Re: Mailing lists? Really?

On 7/28/2010 1:13 PM, Ds Jstc wrote:
> I've been using subversion in a lighthearted way for a couple of years,
> recommending it to clients, sending a little money to Tigris now and
> then. It works very well for most of what I need it for. But I have one
> big problem that I can't resolve.
>
> It's this: the mailing list paradigm drives me insane.

If you have more than a couple of interests, mailing lists are the only
way to keep up - the messages come to you in one place instead of you
have to cycle among all of them.

> I want to search for solutions, complain about my favorite missing
> features, and reply to other people's problems when I've already solved
> them.

Realistically, how often are you going to go out of your way to look for
other people's questions if they don't come to you automatically? The
places I've seen that use forums - or have forum/email gateways get
questions on the forums but unless there is a paid staff for the product
they don't get answers.

> But I can't seem to do that without subscribing to the mailing
> list. And my inbox is entirely full enough, thank you.

Get a free email account at gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. and use that to
subscribe. Don't try to mix list traffic with a work account.

> There are probably thousands of competent, helpful people like me who
> would love to participate, but won't subscribe to yet another list.

I'm not convinced. It is no harder to participate in dozens of lists
than just one.

> You
> aren't hearing from them... because they're not subscribed. Please
> change over to a threaded forum, so I can participate without resorting
> to email.

I'd never bother to visit dozens of different forums.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell_at_gmail.com