Instead of here, post CTAN announcements to comp.text.tex.announce?

[jfin...@gmail.com]

It's good that CTAN is keeping us informed about new and changed packages. But this is making the human postings from users with problems harder to find.

Perhaps the CTAN postings could instead go to comp.text.tex.announce? We'd to have it created first, though. There is precedent: comp.lang.python.announce.

What do you think? Not a problem for you? Or perhaps you'd prefer CTAN announcements to be batched up on a daily basis?

--
Jonathan

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

On 11/29/16 11:34 AM, jfin...@gmail.com wrote:

> It's good that CTAN is keeping us informed about new and changed
> packages. But this is making the human postings from users with
> problems harder to find.

True.

> Perhaps the CTAN postings could instead go to comp.text.tex.announce?
> We'd to have it created first, though. There is precedent:
> comp.lang.python.announce.

Hmm. I wasn't aware of the precedent. I would have thought that
proposing such I thing would be answered with "Use RSS, it is better
designed for that purpose." How recent was it, and is comp.lang.python
more active that we are?

> What do you think?

I would like it if we already had the division that you propose, but
I've come to see Usenet as fragile. comp.text.tex is one of the few
remaining groups that works, and so personally am reluctant to tamper
with it in a way that involves all mess of creating a new group.

> Not a problem for you?

It has been a problem now that you explicitly mention it. I might
try to see about filtering from view announcements to see other
discussion and than toggling that filter to see only the announcements.
I'm not sure how to do that in thunderbird (the news reader I hate the
least at the moment), but I'm sure I can figure it out.

I should make it clear that while I am full of opinions on this sort of
stuff, I am not very attached to them. I won't object if others want to
try to follow up on your proposal. I'm not really trying to argue for or
against any course of action; I'm just answering your question to let
you know what I think.

Cheers,

-j

--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid

[DJNavas]

I thougth the same. I can not find any conversation about TeX. Only packages updates. Considering that the answer from Jeffrey Goldberg, is completely reasonably, is better the sugestion of a summary report of daily updates.

[jfbu]

The CTAN announcements are the main interest of this group now
that general TeX discussion has, so to say, stalled.

My two cents.

Jean-François

[Peter Flynn]

On 12/02/2016 06:00 PM, jfbu wrote:
> The CTAN announcements are the main interest of this group now
> that general TeX discussion has, so to say, stalled.

There have been a few discussions, but most TeX-related Q&A takes place
on tex.stackexchange.com

///Peter

[Scott Pakin]

Personally, it's not a problem for me. I actually like being able
to read both discussions and CTAN postings together. I guess I
think, "What's going on with TeX these day?" and batch-read all the
posts.

-- Scott

[Joseph Wright]

I'm (mildly) of this mind too: I've read c.t.t. for a long time and have
always been happy I can look at what's happening on CTAN at the same
time as following discussions.

Certainly its true that c.t.t. nowadays less popular than it once was,
but for general TeX *discussion* it's still interesting.

Joseph

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2016-12-03 10:18:46 +0100, Joseph Wright

I rarely read the CTAN messages, but I'm very glad that they're there,
because I fear that if they were moved somewhere else the non-CTAN
discussion would dry up completely. That may seem an odd thing to fear,
but experience in the olden days (around 1998) strongly suggests that
it might happen. I used to frequent a biology news group that had a
significant amount of real discussion but a somewhat greater amount of
arguing with someone who thought he understood thermodynamics, but
didn't. He was eventually persuaded to go away, but no one expected
what happened when he did: everyone else went away as well, and the
news group was dead within a few weeks.

--
athel

[Karl Ratzsch]

Same here.
Once or twice a week there is a small shuffle of CTAN announcments, and
that's it. Never bothered me.

Karl

[Nicola Talbot]

On 29/11/16 17:34, jfin...@gmail.com wrote:
> It's good that CTAN is keeping us informed about new and changed packages.
> But this is making the human postings from users with problems harder to find.

I think that's only because there are so few human postings here these
days that it makes the CTAN announcements more noticeable. You can
always filter out the CTAN postings from here and use the CTAN RSS feed
for package updates.

>
> Perhaps the CTAN postings could instead go to comp.text.tex.announce? We'd to
> have it created first, though. There is precedent: comp.lang.python.announce.

I think there's no point creating a new newsgroup these days. Usenet is
falling out of use. Websites like http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and
http://www.latex-community.org/forum/ provide a far easier interface
with separation of code blocks from description and inline images, which
makes it more appealing to new users. However, newsgroups still have a
place for announcements.

>
> What do you think? Not a problem for you? Or perhaps you'd prefer CTAN announcements
> to be batched up on a daily basis?
>

Not a problem for me. Some days there's nothing on comp.text.tex and the
CTAN announcements makes it seem less desolate. (But maybe that's just
me imagining electronic tumbleweed drifting lazily across the empty page.)

Regards
Nicola
--
Home: http://www.dickimaw-books.com/
Creating a LaTeX Minimal Example:
http://www.dickimaw-books.com/latex/minexample/

[Axel Berger]

Nicola Talbot wrote:
> Usenet is falling out of use.

Unfortunaltely you're right. Most unfortunate because

> Websites like http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and
> http://www.latex-community.org/forum/ provide a far easier interface

is simply and absolutely dead wrong. I hate those abominations of web
fora and will probably rather do entirely without than subject myself to
them. As of now I do not need to make that choice and long may it stay
so.

Axel

--
/¯\ No | Dipl.-Ing. F. Axel Berger Tel: +49/ 221/ 7771 8067
\ / HTML | Roald-Amundsen-Straße 2a Fax: +49/ 221/ 7771 8069
 X in | D-50829 Köln-Ossendorf http://berger-odenthal.de
/ \ Mail | -- No unannounced, large, binary attachments, please! --

[Nicola Talbot]

On 08/12/16 18:59, Axel Berger wrote:
> Nicola Talbot wrote:
>> Usenet is falling out of use.
>
> Unfortunaltely you're right. Most unfortunate because
>
>> Websites like http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and
>> http://www.latex-community.org/forum/ provide a far easier interface
>
> is simply and absolutely dead wrong.

I meant it's far easier for the modern generation brought up on a point
and click interface. I think there are a lot of people these days who
have no idea how to configure a newsreader and think of comp.text.tex in
terms of the Google Groups web interface (which is less convenient than
TeX.SX and LC and provides the worst of both worlds).

> I hate those abominations of web
> fora and will probably rather do entirely without than subject myself to
> them. As of now I do not need to make that choice and long may it stay
> so.
>

I'm not saying we shouldn't use comp.text.tex. I still prefer a more
text based approach. (I certainly wish multipart html emails had never
been invented!) I continue to read comp.text.tex and continue to write
plain text emails, but I can still observe the change in usage and know
why that change is happening.

Anyway, the human chatter now seems to be outweighing the CTAN chatter
for the moment :-)

[Peter Flynn]

On 12/08/2016 06:59 PM, Axel Berger wrote:
> Nicola Talbot wrote:
>> Usenet is falling out of use.
>

> Unfortunately you're right. Most unfortunate because

>
>> Websites like http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and
>> http://www.latex-community.org/forum/ provide a far easier interface
>
> is simply and absolutely dead wrong.

I agree. I read c.t.t in Thunderbird along with all my mailboxes, and
it's *very* easy and light. I think the error is in judging c.t.t by
using Google's *terrible* web interface instead of a proper newsreader.

Stackexchange is monstrously heavy and takes ages to load the first
page. I use it for Q&A (for which it has no peer), but I can't imagine
wanting to use it to keep abreast of which packages have been added or
updated.

///Peter

[jfbu]

Le 08/12/2016 à 22:46, Peter Flynn a écrit :
> I agree. I read c.t.t in Thunderbird along with all my mailboxes, and
> it's *very* easy and light. I think the error is in judging c.t.t by
> using Google's *terrible* web interface instead of a proper newsreader.

I agree :
I also read c.t.t in Thunderbird and have no issue whatsoever with
finding "human" postings alongside the always informative CTAN
annoucements,

Jean-François

[Joseph Wright]

On 08/12/2016 21:27, Nicola Talbot wrote:
> I'm not saying we shouldn't use comp.text.tex. I still prefer a more
> text based approach. (I certainly wish multipart html emails had never
> been invented!) I continue to read comp.text.tex and continue to write
> plain text emails, but I can still observe the change in usage and know
> why that change is happening.

Indeed. In the same vein, it's getting increasing tricky at work posting
replies below the context: most people simply don't understand this
convention. I don't like it, but for work mails I'll probably have to
revisit my long-standing 'no, this is wrong' position. (For c.t.t., TeX
mailing lists and people I know understand, I'll of course stick to the
right way of doing things.) I also worry about the longer-term
availability of Thunderbird: support from Mozilla is minimal and their
own position is perhaps a worry ...

Conclusion: some change just 'happens' whether we like it or not!

Joseph

[jfin...@gmail.com]

I notice that fr.comp.tex.tex and de.comp.text.tex don't get the CTAN announcements. And I find them easier to read for items of interest.

I've found another problem. When I search for pmx (for example) in the google interface, most of the top results are CTAN announcements. But if I want that, I can get it much better at http://www.ctan.org/ctan-ann/atom/pmx.xml.

I found that markdown (also a CTAN package) is similar.

Here's my suggestion: We find a solution that balances the interests of all users, including the newbies who've not been to c.t.t before.

This may require some innovation. For example, having 'post announcement to comp.text.tex' an option when submitting a package. Or ctan providing only a weekly summary.

I hope the CTAN maintainers will contribute to this discussion.

--
Jonathan

[Ulrich D i e z]

Dr. Nicola Talbot wrote:

> I think that's only because there are so few human postings here

The posting you are reading right now is -eh- "human"... Be that
as it may... There are so many insane humans in this world that I
am confused regarding the question whether a posting "not being
human" is generally a bad thing. ;->

> Websites like http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and
> http://www.latex-community.org/forum/ provide a far easier interface
> with separation of code blocks from description and inline images, which
> makes it more appealing to new users.

At such websites you can learn what the term "reputation" does mean
nowadays.

I strongly dislike the "feature" of editing/_manipulating_ other people's
statements at such websites.

What makes such websites less appealing to me is reading their "legal terms".
Whenever reading such things, the interface seems unimportant to me.
E.g., finding a clear answer to the question whether I can publish code
written by me on such a website under the Latex Project Public License
seems difficult.

(Maybe some day I'll make up my own thingie and always point to that
in correspondence taking place at such websites.)

Ulrich

[Joseph Wright]

On 12/12/2016 10:51, Ulrich D i e z wrote:
> What makes such websites less appealing to me is reading their "legal terms".
> Whenever reading such things, the interface seems unimportant to me.
> E.g., finding a clear answer to the question whether I can publish code
> written by me on such a website under the Latex Project Public License
> seems difficult.

Irrespective of the place, code you write is your copyright so you can
publish under multiple licenses. For example, here on c.t.t there is *no
legal statement* so at least formally you need to ask people before
using any code (at least under UK law, which is where I am). Now, some
people take the approach that if they put it in public anyone can use
it; the problem is the law doesn't work like that, and some other people
also don't! (Taking the StackExchange example, they have been looking at
altering their licensing but ran into two groups of people, one of which
think all posts are public domain, another of which thought that they
could *only* be used in open source projects ... Good luck squaring such
things!)

Joseph