MacPorts forum(s)? (was: Re: memberlist)

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Tuesday February 10 2015 17:45:39 Lawrence Velázquez wrote:

> "Complementary" implies that the items in question reinforce each other in a positive manner.

I think they would, but who am I ... =)

> Having both forums and mailing lists would be harmful to the community. We'd end up with two bubbles (one much smaller, probably) that don't interact with each other.

I'd take that as an indication that the (much) larger one works better - and let the other one die its natural death if that's its fate.

As to being harmful to the community: the current mailing lists are intended mostly for support and technical issues. That creates a bit of a one-sided, single-minded community, no? (and I'm almost tempted to say - what community ;))

IMHO, a forum would be much more conductive to organising things like collaborative efforts, user groups, but also to run polls etc. 

Anyway, macports-dev was probably not the best place to bring this up...

> > to get distracted.
> 
> Use email filters.

Bah, doesn't work. Just means more locations to check for new email ...

> Use Mailman digests.

Except that those contain all messages of all subjects, instead of 1 message per thread. A good threading email client would be better, and doesn't oblige you to copy paste subject lines and the relevant bits of a message before you can even start replying.

> Like third-party archive sites basically do?

No, I had the reverse in mind, for people who don't want to visit a forum but still subscribe to what's going on there.
There is forum software that allows you to add a comment by replying to the alert/emails you get.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep defending the idea in a resounding void of indifference and lack of enthusiasm, but let it go the way of the dodo (like myself, but under the French meaning of sleep) =)

R.