation is what newsgroups/NNTP are about,
even though it hugely sucks - and that makes NNTP look like it majorly
sucks. It's only good on desktop client implementations, but sucks in
web implementations. If that changes, we'd have a system that can cater
to the needs of many different people.
Robert Kaiser
Daniel Mills
Jul 3, 2012, 4:16:08 PM7/3/12
to Robert Kaiser, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
Communications platforms need to have people to be useful. I know, "duh", but you have two options to get people on your platform:
1) Pick a platform that users are already on: email, Facebook, Twitter, Web discussion interfaces (notably, not nntp).
2) Get everyone to come to your platform. This means:
- *major* investment in the platform
- inability to reach people not on the platform (until you can get them to come)
We think we have a platform that connects both (automatic mirroring between nntp, email, web), but in practice it works very unreliably. Therefore, we have the worst of all worlds: we really have (2) but we don't invest in it at all because when it comes up we pretend to have (1).
I don't disagree with you that if a bridging solution existed it might solve all our needs, but I don't think that we should be the ones building it. It is expensive and time consuming, and we will not do a good job at it, just like we haven't done a good job at our current patchwork solution.
Things being what they are, we should recognize that Mozilla discussions should use whatever medium is most appropriate. In fact, that is *already* the case in some situations: yammer, twitter, google groups (labs uses real google groups), etc. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, we should *encourage* it rather than trying to force discussions to happen via nntp/lists.mozilla.org.
Dan
Robert Kaiser
Jul 5, 2012, 9:20:49 AM7/5/12
to
Daniel Mills schrieb:
> Communications platforms need to have people to be useful. I know, "duh", but you have two options to get people on your platform:
>
> 1) Pick a platform that users are already on: email, Facebook, Twitter, Web discussion interfaces (notably, not nntp).
Usually, *noboy* is *already* on the web discussion interface you
choose, as you set up a new forum anyhow. What *backend* it uses for
storing its discussions is completely secondary to those who like using
web interfaces. If it is based on an SQL database (like most), mailing
list interface, NNTP, or whatever does not matter to them.
> 2) Get everyone to come to your platform.
This would be completely un-Mozilla. And if we'd blindly take [1], we'd
close out people like me and do everything on Facebook, as that's where
most people are.
Twitter is not a discussion interface, though, it's a publication
interface for too-short-to-discuss-meaningfully messages. It has its
uses, but not for in-deep discussions.
> We think we have a platform that connects both (automatic mirroring between nntp, email, web), but in practice it works very unreliably.
Actually, the mailing list and NNTP sides work pretty usefully, with the
only problem being some NNTP threading issues. The only thing that sucks
hugely is the web interface side of it, as Google Groups is probably the
worst mass-used NNTP software ever built on this planet - unfortunately,
it's also probably the most widely used at all, as it's the only web
interface we have.
BUT, IMHO, anything that can be public and not happening on
lists.mozilla.org/news.mozilla.org and Bugzilla isn't really Mozilla
stuff anyhow. If this statement insults some people, sorry, but that's
my personal opinion.
Robert Kaiser
> Sorry to be the cranky one here, but you're falling into the trap that has caused our existing (terrible) communications setup to begin with.
And I don't believe you on that. ;-)
> Communications platforms need to have people to be useful. I know, "duh", but you have two options to get people on your platform:
>
> 1) Pick a platform that users are already on: email, Facebook, Twitter, Web discussion interfaces (notably, not nntp).
choose, as you set up a new forum anyhow. What *backend* it uses for
storing its discussions is completely secondary to those who like using
web interfaces. If it is based on an SQL database (like most), mailing
list interface, NNTP, or whatever does not matter to them.
> 2) Get everyone to come to your platform.
close out people like me and do everything on Facebook, as that's where
most people are.
Twitter is not a discussion interface, though, it's a publication
interface for too-short-to-discuss-meaningfully messages. It has its
uses, but not for in-deep discussions.
> We think we have a platform that connects both (automatic mirroring between nntp, email, web), but in practice it works very unreliably.
only problem being some NNTP threading issues. The only thing that sucks
hugely is the web interface side of it, as Google Groups is probably the
worst mass-used NNTP software ever built on this planet - unfortunately,
it's also probably the most widely used at all, as it's the only web
interface we have.
BUT, IMHO, anything that can be public and not happening on
lists.mozilla.org/news.mozilla.org and Bugzilla isn't really Mozilla
stuff anyhow. If this statement insults some people, sorry, but that's
my personal opinion.
Robert Kaiser
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jul 5, 2012, 2:57:11 PM7/5/12
to Robert Kaiser, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
I not love do this in mailing lists but:
+1
Mozilla is about Open!
2012/7/5 Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at>:
+1
Mozilla is about Open!
2012/7/5 Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at>:
Daniel Mills
Jul 6, 2012, 8:22:51 PM7/6/12
to Robert Kaiser, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
>> Communications platforms need to have people to be useful. I know, "duh", but you have two options to get people on your platform:
>>
>> 1) Pick a platform that users are already on: email, Facebook, Twitter, Web discussion interfaces (notably, not nntp).
>
> Usually, *noboy* is *already* on the web discussion interface you choose,
I'm not talking about getting people to subscribe to your forum, I'm talking about the underlying communications platform. If you a heavy nntp user, you will be *far* more likely to subscribe to an nntp group than to sign up for Facebook account to participate in a discussion group there (as you said yourself).
>> Communications platforms need to have people to be useful. I know, "duh", but you have two options to get people on your platform:
>>
>> 1) Pick a platform that users are already on: email, Facebook, Twitter, Web discussion interfaces (notably, not nntp).
>
> Usually, *noboy* is *already* on the web discussion interface you choose,
I'm not advocating a specific platform, just describing the rules of the game. You either get people to come to a new platform or not. Either way you have to engage them, but it's a lot easier if you don't also ask them to use a new and unfamiliar platform.
So the question is: who are we trying to communicate with, and what platforms are we most likely to reach them with?
>> We think we have a platform that connects both (automatic mirroring between nntp, email, web), but in practice it works very unreliably.
>
> Actually, the mailing list and NNTP sides work pretty usefully, with the only problem being some NNTP threading issues. The only thing that sucks hugely is the web interface side of it, as Google Groups is probably the worst mass-used NNTP software ever built on this planet - unfortunately, it's also probably the most widely used at all, as it's the only web interface we have.
- people who subscribe but don't get messages
- people who subscribe and can't send messages
- nntp/list/google groups out of sync
- new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
- when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
And the problem *isn't* Google groups, it's specifically the way in which we use Google groups. We used "real" Google groups when I was in Labs and it was great. Always worked, to my knowledge no one was ever unable to sign up or send messages to the lists. List management could've been better but it was straightforward enough. It had great email support. No nntp support, but that had zero impact in our ability to connect with the audience we were after (web developers, designers, students, etc).
> BUT, IMHO, anything that can be public and not happening on lists.mozilla.org/news.mozilla.org and Bugzilla isn't really Mozilla stuff anyhow. If this statement insults some people, sorry, but that's my personal opinion.
Dan
Daniel Mills
Jul 7, 2012, 9:39:48 AM7/7/12
to Daniel Mills, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org, Robert Kaiser
On Jul 6, 2012, at 5:22 PM, Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
>
> On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
>
>> Actually, the mailing list and NNTP sides work pretty usefully, with the only problem being some NNTP threading issues. The only thing that sucks hugely is the web interface side of it, as Google Groups is probably the worst mass-used NNTP software ever built on this planet - unfortunately, it's also probably the most widely used at all, as it's the only web interface we have.
>
>
> Clearly you and I live in different universes. My experience is that the current setup is a disaster:
>
> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>
> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
Reading this again, I think I was unfair in my response. I agree with you that most of the problems I describe have to do with our Google Groups integration (maybe all).
>
> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>
> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
Where I do disagree with you, I think, is on the importance of reaching our audiences wherever they may be, which depending on the discussion likely requires a web component. It might be fine to give it up when the audience is existing mozillians (though you give up being able to engage new people), but OTOH I would happily give up nntp or in some cases even mail instead of web for reaching other audiences.
This might be a surprise given my stance, but I personally like both mail and news readers and generally hate web interfaces for discussions. nntp is particularly good. But my point is that it doesn't matter what I like, the only thing that matters is what the intended audience will engage with. I will use whatever interface I have to, to engage with them.
To make things concrete: I would take a good web interface over nntp for dev-identity any day. I know of a couple of mozillians that use nntp to access it, and I would be very sorry if they left as a result, but on the flip side I have heard half a dozen times of people that attempted to subscribe to the list and it would not work. Often it would come up by chance, weeks after: "huh, I subscribed to your list but I haven't seen that discussion you're talking about". I helped the people I had personal contact with subscribe via mailman instead of Google Groups (after calming down from my fit of rage), but I don't know how many people I haven't able to hand-hold like that. Thus, I am quite certain given the data I have that I am losing more contributors because of bad web integration than I am gaining from good nntp integration.
If we actually had a good solution that integrated everything I would take it, but I've been around long enough to have given up on the kludge we have. Maybe I'm wrong and this is the year when it finally works, but I don't think so.
I also disagree that the problems are with Google Groups per se, the problems are with our integration with them. Google Groups is an nntp client in the same way that Microsoft Word is an HTML editor ;) I don't mean to say that Google Groups is wonderful, but it is certainly not bad--if you use it as intended.
Dan
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jul 9, 2012, 2:59:21 AM7/9/12
to Daniel Mills, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org, Robert Kaiser
This is interesting:
http://www.nabble.com/back-end.html
http://old.nabble.com/Mozilla-f6640.html
2012/7/7 Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com>:
http://www.nabble.com/back-end.html
http://old.nabble.com/Mozilla-f6640.html
2012/7/7 Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com>:
> On Jul 6, 2012, at 5:22 PM, Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
>> On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
>>
>
>> On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, the mailing list and NNTP sides work pretty usefully, with the only problem being some NNTP threading issues. The only thing that sucks hugely is the web interface side of it, as Google Groups is probably the worst mass-used NNTP software ever built on this planet - unfortunately, it's also probably the most widely used at all, as it's the only web interface we have.
>>
>>
>> Clearly you and I live in different universes. My experience is that the current setup is a disaster:
>>
>> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
>> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
>> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
>> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
>> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>>
>> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
>
> Reading this again, I think I was unfair in my response. I agree with you that most of the problems I describe have to do with our Google Groups integration (maybe all).
>
> Where I do disagree with you, I think, is on the importance of reaching our audiences wherever they may be, which depending on the discussion likely requires a web component. It might be fine to give it up when the audience is existing mozillians (though you give up being able to engage new people), but OTOH I would happily give up nntp or in some cases even mail instead of web for reaching other audiences.
>
> This might be a surprise given my stance, but I personally like both mail and news readers and generally hate web interfaces for discussions. nntp is particularly good. But my point is that it doesn't matter what I like, the only thing that matters is what the intended audience will engage with. I will use whatever interface I have to, to engage with them.
>
> To make things concrete: I would take a good web interface over nntp for dev-identity any day. I know of a couple of mozillians that use nntp to access it, and I would be very sorry if they left as a result, but on the flip side I have heard half a dozen times of people that attempted to subscribe to the list and it would not work. Often it would come up by chance, weeks after: "huh, I subscribed to your list but I haven't seen that discussion you're talking about". I helped the people I had personal contact with subscribe via mailman instead of Google Groups (after calming down from my fit of rage), but I don't know how many people I haven't able to hand-hold like that. Thus, I am quite certain given the data I have that I am losing more contributors because of bad web integration than I am gaining from good nntp integration.
>
> If we actually had a good solution that integrated everything I would take it, but I've been around long enough to have given up on the kludge we have. Maybe I'm wrong and this is the year when it finally works, but I don't think so.
>
> I also disagree that the problems are with Google Groups per se, the problems are with our integration with them. Google Groups is an nntp client in the same way that Microsoft Word is an HTML editor ;) I don't mean to say that Google Groups is wonderful, but it is certainly not bad--if you use it as intended.
>
> Dan
>
>>
>> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
>> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
>> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
>> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
>> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>>
>> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
>
> Reading this again, I think I was unfair in my response. I agree with you that most of the problems I describe have to do with our Google Groups integration (maybe all).
>
> Where I do disagree with you, I think, is on the importance of reaching our audiences wherever they may be, which depending on the discussion likely requires a web component. It might be fine to give it up when the audience is existing mozillians (though you give up being able to engage new people), but OTOH I would happily give up nntp or in some cases even mail instead of web for reaching other audiences.
>
> This might be a surprise given my stance, but I personally like both mail and news readers and generally hate web interfaces for discussions. nntp is particularly good. But my point is that it doesn't matter what I like, the only thing that matters is what the intended audience will engage with. I will use whatever interface I have to, to engage with them.
>
> To make things concrete: I would take a good web interface over nntp for dev-identity any day. I know of a couple of mozillians that use nntp to access it, and I would be very sorry if they left as a result, but on the flip side I have heard half a dozen times of people that attempted to subscribe to the list and it would not work. Often it would come up by chance, weeks after: "huh, I subscribed to your list but I haven't seen that discussion you're talking about". I helped the people I had personal contact with subscribe via mailman instead of Google Groups (after calming down from my fit of rage), but I don't know how many people I haven't able to hand-hold like that. Thus, I am quite certain given the data I have that I am losing more contributors because of bad web integration than I am gaining from good nntp integration.
>
> If we actually had a good solution that integrated everything I would take it, but I've been around long enough to have given up on the kludge we have. Maybe I'm wrong and this is the year when it finally works, but I don't think so.
>
> I also disagree that the problems are with Google Groups per se, the problems are with our integration with them. Google Groups is an nntp client in the same way that Microsoft Word is an HTML editor ;) I don't mean to say that Google Groups is wonderful, but it is certainly not bad--if you use it as intended.
>
> Dan
>
Wes Garland
Jul 9, 2012, 9:20:56 AM7/9/12
to Fredy Rouge Rouge, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org, Robert Kaiser, Daniel Mills
On 9 July 2012 02:59, Fredy Rouge Rouge <fredy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is interesting:
>
> http://www.nabble.com/back-end.html
>
> http://old.nabble.com/Mozilla-f6640.html
>
FWIW -- I have been reading Mozilla content on Nabble for *years* --
> This is interesting:
>
> http://www.nabble.com/back-end.html
>
> http://old.nabble.com/Mozilla-f6640.html
>
whatever they are doing, the content is more searchable [read: accessible]
than the Mailman archived storage. I stumble over it all the time.
Wes
--
Wesley W. Garland
Director, Product Development
PageMail, Inc.
+1 613 542 2787 x 102
Robert Kaiser
Jul 9, 2012, 12:23:10 PM7/9/12
to
Daniel Mills schrieb:
discuss, as an opinion can never be wrong. It can be misguided, you can
have a different view, etc. Calling it "wrong" will always cause
aggression. Try not to do that.
That said, I stand by that being my personal opinion, and I will ignore
anything not going by that unless required for my work.
Robert Kaiser
> On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
>> BUT, IMHO, anything that can be public and not happening on lists.mozilla.org/news.mozilla.org and Bugzilla isn't really Mozilla stuff anyhow. If this statement insults some people, sorry, but that's my personal opinion.
>
> Wow, that is so false I don't even know how to begin.
Calling *anyone's* personal *opinion* "wrong" is always a bad way to
>> BUT, IMHO, anything that can be public and not happening on lists.mozilla.org/news.mozilla.org and Bugzilla isn't really Mozilla stuff anyhow. If this statement insults some people, sorry, but that's my personal opinion.
>
> Wow, that is so false I don't even know how to begin.
discuss, as an opinion can never be wrong. It can be misguided, you can
have a different view, etc. Calling it "wrong" will always cause
aggression. Try not to do that.
That said, I stand by that being my personal opinion, and I will ignore
anything not going by that unless required for my work.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
Jul 9, 2012, 12:26:56 PM7/9/12
to
Daniel Mills schrieb:
part of it is the one of the worst newsgroup interface that exist.
Google Groups is really two systems: A mailing list system and a
newsgroup/NNTP system. The former works well (even though I try to avoid
it, both as I don't want to be dependent on Google for too much stuff,
and as Mozilla has decent mailing lists on our own anyhow), the latter
really sucks.
Maybe Nabble is a good way out of our dilemma, thanks to Fredy for the
pointer.
Robert Kaiser
> I also disagree that the problems are with Google Groups per se, the problems are with our integration with them. Google Groups is an nntp client in the same way that Microsoft Word is an HTML editor ;) I don't mean to say that Google Groups is wonderful, but it is certainly not bad--if you use it as intended.
I never said that Google Groups was all bad, I only said the NNTP-based
part of it is the one of the worst newsgroup interface that exist.
Google Groups is really two systems: A mailing list system and a
newsgroup/NNTP system. The former works well (even though I try to avoid
it, both as I don't want to be dependent on Google for too much stuff,
and as Mozilla has decent mailing lists on our own anyhow), the latter
really sucks.
Maybe Nabble is a good way out of our dilemma, thanks to Fredy for the
pointer.
Robert Kaiser
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jul 10, 2012, 11:21:11 AM7/10/12
to Robert Kaiser, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
The most intersting is:
"We plan to release Nabble as an installed application"
I think that if Mozilla speak about the posibility of use nabble as
server, is a great motivation for Nabble people (for publish the
server software)
2012/7/9 Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at>:
"We plan to release Nabble as an installed application"
I think that if Mozilla speak about the posibility of use nabble as
server, is a great motivation for Nabble people (for publish the
server software)
2012/7/9 Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at>:
Chris Ilias
Jul 10, 2012, 8:01:03 PM7/10/12
to
On 12-07-06 8:22 PM, Daniel Mills wrote:
> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>
> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
- no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>
> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
Could you be more specific about the first 2?
The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google
Groups issue.
The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a
server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on
all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually
very quick. It's Google that sucks.
In other words, you could have the same mailing list/nntp/web-forum
setup, but hosted by Mozilla, and the problems you list should be solved.
> And the problem *isn't* Google groups, it's specifically the way in which we use Google groups. We used "real" Google groups when I was in Labs and it was great. Always worked, to my knowledge no one was ever unable to sign up or send messages to the lists. List management could've been better but it was straightforward enough. It had great email support. No nntp support, but that had zero impact in our ability to connect with the audience we were after (web developers, designers, students, etc).
after they provided access to usenet, and in their infinite wisdom, gave
it the same name. :( So it isn't a matter of the way it is used. There
are two types of groups, and many people don't know that.
This is more a grandfathered setup.
The original forums were newsgroups propagated to usenet, and
news.mozilla.org was hosted by AOL. Google just happened to provide
access, because Google Groups was a usenet archive. Messages could not
be deleted from usenet, which is a spam-magnet, nor could newsgroups be
closed. You can still post to netscape.public.mozilla.beos and
netscape.public.mozilla.os2 if you want. :)
In 2005, when a host was found for the nntp server, Mozilla took that
opportunity to create a new newsgroup hierarchy, and made the decision
not to propagate to usenet. There was a demand for a web-based
searchable archive, so Mozilla made a deal with Google to provide a
read-only archive. Quickly after they went live, there was demand to be
able to post via Google Groups, so that change was made.
Looking forward, I think web-forum vs newsgroup debates are a little
cliche, and in this case, premature. I would rather establish a list of
priorities and requirements, then look at how to get there.
Majken Connor
Jul 11, 2012, 2:37:58 PM7/11/12
to Fredy Rouge Rouge, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org, Robert Kaiser
BTW guys, google groups JUST (read in the last month) upgraded its groups
UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Fredy Rouge Rouge <fredy...@gmail.com>wrote:
> The most intersting is:
>
> "We plan to release Nabble as an installed application"
>
> I think that if Mozilla speak about the posibility of use nabble as
> server, is a great motivation for Nabble people (for publish the
> server software)
>
> 2012/7/9 Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at>:
UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Fredy Rouge Rouge <fredy...@gmail.com>wrote:
> The most intersting is:
>
> "We plan to release Nabble as an installed application"
>
> I think that if Mozilla speak about the posibility of use nabble as
> server, is a great motivation for Nabble people (for publish the
> server software)
>
> 2012/7/9 Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at>:
Daniel Mills
Jul 11, 2012, 7:57:32 PM7/11/12
to Chris Ilias, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
On Jul 10, 2012, at 5:05 PM, Chris Ilias <nm...@ilias.ca> wrote:
> On 12-07-06 8:22 PM, Daniel Mills wrote:
>> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
>> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
>> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
>> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
>> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>>
>> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
>
> - no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
>
> Could you be more specific about the first 2?
> The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google Groups issue.
> The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually very quick. It's Google that sucks.
It doesn't help me at all that it's Google that sucks. That's like having no Internet at the office and saying it's a problem upstream--okay, but I'd still be without Internet.
> On 12-07-06 8:22 PM, Daniel Mills wrote:
>> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
>> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
>> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
>> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
>> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>>
>> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
>
> - no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
>
> Could you be more specific about the first 2?
> The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google Groups issue.
> The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually very quick. It's Google that sucks.
I'm not blaming IT, and I don't think there's really anything IT could've/should've done. I don't blame anyone at all, really, I'm just saying that regardless of other groups, I know *for sure* that existing tools are not working well for my group.
As for the first two points: I've had people subscribe via the Google interface and not receive any messages, or be unable to send messages to the list/group via Google (getting no errors or cryptic errors).
No errors is the worst. I've had team-mates visit the office and after listening to a conversation mention that they had been unaware of discussions that happened on the list. Since the subscription appeared to work, there was no reason to suspect anything. That has happened 3 times to me, and it makes my head explode just thinking about it.
Maybe other groups don't have these problems, and maybe they are fixed right now, I don't know. I certainly don't trust it anymore, I've been burned way too many times. TBH any one of the problems above is a deal-killer, and the only way we put up with it is by aggressively funneling people into the mailman interface (and hoping they don't go to the "archives" and subscribe from there).
> In other words, you could have the same mailing list/nntp/web-forum setup, but hosted by Mozilla, and the problems you list should be solved.
The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
Maybe there is something else we could use. Nabble was mentioned but I haven't tried it out. Gmane is another option that I haven't used but has been around for a while.
> This is more a grandfathered setup.
> The original forums were newsgroups propagated to usenet, and news.mozilla.org was hosted by AOL. Google just happened to provide access, because Google Groups was a usenet archive. Messages could not be deleted from usenet, which is a spam-magnet, nor could newsgroups be closed. You can still post to netscape.public.mozilla.beos and netscape.public.mozilla.os2 if you want. :)
>
> In 2005, when a host was found for the nntp server, Mozilla took that opportunity to create a new newsgroup hierarchy, and made the decision not to propagate to usenet. There was a demand for a web-based searchable archive, so Mozilla made a deal with Google to provide a read-only archive. Quickly after they went live, there was demand to be able to post via Google Groups, so that change was made.
> Looking forward, I think web-forum vs newsgroup debates are a little cliche, and in this case, premature. I would rather establish a list of priorities and requirements, then look at how to get there.
We discovered many things, and it wasn't all rosy for sure. Management of groups was cumbersome at times, and Google seemed to not have ported over the Gmail anti-spam juice over to Groups). Overall, though, it was manageable, and allowed very easy reading and posting from the web plus one click subscriptions to lists. Creating new groups was easy to do on your own and instantaneous. It never went down, or at least not in any way that I ever noticed.
In the meantime, the world has shifted even more to the web for discussions and communication. Email is still pretty big, but a lot of people are using Facebook, G+, Disqus, Quora, UserVoice, blogs, and even Twitter to have all kinds of discussions, from interpersonal or brand-focused to Q&A or micro-back & forth. We are doing a pretty terrible job at engaging people who live in this new reality, other than occasionally for marketing. We're not a little bit overdue, we are years behind.
Dan
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jul 11, 2012, 9:07:54 PM7/11/12
to Daniel Mills, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org, Chris Ilias
Hi
If you realy like somme like social network live for the new people:
http://www.cynapse.com/cynin
And one new and very intersting project:
http://movu.ca/
but need work
For finish, i tink that if we ar going to some like a central CRM we
need that integrate the comunications media in the big tool, cynin i a
good base.
PD: only crazy ideas.
2012/7/11 Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com>:
If you realy like somme like social network live for the new people:
http://www.cynapse.com/cynin
And one new and very intersting project:
http://movu.ca/
but need work
For finish, i tink that if we ar going to some like a central CRM we
need that integrate the comunications media in the big tool, cynin i a
good base.
PD: only crazy ideas.
2012/7/11 Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com>:
>> On 12-07-06 8:22 PM, Daniel Mills wrote:
>>> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
>>> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
>>> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
>>> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
>>> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>>>
>>> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
>>
>> - no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
>>
>> Could you be more specific about the first 2?
>> The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google Groups issue.
>> The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually very quick. It's Google that sucks.
>
>>> - people who subscribe but don't get messages
>>> - people who subscribe and can't send messages
>>> - nntp/list/google groups out of sync
>>> - new lists can take months (*MONTHS*) to fully set up, usually with no ETA
>>> - when something goes wrong there is no one to call because "Google doesn't care" or "they are just doing us a favor"
>>>
>>> No discussion system with these flaws is remotely close to an acceptable solution.
>>
>> - no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
>>
>> Could you be more specific about the first 2?
>> The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google Groups issue.
>> The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually very quick. It's Google that sucks.
>
> It doesn't help me at all that it's Google that sucks. That's like having no Internet at the office and saying it's a problem upstream--okay, but I'd still be without Internet.
>
> I'm not blaming IT, and I don't think there's really anything IT could've/should've done. I don't blame anyone at all, really, I'm just saying that regardless of other groups, I know *for sure* that existing tools are not working well for my group.
>
> As for the first two points: I've had people subscribe via the Google interface and not receive any messages, or be unable to send messages to the list/group via Google (getting no errors or cryptic errors).
>
> No errors is the worst. I've had team-mates visit the office and after listening to a conversation mention that they had been unaware of discussions that happened on the list. Since the subscription appeared to work, there was no reason to suspect anything. That has happened 3 times to me, and it makes my head explode just thinking about it.
>
> Maybe other groups don't have these problems, and maybe they are fixed right now, I don't know. I certainly don't trust it anymore, I've been burned way too many times. TBH any one of the problems above is a deal-killer, and the only way we put up with it is by aggressively funneling people into the mailman interface (and hoping they don't go to the "archives" and subscribe from there).
>
>
> I'm not blaming IT, and I don't think there's really anything IT could've/should've done. I don't blame anyone at all, really, I'm just saying that regardless of other groups, I know *for sure* that existing tools are not working well for my group.
>
> As for the first two points: I've had people subscribe via the Google interface and not receive any messages, or be unable to send messages to the list/group via Google (getting no errors or cryptic errors).
>
> No errors is the worst. I've had team-mates visit the office and after listening to a conversation mention that they had been unaware of discussions that happened on the list. Since the subscription appeared to work, there was no reason to suspect anything. That has happened 3 times to me, and it makes my head explode just thinking about it.
>
> Maybe other groups don't have these problems, and maybe they are fixed right now, I don't know. I certainly don't trust it anymore, I've been burned way too many times. TBH any one of the problems above is a deal-killer, and the only way we put up with it is by aggressively funneling people into the mailman interface (and hoping they don't go to the "archives" and subscribe from there).
>
>> In other words, you could have the same mailing list/nntp/web-forum setup, but hosted by Mozilla, and the problems you list should be solved.
>
>
> I have not seen any web interface we could set up that would be worth spending the time and effort to secure and maintain.
>
> The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
>
> Maybe there is something else we could use. Nabble was mentioned but I haven't tried it out. Gmane is another option that I haven't used but has been around for a while.
>
>
> The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
>
> Maybe there is something else we could use. Nabble was mentioned but I haven't tried it out. Gmane is another option that I haven't used but has been around for a while.
>
>> This is more a grandfathered setup.
>> The original forums were newsgroups propagated to usenet, and news.mozilla.org was hosted by AOL. Google just happened to provide access, because Google Groups was a usenet archive. Messages could not be deleted from usenet, which is a spam-magnet, nor could newsgroups be closed. You can still post to netscape.public.mozilla.beos and netscape.public.mozilla.os2 if you want. :)
>>
>> In 2005, when a host was found for the nntp server, Mozilla took that opportunity to create a new newsgroup hierarchy, and made the decision not to propagate to usenet. There was a demand for a web-based searchable archive, so Mozilla made a deal with Google to provide a read-only archive. Quickly after they went live, there was demand to be able to post via Google Groups, so that change was made.
>
>> The original forums were newsgroups propagated to usenet, and news.mozilla.org was hosted by AOL. Google just happened to provide access, because Google Groups was a usenet archive. Messages could not be deleted from usenet, which is a spam-magnet, nor could newsgroups be closed. You can still post to netscape.public.mozilla.beos and netscape.public.mozilla.os2 if you want. :)
>>
>> In 2005, when a host was found for the nntp server, Mozilla took that opportunity to create a new newsgroup hierarchy, and made the decision not to propagate to usenet. There was a demand for a web-based searchable archive, so Mozilla made a deal with Google to provide a read-only archive. Quickly after they went live, there was demand to be able to post via Google Groups, so that change was made.
>
> Interesting history! Thanks. I knew some but not all of this.
>
>
>> Looking forward, I think web-forum vs newsgroup debates are a little cliche, and in this case, premature. I would rather establish a list of priorities and requirements, then look at how to get there.
>
>
> Premature? We have been talking about having some communications holy grail since I started at Mozilla in 2006. In 2007 or 8 when we started Labs we decided to use Google Groups (not via nntp) as an experiment to see what we could learn about new tools, and try to reach different audiences that might be more comfortable with a web interface (even back then there were differences in features and quality from Groups/nntp and Groups/native).
>
> We discovered many things, and it wasn't all rosy for sure. Management of groups was cumbersome at times, and Google seemed to not have ported over the Gmail anti-spam juice over to Groups). Overall, though, it was manageable, and allowed very easy reading and posting from the web plus one click subscriptions to lists. Creating new groups was easy to do on your own and instantaneous. It never went down, or at least not in any way that I ever noticed.
>
> In the meantime, the world has shifted even more to the web for discussions and communication. Email is still pretty big, but a lot of people are using Facebook, G+, Disqus, Quora, UserVoice, blogs, and even Twitter to have all kinds of discussions, from interpersonal or brand-focused to Q&A or micro-back & forth. We are doing a pretty terrible job at engaging people who live in this new reality, other than occasionally for marketing. We're not a little bit overdue, we are years behind.
>
> Dan
>
> We discovered many things, and it wasn't all rosy for sure. Management of groups was cumbersome at times, and Google seemed to not have ported over the Gmail anti-spam juice over to Groups). Overall, though, it was manageable, and allowed very easy reading and posting from the web plus one click subscriptions to lists. Creating new groups was easy to do on your own and instantaneous. It never went down, or at least not in any way that I ever noticed.
>
> In the meantime, the world has shifted even more to the web for discussions and communication. Email is still pretty big, but a lot of people are using Facebook, G+, Disqus, Quora, UserVoice, blogs, and even Twitter to have all kinds of discussions, from interpersonal or brand-focused to Q&A or micro-back & forth. We are doing a pretty terrible job at engaging people who live in this new reality, other than occasionally for marketing. We're not a little bit overdue, we are years behind.
>
> Dan
Nikos Roussos
Jul 12, 2012, 5:56:03 AM7/12/12
to mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
On Wed, 2012-07-11 at 16:57 -0700, Daniel Mills wrote:
> The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
If I'm not mistaken the Google web interface requires google account,
> The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
which certainly shouldn't be a prerequisite for a Mozillian to
communicate with other Mozillians.
Stephanie Daugherty
Jul 12, 2012, 6:08:41 AM7/12/12
to mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
some sort of new communications platform, I suggest that there be a strong
requirement for it to be Mozilla hosted.
Dan Mills
Jul 12, 2012, 6:09:16 AM7/12/12
to Nikos Roussos, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
On Thursday, July 12, 2012 at 2:56 AM, Nikos Roussos wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-07-11 at 16:57 -0700, Daniel Mills wrote:
>
> > The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
>
> If I'm not mistaken the Google web interface requires google account,
> which certainly shouldn't be a prerequisite for a Mozillian to
> communicate with other Mozillians.
>
>
Mailing lists have the same requirement, as do all web forums: you have to make an account with the mailing list/forum before you can post. This one happens to be run by Google, but it's hardly unique in this respect.
> On Wed, 2012-07-11 at 16:57 -0700, Daniel Mills wrote:
>
> > The Google interface (native Groups, not the Google nntp crap we use) might not be perfect, but it's pretty decent, reliable, and free.
>
> If I'm not mistaken the Google web interface requires google account,
> which certainly shouldn't be a prerequisite for a Mozillian to
> communicate with other Mozillians.
>
>
Dan
Nikos Roussos
Jul 12, 2012, 6:24:11 AM7/12/12
to mozillians
subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
(and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
certain "Terms of Use".
A Mozilla hosted web ui would also need nothing more than a mozillian
account.
Stephanie Daugherty
Jul 12, 2012, 6:34:06 AM7/12/12
to Mozillians
On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 6:24 AM, Nikos Roussos <ni...@roussos.cc> wrote:
>
> Not really. Mailing lists based on mailman just require for you to
> subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
> (and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
> certain "Terms of Use".
>
> Mailman creates an account as part of the subscription process, which is
>
> Not really. Mailing lists based on mailman just require for you to
> subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
> (and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
> certain "Terms of Use".
>
used to manage subscription options.
> A Mozilla hosted web ui would also need nothing more than a mozillian
> account.
since most of our lists would be open to non-Mozillians.
-Stephanie
Daniel Mills
Jul 12, 2012, 6:55:55 AM7/12/12
to Nikos Roussos, mozillians
On Jul 12, 2012, at 3:24 AM, Nikos Roussos <ni...@roussos.cc> wrote:
>> Mailing lists have the same requirement, as do all web forums: you
>> have to make an account with the mailing list/forum before you can
>> post. This one happens to be run by Google, but it's hardly unique in
>> this respect.
>
>> Mailing lists have the same requirement, as do all web forums: you
>> have to make an account with the mailing list/forum before you can
>> post. This one happens to be run by Google, but it's hardly unique in
>> this respect.
>
> Not really. Mailing lists based on mailman just require for you to
> subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
> (and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
> certain "Terms of Use".
Services you use (hosted by mozilla or anyone else) will be accompanied by terms of use. A mailman account is an account. It has a password and everything. It's not useful for anything else, but as far as the forum goes it's basically the same thing.
> subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
> (and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
> certain "Terms of Use".
> A Mozilla hosted web ui would also need nothing more than a mozillian
> account.
I will not speak for other groups, but dev-identity would be better off with Google Groups or some other non-Mozilla-hosted provider. I see no value in Mozilla hosting it.
Dan
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Jul 12, 2012, 8:23:07 AM7/12/12
to Nikos Roussos, mozillians
Mozilla can't forced people for accepting the terms of service of
Google, becaouse we are the mozilla community not the google
community.
I have a google account but if the politic of mozilla is forced the
people to create google accounts I stop my participation in the
community becouse is like put Internet Explorer inside of Windows for
kill Netscape.
2012/7/12 Nikos Roussos <ni...@roussos.cc>:
> communicate with the rest of the community. Having to agree with
> Google's terms of use it's an objective barrier. Denying to see that
> Google account is more than just a forum account is not changing the
> fact that some people will be reluctant to sign up.
Google, becaouse we are the mozilla community not the google
community.
I have a google account but if the politic of mozilla is forced the
people to create google accounts I stop my participation in the
community becouse is like put Internet Explorer inside of Windows for
kill Netscape.
2012/7/12 Nikos Roussos <ni...@roussos.cc>:
> On Thu, 2012-07-12 at 03:55 -0700, Daniel Mills wrote:
>
>> On Jul 12, 2012, at 3:24 AM, Nikos Roussos <ni...@roussos.cc> wrote:
>>
>> >> Mailing lists have the same requirement, as do all web forums: you
>> >> have to make an account with the mailing list/forum before you can
>> >> post. This one happens to be run by Google, but it's hardly unique in
>> >> this respect.
>> >
>> > Not really. Mailing lists based on mailman just require for you to
>> > subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
>> > (and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
>> > certain "Terms of Use".
>>
>> Services you use (hosted by mozilla or anyone else) will be accompanied by terms of use. A mailman account is an account. It has a password and everything. It's not useful for anything else, but as far as the forum goes it's basically the same thing.
>
> I think it's totally ok to agree to Mozilla terms of use in order to
>
>> On Jul 12, 2012, at 3:24 AM, Nikos Roussos <ni...@roussos.cc> wrote:
>>
>> >> Mailing lists have the same requirement, as do all web forums: you
>> >> have to make an account with the mailing list/forum before you can
>> >> post. This one happens to be run by Google, but it's hardly unique in
>> >> this respect.
>> >
>> > Not really. Mailing lists based on mailman just require for you to
>> > subscribe, not make an account. Google account brings a lot stuff along
>> > (and many other opt-out services), thus they require you to agree with a
>> > certain "Terms of Use".
>>
>> Services you use (hosted by mozilla or anyone else) will be accompanied by terms of use. A mailman account is an account. It has a password and everything. It's not useful for anything else, but as far as the forum goes it's basically the same thing.
>
> communicate with the rest of the community. Having to agree with
> Google's terms of use it's an objective barrier. Denying to see that
> Google account is more than just a forum account is not changing the
> fact that some people will be reluctant to sign up.
Robert Kaiser
Jul 12, 2012, 11:14:08 AM7/12/12
to
Daniel Mills schrieb:
there, but I have no idea how good their web interface is for people who
want that.
I'm pretty sure we really should invest in a different and better web
interface to our lists/groups than Google (NNTP) Groups. And I agree we
finally should get something going there.
Robert Kaiser
> Maybe there is something else we could use. Nabble was mentioned but I haven't tried it out. Gmane is another option that I haven't used but has been around for a while.
I've been using gmane quite a bit on the newsgroup side, and it's good
there, but I have no idea how good their web interface is for people who
want that.
I'm pretty sure we really should invest in a different and better web
interface to our lists/groups than Google (NNTP) Groups. And I agree we
finally should get something going there.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
Jul 12, 2012, 11:14:46 AM7/12/12
to
Majken Connor schrieb:
and still sucks, apparently.
Robert Kaiser
> BTW guys, google groups JUST (read in the last month) upgraded its groups
> UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
Yes, they improved the UI tremendously, but the backend is what sucked
> UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
and still sucks, apparently.
Robert Kaiser
Gen Kanai
Jul 13, 2012, 3:56:06 AM7/13/12
to mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
On 7/12/12 2:23 PM, Fredy Rouge Rouge wrote:
> Mozilla can't forced people for accepting the terms of service of
> Google, becaouse we are the mozilla community not the google
> community.
need to have a gmail account.
--
Gen Kanai
Daniel Mills
Jul 13, 2012, 8:18:55 PM7/13/12
to Fredy Rouge Rouge, mozillians, Nikos Roussos
Mozilla isn't forcing anyone to do anything, and the melodrama and stop-energy around this is pretty excessive. We require accounts on 3rd parties for other things: B2G, identity, and labs projects need Github accounts to commit and for issues/bugs, for example. It's no big deal, and if at any point we no longer like Github's service or its terms of use we can just pick up our stuff and go somewhere else.
Frankly, I believe I have exhausted the topic from my perspective--the dev-identity group is not being well served by the tools we have (with very few exceptions), and something must change. Soon. I think it's rather extreme to threaten to leave Mozilla because you don't like that some groups want to have discussions somewhere you don't like.
Dan
On Jul 12, 2012, at 5:23 AM, Fredy Rouge Rouge <fredy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mozilla can't forced people for accepting the terms of service of
> Google, becaouse we are the mozilla community not the google
> community.
>
Frankly, I believe I have exhausted the topic from my perspective--the dev-identity group is not being well served by the tools we have (with very few exceptions), and something must change. Soon. I think it's rather extreme to threaten to leave Mozilla because you don't like that some groups want to have discussions somewhere you don't like.
Dan
On Jul 12, 2012, at 5:23 AM, Fredy Rouge Rouge <fredy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mozilla can't forced people for accepting the terms of service of
> Google, becaouse we are the mozilla community not the google
> community.
>
Chris Ilias
Jul 16, 2012, 2:03:52 PM7/16/12
to
On 12-07-11 7:57 PM, Daniel Mills wrote:
> On Jul 10, 2012, at 5:05 PM, Chris Ilias <nm...@ilias.ca> wrote:
>
>> - no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
>>
>> Could you be more specific about the first 2?
>> The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google Groups issue.
>> The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually very quick. It's Google that sucks.
>
> It doesn't help me at all that it's Google that sucks. That's like having no Internet at the office and saying it's a problem upstream--okay, but I'd still be without Internet.
>
> I'm not blaming IT, and I don't think there's really anything IT could've/should've done. I don't blame anyone at all, really, I'm just saying that regardless of other groups, I know *for sure* that existing tools are not working well for my group.
I'm not saying the current solution is the best available. I don't think
> On Jul 10, 2012, at 5:05 PM, Chris Ilias <nm...@ilias.ca> wrote:
>
>> - no line wrap from message sent with Zimbra :)
>>
>> Could you be more specific about the first 2?
>> The only cases I've seen where there was a sync issue, it was a Google Groups issue.
>> The cause of the last 2 is more about outsourcing these services to a server that is out of Mozilla's direct control. I try to CC myself on all forum requests, and Giganews (who hosts news.mozilla.org) is usually very quick. It's Google that sucks.
>
> It doesn't help me at all that it's Google that sucks. That's like having no Internet at the office and saying it's a problem upstream--okay, but I'd still be without Internet.
>
> I'm not blaming IT, and I don't think there's really anything IT could've/should've done. I don't blame anyone at all, really, I'm just saying that regardless of other groups, I know *for sure* that existing tools are not working well for my group.
it is, and I have my own list of grievances. What I am saying is that
the problems *you listed* are not caused by bidirectionally mirroring
three hosts. Sorta like blaming rapid release for broken extensions. :)
>> Looking forward, I think web-forum vs newsgroup debates are a little cliche, and in this case, premature. I would rather establish a list of priorities and requirements, then look at how to get there.
>
> Premature? We have been talking about having some communications holy grail since I started at Mozilla in 2006. In 2007 or 8 when we started Labs we decided to use Google Groups (not via nntp) as an experiment to see what we could learn about new tools, and try to reach different audiences that might be more comfortable with a web interface (even back then there were differences in features and quality from Groups/nntp and Groups/native).
Robert obviously values openness of the technology used more than you
do. If we don't establish what's most important, how do we choose the
best solution?
I also think we can open our options up. Nobody has mentioned developing
something in-house. Sumo is developed by sumodev and it contains two
different types of forums. One for support questions [1], and another
for discussions[2]. And that code is public. Maybe the code for
discussion forums could be utilized to develop a solution for all of
Mozilla? I have no idea how feasible that is (don't want to piss off
Morgamic). :)
[1]<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions>
[2]<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums>
Couple of other points:
* Labs decided to use the newer proprietary version of Google Groups,
because the original request of a mailing list/newsgroup/Google Group
setup was taking too long. It wasn't an experiment; it was a contingency
plan. See <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480543>
* Remember what I said about posting messages via Zimbra? Here's a
screenshot: <http://ilias.ca/screenshots/thunder-linewrap.png>
Chris Ilias
Jul 16, 2012, 2:07:28 PM7/16/12
to
On 12-07-11 2:37 PM, Majken Connor wrote:
> BTW guys, google groups JUST (read in the last month) upgraded its groups
> UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
I haven't been checking in on the UI, but the big problems with the new
> BTW guys, google groups JUST (read in the last month) upgraded its groups
> UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
version of Google Groups are underlying,
For instance, have you noticed how many double-posts there have been
lately? Those are GG users replying to mailing list users. GG now works
via email headers instead of newsgroup headers. If you look at the
double-posts in mozilla.governance, you'll one message is sent to
mozilla.g...@googlegroups.com and the other is sent to
mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org.
I still have to test it, but I'm seeing an increase of GG posts that
replace the standard quote level chevrons with > .
Majken Connor
Jul 17, 2012, 1:47:07 PM7/17/12
to Chris Ilias, mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
I use mailing list and filters in my email client, so I don't see the
double posts. Though I'm sure that's a problem with having to use reply-all
instead of replying to list.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Chris Ilias <nm...@ilias.ca> wrote:
> On 12-07-11 2:37 PM, Majken Connor wrote:
>
>> BTW guys, google groups JUST (read in the last month) upgraded its groups
>> UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
>>
>
> I haven't been checking in on the UI, but the big problems with the new
> version of Google Groups are underlying,
>
> For instance, have you noticed how many double-posts there have been
> lately? Those are GG users replying to mailing list users. GG now works via
> email headers instead of newsgroup headers. If you look at the double-posts
> in mozilla.governance, you'll one message is sent to mozilla.governance@**
> googlegroups.com <mozilla.g...@googlegroups.com> and the other is
> sent to mozilla-governance@lists.**mozilla.org<mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org>
> mozillians mailing list
> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/mozillians<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians>
>
double posts. Though I'm sure that's a problem with having to use reply-all
instead of replying to list.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Chris Ilias <nm...@ilias.ca> wrote:
> On 12-07-11 2:37 PM, Majken Connor wrote:
>
>> BTW guys, google groups JUST (read in the last month) upgraded its groups
>> UI so it looks a lot more like gmail. It looks pretty darn useful now.
>>
>
> I haven't been checking in on the UI, but the big problems with the new
> version of Google Groups are underlying,
>
> For instance, have you noticed how many double-posts there have been
> lately? Those are GG users replying to mailing list users. GG now works via
> email headers instead of newsgroup headers. If you look at the double-posts
> googlegroups.com <mozilla.g...@googlegroups.com> and the other is
> sent to mozilla-governance@lists.**mozilla.org<mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org>
> .
>
> I still have to test it, but I'm seeing an increase of GG posts that
> replace the standard quote level chevrons with > .
>
> ______________________________**_________________
>
> I still have to test it, but I'm seeing an increase of GG posts that
> replace the standard quote level chevrons with > .
>
> mozillians mailing list
> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/mozillians<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians>
>
Fredy Rouge Rouge
Sep 1, 2012, 12:43:39 AM9/1/12
to Daniel Mills, mozillians, Nikos Roussos
Hi all
I find this: http://groupserver.org/groupserver
Email mailing list servers are useful because they enable people to
collaborate in groups, using email. Web-based mailing lists like
Google Groups provide the advantage of a web interface for
administration and reading and adding posts.
I think is nice becouse we can see the participation of people in
profile page, example:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift1
And you can follow via rss all the profile or only the post of files.
You can follow a group via rss and this is nice for exapmle for put a
widget in a wordpress blog for show the last posts...
2012/7/13 Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com>:
>>> mozillians mailing list
>>> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
>> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
I find this: http://groupserver.org/groupserver
Email mailing list servers are useful because they enable people to
collaborate in groups, using email. Web-based mailing lists like
Google Groups provide the advantage of a web interface for
administration and reading and adding posts.
I think is nice becouse we can see the participation of people in
profile page, example:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift1
And you can follow via rss all the profile or only the post of files.
You can follow a group via rss and this is nice for exapmle for put a
widget in a wordpress blog for show the last posts...
2012/7/13 Daniel Mills <thu...@mozilla.com>:
>>> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
>>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozillians
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Fredy Rouge - Leader, Créatif, Autodidacte et Geek ☺
>> _______________________________________________
>> mozillians mailing list
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Fredy Rouge - Leader, Créatif, Autodidacte et Geek ☺
>> _______________________________________________
>> mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
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