Re: [Caml-list] Discourse instance for the OCaml community? (was: how to encourage adoption of OCaml?)

[SP <sp@orbitalfox.com>]

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 09:21:48AM +0200, Andreas Rossberg wrote:
>To paraphrase Dijkstra, IMHO email and mailing lists are an improvement over more “modern” forums in almost every way, once you get past the “flashiness” thing:
>- participation without having to constantly log into yet another account (with potential tracking),
>- all communication through the same tool/UI (that actually works), easy cross-communication and cross-quoting, archiving in one place, etc
> [..]
>- no annoying gamification,
>- open, standardised and guaranteed to still be around in 5 or 10 years from now.
>Also, IME, email generally encourages a slower, more considerate and more comprehensive discussion style.

Exactly. Earlier in the discussion I expressed a similar opinion (didn't
expand as much) but it was ignored and they are plodding on. I hope your
message won't be ignored either.

>Discourse has an email gateway, but last time I looked, it wasn’t deemed very usable.

Mailman 3 adds a web interface for those who prefer it. I think the
OCaml lists at Inria don't use Mailman though.

>It would be sad to fragment the (not so huge) OCaml community just to
>hop onto the latest train in forum fashion, be it Discourse or the next
>thing. I’m sure we would lose some people on the way (happened with
>Rust). I’m less sure about the people we gonna win over that way.

I concur. Again, I hope this time around this case won't be ignored.

-- 
	SP