An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms

[Ben Collver]

An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms

By Dean on November 26, 2022 5:21 PM

Perl has been around for a couple of years longer than Python and
Linux. Perl 5 was released in 1993, the same year as FreeBSD and
NetBSD.

In the 90's for Open Source projects the "community platforms" where
Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists run on Listserv or Majordomo
(Mailman didn't show up until 1999). IRC was used for text based chat
but without SSL!. CVS was the open source version control system of
choice or you might have been unlucky enough to use Visual Source Safe
at work, whilst Subversion wouldn't show up until 2000.

But the 90's are more than 20 years in the past and IPv6 is actually
seeing meaningful adoption now. Many of the above technologies are as
completely foreign to people with 10+ years of industry experience as
Compact Cassettes, VHS, LaserDisc and maybe CDs or even DVDs.

As people have embraced Git and even now IPv6 - we too can and must
embrace newer platforms that offer a better experience for us humans
as we work together on Perl related projects.

This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
alternatives.

I think a reasonable decision criteria would be:

1. Will a newcomer have a satisfactory experience?
Which includes more than:

1a. How discoverable is it?
1b. How high/low is the barrier of entry?
1c. How familiar is the interface to newcomers?
1d. How intuitive and effective is the user interface?
1e. Will questions be taken seriously and answered in a timely manner?
1f. Is the platform providing reasonable privacy and moderation
controls?

2. How much time will admins spend maintaining the platform compared
to maintaining the community on the platform?

3. Would it be set up now if it didn't already exist?

Mailing lists are a good example which we can compare to my criteria.

If you can find the right list, you subscribe and send your question.
Your email address is blasted out to all subscribers which aren't
visible to you, whilst your inbox is already being filled with all
discussion on the list even if you're not interested- assuming there
is any discussion.

Good luck finding old questions or discussions to contribute or update
on.

Once something is sent it can never be edited or removed from
recipients. Users have each others email addresses so can contact each
other without moderation. You can set up filters in your email if you
care to, but this is an inconsistent user interface that is user
dependent and you're still having to maintain the folder's unread
messages. Emails themselves become dominated by reply text, making
reviewing threads high effort and low signal compared to interfaces
like reddit or even a classic but inferior webforum layout.

If I started a new community I wouldn't create an email list.

Run IRC through the above criteria and its even worse! To have a good
experience users need to connect continuously or set up something that
does. Then try to sift through the stream of content to find some
signal. If there's any significant activity, questions and comments
will get lost in the stream or conflated with other discussion.

So let's not, metaphorically speaking, hand new Perl programmers an
audio cassette saying "this really is the best way to listen to music"
and then expect them to take Perl seriously or to conclude that it is
anything other than a dead language.

From: <https://blogs.perl.org/users/dean/2022/11/
an-objective-criteria-for-deprecating-community-platforms.html>

From the comments section:

Jakub Narebski
November 28, 2022 6:08 PM

There is modern approach to the mailing list, namely the public-inbox
software (the same that powers lore.kernel.org). With it you have both
web interface and NNTP interface to the mailing list, and you can post
using the other.

That avoids filling the inbox with unrelated discussion, adds access
to the history, adds searchability and being indexed.

Still not for everybody, but in my opinion overall a better
experience.

Mike B
November 29, 2022 5:09 AM

Fun fact: public-inbox is written in Perl!

[Ben Collver]

On 2023-01-08, Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
> can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
> comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
> subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
> someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).

>
>>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>>alternatives.
>

> More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!

I basically read it as "Email is passe. The hip kids are on Discord,
Facebook, Reddit, etc. Ignore these at your own peril."

Even though i disagree with the sentiment, i think it needs to be
exposed to fresh air and sunlight.

I would like to point out that those "contemporary platforms" are not
free and open, so they don't seem compatible with the spirit that Perl
is developed in.

[Rich]

Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> wrote or quoted:
>>Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms
>
> When someone calls his own criterion "objective", this is
> already more than suspicious.

>
>>As people have embraced Git and even now IPv6 - we too can and must
>>embrace newer platforms that offer a better experience for us humans
>>as we work together on Perl related projects.
>

> Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
> can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
> comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
> subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
> someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).
>

>>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>>alternatives.
>

> More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!

The more ulterior motive reason is also:

The extreme difficulty in data mining user's activity, and in
presenting paid advertising to them provided by older, federated,
Internet communications systems means we must deprecate long
cherished platforms, in favor of contemporary alternatives that allow
us to push advertising at every turn, and hoover up an enormous
amount of "behavior data" about our users that we can also further
sell to advertisers.

[Javier]

Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> wrote:
>
> I basically read it as "Email is passe. The hip kids are on Discord,
> Facebook, Reddit, etc. Ignore these at your own peril."
>
> Even though i disagree with the sentiment, i think it needs to be
> exposed to fresh air and sunlight.
>
> I would like to point out that those "contemporary platforms" are not
> free and open, so they don't seem compatible with the spirit that Perl
> is developed in.

They have already closed the mailing lists/newsgroups in other projects.
See for example:

https://discuss.python.org/
https://discourse.mozilla.org/

As it is shown by the link posted by the OP it's clear that they intend
to do the same thing with Perl. But the change will not be as smooth as
in those other places. Perl developers are much harder nuts to crack.

[Javier]

Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

> Javier <inv...@invalid.invalid> writes:
>>They have already closed the mailing lists/newsgroups in other projects.
>

> In Python, several mailing lists and a newsgroup are alive
> and kicking (perhaps in parallel with other media).
> The newsgroup is "comp.lang.python"; mailing lists are
> "python-list", "python-dev", "python-checkins",
> "python-help", and the "tutor mailing list".

Your information is not up to date. The python-dev (which you mention
above) and python-ideas lists have been closed permanently. And those
were very important ones.

https://devguide.python.org/developer-workflow/communication-channels/index.html#mailing-lists

The python-dev list is superseded by the Core Development and PEPs
categories on Discourse.

The python-ideas list is superseded by posts in the Ideas category
on Discourse.

Existing threads on the python-dev, python-committers, and
python-ideas mailing lists can be accessed through the online
archive.

But, as a said before, good luck doing the same thing with the main perl
dev mailing list. Perl developers are made of a different paste.

https://lists.perl.org/

[Javier]

Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Javier <inv...@invalid.invalid> writes:

>>Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>>In Python, several mailing lists and a newsgroup are alive
>>>and kicking (perhaps in parallel with other media).
>>>The newsgroup is "comp.lang.python"; mailing lists are
>>>"python-list", "python-dev", "python-checkins",
>>>"python-help", and the "tutor mailing list".
>>Your information is not up to date. The python-dev (which you mention
>>above) and python-ideas lists have been closed permanently. And those
>>were very important ones.
>

> I looked at some recent web page from python.org.
> The text there did not seem to reflect that change yet.

I have to apologise for my previous comment. I realize now that the
python-dev is still alive as a mailing list.

I just inferred the fact from the python.org website:

https://devguide.python.org/developer-workflow/communication-channels/index.html#mailing-lists

Some mailing lists have been supplanted by categories in the
Python Discourse. Specifically,

The python-dev list is superseded by the Core Development and PEPs
categories on Discourse.

The wording the wording is at minimum misleading. In any case, it's
clear that the people with power in the Python foundation are hostile
to mailing lists and they are talking of retiring the mailing list.

https://lwn.net/Articles/901744/

[Theo]

Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> wrote:
> Mailing lists are a good example which we can compare to my criteria.
>
> If you can find the right list, you subscribe and send your question.
> Your email address is blasted out to all subscribers which aren't
> visible to you, whilst your inbox is already being filled with all
> discussion on the list even if you're not interested- assuming there
> is any discussion.

Mailing lists are 'push': people get notified of activity without having to
do anything. Web forums are 'pull': people have to actively visit them to
find if there's anything new.

Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
a) Sending you emails about activity. Then it's just a bad mailing list,
because the emails typically do not convey the full content (they just say
'X posted to Y thread' or similar) so you have to visit the web site anyway
b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
c) browser notifications, which only work if the site is open in your
browser (and don't scale at all well)
d) phone apps, which are like c) but with less compatibility and more
tracking and bloat

Usenet is 'pull', but at least everything is in one place.
The same could be said about Facebook, although that has an ad-driven
algorithm to make reading as awkward as possible.

I don't know how people manage to keep track of more than a handful of
forums. Do they just open dozens of browser tabs every day?

Theo

[sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us]

Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:

> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses

I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
back.

> I don't know how people manage to keep track of more than a handful of
> forums. Do they just open dozens of browser tabs every day?

I don't really do forums, except to maybe dig up answers to questions
already asked. I suspect even an RSS feed from a forum would still be too
noisy to want to check on a regular basis.

--
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

[Computer Nerd Kev]

sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
>> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
>
> I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
> websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
> to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
> for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
> enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
> back.

I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
an option with mailing lists using Gmane).

>> I don't know how people manage to keep track of more than a handful of
>> forums. Do they just open dozens of browser tabs every day?
>
> I don't really do forums, except to maybe dig up answers to questions
> already asked. I suspect even an RSS feed from a forum would still be too
> noisy to want to check on a regular basis.

In my experience only some forums supply an RSS feed in the first
place anyway. Or maybe the forum admins are the people who were
meant as the almost nobodys.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

[Theo]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> > Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
> >> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
> >
> > I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
> > websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
> > to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
> > for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
> > enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
> > back.
>
> I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
> takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
> feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
> desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
> an option with mailing lists using Gmane).

There is probably a large crossover between RSS and NNTP users :-)
But I think it's safe to say that few non-technical people are using RSS.
It used to be advertised when you went to a site in eg Firefox, but now it's
pretty well hidden.

> In my experience only some forums supply an RSS feed in the first
> place anyway. Or maybe the forum admins are the people who were
> meant as the almost nobodys.

It probably depends on the luck of the draw with the forum software and
whether it supports it. If it does, but it's something the admin has to
actively turn on, I suspect many won't think about it.

RSS also struggles with private/restricted forums. I had lots of fun on a
phpBB site where the RSS was behind the login wall, so I either had to do
the (SSO) login from within the RSS client, or somehow convey the login
cookie from my browser to the client. And the cookie would time out after
some days, so I'd then have to do it all again.

Theo

[sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us]

Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>> sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
>> > Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> >> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
>> >> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
>> >
>> > I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
>> > websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
>> > to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
>> > for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
>> > enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
>> > back.
>>
>> I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
>> takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
>> feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
>> desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
>> an option with mailing lists using Gmane).
>
> There is probably a large crossover between RSS and NNTP users :-)
> But I think it's safe to say that few non-technical people are using RSS.

Podcasts are a special case of RSS, one that's used to serve up audio
instead of text. By that measure, there are probably lots of people out
there using RSS who don't even know it. That said, they probably aren't
also pulling down the Slashdot feed alongside the Adam Carolla podcast. :)

> RSS also struggles with private/restricted forums. I had lots of fun on a
> phpBB site where the RSS was behind the login wall, so I either had to do
> the (SSO) login from within the RSS client, or somehow convey the login
> cookie from my browser to the client. And the cookie would time out after
> some days, so I'd then have to do it all again.

I think I've dealt with that by changing the feed URL to include
credentials: http://user:pass...@invalid.tld/feed, or something like that.

(Just double-checked...I have a feed of radio recordings that I timeshift.
The RSS feed for that is password-protected so I can plausibly claim it's
for private use. :) TTRSS has options to send a username and password to
grab a feed, which falls into your first category.)

[Theo]

sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >> I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
> >> takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
> >> feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
> >> desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
> >> an option with mailing lists using Gmane).
> >
> > There is probably a large crossover between RSS and NNTP users :-)
> > But I think it's safe to say that few non-technical people are using RSS.
>
> Podcasts are a special case of RSS, one that's used to serve up audio
> instead of text. By that measure, there are probably lots of people out
> there using RSS who don't even know it. That said, they probably aren't
> also pulling down the Slashdot feed alongside the Adam Carolla podcast. :)

That's not really RSS as a 'community platform', ie a mechanism to keep
track of and participate in discussions on things. It's just a file of URLs
on a website.

> > RSS also struggles with private/restricted forums. I had lots of fun on a
> > phpBB site where the RSS was behind the login wall, so I either had to do
> > the (SSO) login from within the RSS client, or somehow convey the login
> > cookie from my browser to the client. And the cookie would time out after
> > some days, so I'd then have to do it all again.
>
> I think I've dealt with that by changing the feed URL to include
> credentials: http://user:pass...@invalid.tld/feed, or something like that.
>
> (Just double-checked...I have a feed of radio recordings that I timeshift.
> The RSS feed for that is password-protected so I can plausibly claim it's
> for private use. :) TTRSS has options to send a username and password to
> grab a feed, which falls into your first category.)

The problem is when the site doesn't do HTTP basic auth like above, but uses
some SSO like 'log in with Google' or 'log in with [organization
credentials]', and for those you need to do their login dance, including
entering the TOTP code, sending the SMS to your phone or whatever MFA
procedure there is. That needs a full browser to implement. I suppose the
RSS client could do OAuth2 but I'm not sure any do.

Of course you wouldn't design a site like that, but it's what happens when
somebody slaps SSO on the front of a website for humans and doesn't realise
RSS is not intended for human (browser) consumption.

Theo

[Julieta Shem]

r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> quoted a "Dean":

>>I think a reasonable decision criteria would be:
>

> one criterion, several criteria

That's right! :-)

Source:
https://ancientlanguage.com/learn-latin/

[Julieta Shem]

Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> writes:

> On 2023-01-08, Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
>> can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
>> comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
>> subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
>> someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).
>>
>>>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>>>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>>>alternatives.
>>
>> More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!
>
> I basically read it as "Email is passe. The hip kids are on Discord,
> Facebook, Reddit, etc. Ignore these at your own peril."

Seriously, you should also investigate the effects the medium has on the
discussions. For instance, does any of these platforms mentioned above
provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.

Here's another point. When you know someone is expecting what you're
writing and they can even see a flashing ``...'' as you type, you also
know that if you take too long writing, the person will be waiting for
your message, which hurries you up --- and that relevantly affects the
communication without a shadow of doubt. The medium must be chosen so
that the desired properties of the discussions are encouraged by the
medium and the undesired discouraged. Choosing your text editor, for
instance, is an often-neglected, but highly relevant factor in the
choice.

What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into. The
reason they can't find us here, for example, is not because we are
backwards or arcane, but rather because they have not found the interest
and the means to survive in this complicated world. Living in our
communities is too hard of a problem for them to handle --- it requires
minimum understanding and mastery of tools that they don't acquire
because, first of all, the required education to do it is not delivered
through the channels they tune to. We are the teachers, so we are the
first to answer to that.

> Even though i disagree with the sentiment, i think it needs to be
> exposed to fresh air and sunlight.

Sure.

> I would like to point out that those "contemporary platforms" are not
> free and open, so they don't seem compatible with the spirit that Perl
> is developed in.

Indeed. As Stallman has been explaining for decades, if it's not free
in the right sense of the word, then even if it were the most convenient
way, it still would not be what we should use. Some prices are simply
too high to be paid.

A tool I never investigated properly is Discourse. I don't think the
web is the right medium for the discussions that go on on the USENET,
but perhaps an integration between something like Discourse and NNTP
could be made --- I don't know.

[Julieta Shem]

r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
>>2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
>>editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.
>

> Technically, I can answer any post I can still read, but
> often people do not like it when one responds to old posts.

Why not?

>>What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
>>education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
>>seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into.
>

> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!

That's life. Why are they leaving?

[Richard Kettlewell]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
> r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>> What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>> communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with
>>> the education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because
>>> they don't seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves
>>> into.

In reality, many people are well aware of the issues with other
communication platforms.

>> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!
> That's life. Why are they leaving?

People stop using Usenet for a variety of reasons, including:

- they found better alternatives for their use cases
- they followed their communities elsewhere
- they got sick of spam
- they got sick of trolls (in the broadest possible sense)
- they became too busy
- they aged out

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[candycanearter07]

So their connection timed out?
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

[Dan Purgert]

On 2023-12-04, candycanearter07 wrote:
> On 12/4/23 02:30, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

>> [...]

>> People stop using Usenet for a variety of reasons, including:
>>
>> - they found better alternatives for their use cases
>> - they followed their communities elsewhere
>> - they got sick of spam
>> - they got sick of trolls (in the broadest possible sense)
>> - they became too busy
>> - they aged out
>>
>
> So their connection timed out?

TTL expired.


--
|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1 E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> wrote:
> r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>>provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
>>>2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
>>>editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.
>>
>> Technically, I can answer any post I can still read, but
>> often people do not like it when one responds to old posts.
>
> Why not?

In the case of this thread, the start is beyond the maximum 500
(even 1000) posts that I have my newsreader set to fetch headers
for, so the previous discussion isn't visible. Unlike Google Groups
user's replies to thirty year old discussions, this probably isn't
equally disruptive to all readers. Some will fetch more headers (if
not expired on their news server), or keep previously downloaded
headers/posts, depending on their software and configuration.

This does prevent the frequently-seen issue on old forums where
some fool replies to a decades old thread, making it appear again
to readers who fail to notice the dates of earlier posts in the
thread, and who then respond themselves asking eg. why the OP is
using such old technology.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

[Julieta Shem]

Richard Kettlewell <inv...@invalid.invalid> writes:

> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>> r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>>> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>>> What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>>> communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with
>>>> the education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because
>>>> they don't seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves
>>>> into.
>
> In reality, many people are well aware of the issues with other
> communication platforms.

That's good news.

>>> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!
>> That's life. Why are they leaving?
>
> People stop using Usenet for a variety of reasons, including:
>
> - they found better alternatives for their use cases
> - they followed their communities elsewhere
> - they got sick of spam
> - they got sick of trolls (in the broadest possible sense)
> - they became too busy

That's my case --- often too busy. But I come back whenever I can and
right now I'm a phase where I think I can be here regularly.

> - they aged out

That's life.

[Julieta Shem]

r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

>>What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
>>education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
>>seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into.
>

> |The sage
> |does not recruit students;
> |the students seek him.
> from a part of a translation of the
> text of the I Ching diagram four.

I would totally agree with this part of this translation. I in no way
meant that we should be bringing any kids or anyone in here. That's no
good education. I think good education is /living/ a good education.
The fact that I exchange ideas here in the way that we do is one of my
contributions to the education of the world. I'm giving the example.
I'm often around the hip kids and they never find me in any of these
private networks. And often wonder why --- and I tell them. (I don't
even know how these other software-services work and I was never too
curious --- thankfully. It's easy for me to stay away because I dislike
them.)

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <87r0k2u...@yaxenu.org>, Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> wrote:
>r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>
>> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>>provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
>>>2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
>>>editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.
>>
>> Technically, I can answer any post I can still read, but
>> often people do not like it when one responds to old posts.
>
>Why not?

Because really there's no point in replying to a thread that ended thirty
years ago and where all the participants have died or at least left Usenet.

All the time on rec.audio.pro we get posts from people asking if that thing
that someone posted for sale in 1992 is still available. It likely is not.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Retrograde]

On 2023-12-04, Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> wrote:
>> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!
>
> That's life. Why are they leaving?

Cancer, mostly.

[Anton Shepelev]

Theo:

> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
> a) Sending you emails about activity. Then it's just a
> bad mailing list, because the emails typically do not
> convey the full content (they just say 'X posted to Y
> thread' or similar) so you have to visit the web site
> anyway

It is true only of idiotic modern forums, which force your
to visit them in order to monitise on it. Normal forums from
the dial-up days did send full notifictions, nor did they
stop sending them if you didn't visit the forum, so that you
had the entire discussion tree (properly threaded) in you e-
mail client.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

[Anton Shepelev]

Julieta Shem:

> A tool I never investigated properly is Discourse.

It is advertised as an alternatvie to mailing lists, but I
have not found it so. No, it does not work like a mailing
list at all. It garbles my beautiful plain-text hard-
wrapped formatting. It even fails to display my messages in
a monospace font unless I send Markdown direct from my
e-mail client (which is difficult and stupid). It requires
of me to use a modern browser on a modern OS on a modern PC,
even if only to register and enable its incomplete mailing-
list mode. A mailing list must be acessible to anyone with
but an e-mail client, without any browser, let alone a
phone. I have complained about it, but nobody cares, people
and projects are moving away from Usenet, IRC, and mailing
lists to Discourse and Discourd. Nobody seems to care
anymore.

[Anton Shepelev]

Dean:

> In the 90's for Open Source projects the "community
> platforms" where Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists

Many open-source projects /still/ are -- an omission
amounting to a lie.

> run on Listserv or Majordomo (Mailman didn't show up until
> 1999). IRC was used for text based chat but without SSL!.

I still use IRC without SSL from my old PC, and guess
what? -- no problem.

> CVS was the open source version control system of choice
> or you might have been unlucky enough to use Visual Source
> Safe at work, whilst Subversion wouldn't show up until
> 2000.

The reader's critical defences are being softened up.

> But the 90's are more than 20 years in the past and IPv6
> is actually seeing meaningful adoption now. Many of the
> above technologies are as completely foreign to people
> with 10+ years of industry experience as Compact
> Cassettes, VHS, LaserDisc and maybe CDs or even DVDs.

Irrelevant blather, a logical diversion to insinuate a false
analogy. By the way, some of the best music is /still/
being released exclusively on CD.

> As people have embraced Git and even now IPv6

This hackneyed malapropism of the word `embrace' betrays a
typical corporate speechwriter.

> -- we too can and must embrace newer platforms that offer

> a better experience for us humans as we work together on
> Perl related projects.

A false analogy again, for stupid readers. Why the funk
does he thing modern platform provide a better experience?

> This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate
> decisions to deprecate long cherished platforms, as we
> embrace contemporary alternatives.

Now flattery, makes you feel proud and to feel like an adult
to migrage your mailing list to Discourse, whereas in fact
it is a very childish decision.

> Will a newcomer have a satisfactory experience?

Why on earth should a system be optimised for newcomers
instead of expericed users? For no reason at all. Any
efficient tool or system is optimied primarily for
experienced user. Yes, modern comerical software is
optimised for newcomer, for obvious reasons.

> How discoverable is it?

How hypocritical. The corporate giants are working very hard
to make traditinal communication platforms undiscoverable.

> How high/low is the barrier of entry?

Yes, it should be reasonably high to repel lamers.

> How familiar is the interface to newcomers?

The less the better. To be efficient, the interface should
be adapted to experienced users.

> How intuitive and effective is the user interface?

About as intuitive as the vi(m) editor, that is -- intuitive
once you graps the concept, but before that.

> Will questions be taken seriously and answered in a timely
> manner?

Nothing to do with modern vs traditional communication
platforms, at least directly. Some modern platform
encourage early answers by rating systems, scores, and by
archiving old discussions. Those are stupid, artificial,
limitations.

> Is the platform providing reasonable privacy and
> moderation controls?

Experience has tought us that any centralised control may be
harmful to a good free-flowing discussion. But I see no
problems with either privact or moderation in mailinsg lists
or IRC.

> How much time will admins spend maintaining the platform
> compared to maintaining the community on the platform?

I can see throught that. Create a Discord account to let a
third party manage your platform. Futhermore, maintaining a
mailing list, IRC channel, or a Usenet group is not
difficult.

> Would it be set up now if it didn't already exist?

Say what?

> Mailing lists are a good example which we can compare to
> my criteria.

Then did not you apply them to mailing lists in a structural
manner, point by point?

> If you can find the right list

Not an argument. This assumes the right list is hard to
find, but no evidence is provided.

> Your email address is blasted out to all subscribers which
> aren't visible to you

Wrong: mailing list software can mask your address, if you
so desire.

> whilst your inbox is already being filled with all
> discussion on the list even if you're not interested

The author is unaware of server-side and client-side
filters. Setting one up to sort variousl mailng lists to
their individual folders (say, IMAP folder) is /very/ easy.
Alternatively, one can even activate vacation mode and
access all mailinsg lists via NNTP though Gmane.

> assuming there is any discussion.

Hypocritical assumption of the opposite, which he so desires
and works for.

> Good luck finding old questions or discussions to
> contribute or update on.

Mailing list usually have searchable arhives, plus one may
search in one's e-mail client. Unlike moder platforms,
replaying to old threads /is/ possible.

> Once something is sent it can never be edited or removed
> from recipients.

Great. Teaches one to respect one's readers, not to hurry,
to proof-read.

> Users have each others email addresses so can contact each
> other without moderation.

Oh, horrors! Of course, the author wants to contol all
their comminuication.

> You can set up filters in your email if you care to, but
> this is an inconsistent user interface that is user
> dependent and you're still having to maintain the folder's
> unread messages.

Great: one is free to choose one's favourite approach to
filtering.

> Emails themselves become dominated by reply text, making
> reviewing threads high effort and low signal compared to
> interfaces like reddit or even a classic but inferior
> webforum layout.

Everything in this sentence is wrong. Decicaed client
software provides super-efficient facilities for navigaing
between threads, messages, and inside a message. Quoted text
is efficiently managed, and minimied, because netiquette
requires that one quote only the relevant parts. A tree-like
hierarchy of messages is condiductive to conherence, by
keeping related messages together, which is impossible in
the flat layout. The Reddit interface is so heavy and
cluttered, they I will prefer and old flat webforum any day.

> If I started a new community I wouldn't create an email
> list.

Yeah, your stinking attitude was obvious from the start.

> Run IRC through the above criteria and its even worse!

I wonder: how many years have you been an active
partiticpant in IRC? Zero?

> To have a good experience users need to connect
> continuously or set up something that does.

Say what? How exactly do occasional disconnections hurt?

> Then try to sift through the stream of content to find
> some signal.

The magic of IRC is all about diving /into/ that stream of
content. Otherwise, you of course can relay on mentioned of
you nick, of which all clients notificy the user is one way
or other.

> If there's any significant activity, questions and
> comments will get lost in the stream or conflated with
> other discussion.

This is wrong. Can anybody recall a time when they had
trouble reading fast enough? Can anybody recall a situation
when they lost track of their discussion in an active IRC
channel? I can't. I don't know why it does not happen, but
it simply does not.

> So let's not, metaphorically speaking, hand new Perl
> programmers an audio cassette saying "this really is the
> best way to listen to music" and then expect them to take
> Perl seriously or to conclude that it is anything other
> than a dead language.

Not an argument. Just another false analogy.

[Julieta Shem]

Anton Shepelev <anto...@gmail.moc> writes:

> Julieta Shem:
>
>> A tool I never investigated properly is Discourse.
>
> It is advertised as an alternatvie to mailing lists, but I
> have not found it so. No, it does not work like a mailing
> list at all. It garbles my beautiful plain-text hard-
> wrapped formatting. It even fails to display my messages in
> a monospace font unless I send Markdown direct from my
> e-mail client (which is difficult and stupid). It requires
> of me to use a modern browser on a modern OS on a modern PC,
> even if only to register and enable its incomplete mailing-
> list mode. A mailing list must be acessible to anyone with
> but an e-mail client, without any browser, let alone a
> phone. I have complained about it, but nobody cares, people
> and projects are moving away from Usenet, IRC, and mailing
> lists to Discourse and Discourd. Nobody seems to care
> anymore.

Thanks for the report. (We may archive this subthread.)

Public-inbox at

https://public-inbox.org/README

looks pretty good.

[Rich]

Anton Shepelev <anto...@gmail.moc> wrote:

> Dean:
>
>> In the 90's for Open Source projects the "community platforms" where
>> Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists
>
> Many open-source projects /still/ are -- an omission amounting to a
> lie.

Journalists get things wrong all the time -- in fact it is much more
common for them to be wrong about nearly everything they write than for
them to actually be correct. This is what is behind the concept of
"Gell-Mann Amnesia" for readers
(https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/).

Now, while journalists do sometimes lie explicity (more often in
political contexts than others) most often their falsehoods are simply
because they have a journalism degree, and are writing about something
technnical that they simply do not understand in even the slightest.

> This hackneyed malapropism of the word `embrace' betrays a typical
> corporate speechwriter.

What do you think is the definition of "journalist" today. They *are*
"typical corporate speechwriters" by and large.

>> -- we too can and must embrace newer platforms that offer a better
>> experience for us humans as we work together on Perl related
>> projects.
>
> A false analogy again, for stupid readers. Why the funk does he thing
> modern platform provide a better experience?

Because the two people he asked questions are in that 'new youngster'
group that has only known 'modern platforms' and so obviously they said
"modern platforms offer a better experience" -- which he used directly
without thought (journalists seldom 'think').

>> Your email address is blasted out to all subscribers which aren't
>> visible to you
>
> Wrong: mailing list software can mask your address, if you so desire.

See "Journalist" above -- it is *very* likely this journalist has never
used a proper mailing list, ever, and his only real world connection to
one is the corporate email blast every three days trying to drum
eyeballs over to the advertising portal webpage.

>> whilst your inbox is already being filled with all discussion on the
>> list even if you're not interested
>
> The author is unaware of server-side and client-side filters. Setting
> one up to sort variousl mailng lists to their individual folders (say,
> IMAP folder) is /very/ easy. Alternatively, one can even activate
> vacation mode and access all mailinsg lists via NNTP though Gmane.

See "journalist" above -- yes, he is 100% unaware that one can have
server/client filtering to sort the emails into different boxes.

>> Users have each others email addresses so can contact each other
>> without moderation.
>
> Oh, horrors! Of course, the author wants to contol all their
> comminuication.

See "journalist" above -- his 'communications' goes through multiple
levels of editors -- so his world view is that it is good to do so, as
that is all he has ever known.

[Anton Shepelev]

Stefan Ram to Julieta Shem:

> > But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are
> > leaving!
>
> That's life.

Sounds fatalistic. Life is not an unstoppable cosmic force,
but rather something we humans forge for ourselves with our
decisions and actions.

[cr0c0d1le]

Anton Shepelev <anto...@gmail.moc> writes:

> Stefan Ram to Julieta Shem:
>
>> > But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are
>> > leaving!
>>
>> That's life.
>
> Sounds fatalistic. Life is not an unstoppable cosmic force,
> but rather something we humans forge for ourselves with our
> decisions and actions.

As someone who practices Stoicism, I would say the reverse is true. Fate
is set in stone, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't give your 100% in
whatever you undertake.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent.

[Anton Shepelev]

cr0c0d1le:

> > Sounds fatalistic. Life is not an unstoppable cosmic
> > force, but rather something we humans forge for
> > ourselves with our decisions and actions.
>
> As someone who practices Stoicism, I would say the reverse
> is true. Fate is set in stone, but it doesn't mean you
> shouldn't give your 100% in whatever you undertake.

So you have read the big four -- Epictetus, Musonius Rufus,
Marcus Aurelius (not a philosopher), and Seneca (not a
philosopher)? No, I do not believe fatalism/determinism is
postulated by all stoics, especially the Roman ones, who
concentrated on the practical, ethical aspect. The main
priciple, I am sure, is realising that man is in control of
his own perceptions and decisions, and cannot (entirely)
control externalities. This view does not require
determinism, does it?

> Sorry, I went off on a tangent.

Glad you did.

[D]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Anton Shepelev wrote:

> So you have read the big four -- Epictetus, Musonius Rufus,
> Marcus Aurelius (not a philosopher), and Seneca (not a
> philosopher)? No, I do not believe fatalism/determinism is
> postulated by all stoics, especially the Roman ones, who
> concentrated on the practical, ethical aspect. The main
> priciple, I am sure, is realising that man is in control of
> his own perceptions and decisions, and cannot (entirely)
> control externalities. This view does not require
> determinism, does it?

I agree. Determinism tends to lead to passivity and at worst collapse
into some kind of solipsism, if you really believe in it. The fact that
people argue that you still should give your best, paradoxically weakens
their position, since the act of arguing that is itself and argument
against determinism.

I have no read anything about determinism in the above, but I have read
about indifference, but in my opinion, that indifference in the classics
is not equivalent to determinism.

Best regards,
Daniel

[D]

And another thought... maybe this could be a good opportunity to revive
alt.philosophy.debate?

Best regards,
Daniel

[Anton Shepelev]

Anton Shepelev:
<20231230212158.f119...@gmail.moc>

Life is not an unstoppable cosmic force, but rather
something we humans forge for ourselves with our
decisions and actions.

cr0c0d1le:

As someone who practices Stoicism, I would say the
reverse is true. Fate is set in stone, but it doesn't
mean you shouldn't give your 100% in whatever you
undertake.

Anton Shepelev:

So you have read the big four -- Epictetus, Musonius
Rufus, Marcus Aurelius (not a philosopher), and Seneca
(not a philosopher)? No, I do not believe
fatalism/determinism is postulated by all stoics,
especially the Roman ones, who concentrated on the
practical, ethical aspect. The main priciple, I am sure,
is realising that man is in control of his own
perceptions and decisions, and cannot (entirely) control
externalities. This view does not require determinism,
does it?

D: I agree. Determinism tends to lead to passivity and at

worst collapse into some kind of solipsism, if you really
believe in it. The fact that people argue that you still
should give your best, paradoxically weakens their
position, since the act of arguing that is itself and
argument against determinism.

I have no read anything about determinism in the above,
but I have read about indifference, but in my opinion,
that indifference in the classics is not equivalent to
determinism.

And another thought... maybe this could be a good
opportunity to revive alt.philosophy.debate?

I don't think this is a subject for debate, but rather for
an easy conversation over tea. Redirected to alt.philosophy.