As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum software.
By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like disqus[1].

My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).

Is there anything specific holding us back?

[1] http://disqus.com

On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:11:52 UTC, bossfong wrote:
> As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
> I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum software.
> By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like disqus[1].
>
> My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
>
> Is there anything specific holding us back?

Many core contributors, as well as Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu, communicate using news and email software (using the NNTP server and mailing list gateway). It would be unreasonable to ask them to switch. This forum was created as a compromise, as it provides a forum-like interface for those who prefer one, without dividing the community.

Which Disqus features would you like to see in the forum interface?

In 2014 e-mail is pretty much still only good communication technology.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:

> As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
> developers scene is done in mailing lists.
> I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
> discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's
> counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum
> software.
> By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like
> disqus[1].
> 
> My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
> 
> Is there anything specific holding us back?
> 
> [1] http://disqus.com

I think most of us use email or newsreader software to participate, while the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.  I'm curious why you think that mailing-lists are a counterproductive way of handling this type of discussion, particularly when much of the OSS developed in the last twenty years has been managed and coordinated using mailing-lists.

Justin

On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:11:52 UTC, bossfong wrote:
> As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
> I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum software.
> By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like disqus[1].
>
> My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
>
> Is there anything specific holding us back?
>
> [1] http://disqus.com

I don't see anything from that which would make it better for heated discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies. Votes are probably the only thing missing because they eliminate the need for "+1" posts.

On 03/12/2014 07:30 PM, Jesse Phillips wrote:
>
> I don't see anything from that which would make it better for heated
> discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies. Votes are probably
> the only thing missing because they eliminate the need for "+1" posts.

They also reduce the incentive for substantiation.

On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 06:20:05PM +0000, Justin Whear wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:
> 
> > As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
> > developers scene is done in mailing lists.  I strongly believe that
> > mailing-lists are not suited for heated discussions on very specific
> > issues. I even belive it's counter-productive when comparing the
> > discussion flow with modern forum software.
> > By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like
> > disqus[1].
> > 
> > My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
> > 
> > Is there anything specific holding us back?
> > 
> > [1] http://disqus.com
> 
> I think most of us use email or newsreader software to participate, while the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users. I'm curious why you think that mailing-lists are a counterproductive way of handling this type of discussion, particularly when much of the OSS developed in the last twenty years has been managed and coordinated using mailing-lists.
[...]

I use the mailing list interface, because I personally can't stand any of the new-fangled "discussion" or "forum" interfaces. The most glaring lack in those new interfaces is a sane way to handle threading. Yes, I know that they *do* handle threading... but only barely. There is no way, for example, to mark an entire subthread as "ignore", or delete all messages in a thread *except* a given subthread, collapse a subthread, or have a sane way to navigate them without using the mouse. (I hate the mouse. Mouse-driven UIs are horribly inefficient, and are the equivalent of point-and-grunt in a day and age where literacy is supposed to be the norm. Talk about poor human-computer communication.) Support for quoting important elements from previous posts is iffy at best, totally unusable at worst (copy-n-paste then manually insert quote tags -- what a waste of time!).  No way to locally archive selected messages / subthreads without unreasonable amounts of manual copy-n-pasting.  There's no way to filter out uninteresting threads with a killfile, etc.. No sane way to search for a regex in a subthread. No way to select some quoted code and pipe it to a script that compiles and runs it (needs manual copy-n-paste, blecch). No way to load some code from a local file and indent it with an extra tab (or 4 spaces :P) so that it can be used as a snippet in a reply (again, requires manual copy-n-paste + manual fixup afterwards). No way to apply a diff by piping the message to `patch` in the appropriate working directory (more copy-n-paste, which also mangles the formatting and makes `patch` reject the diff). Need I go on?

tl;dr, I find these so-called "modern" forum interfaces nigh unusable, and only barely tolerable. They barely scratch the surface of functionality that I currently have at my fingertips, and yet they require a browser with all of its bloat and memory / CPU consumption, all just to display some text and pictures on the screen and present a crippled UI.  Frankly, if the discussion were to take place on a web forum, I simply wouldn't participate.  Give me back my plain text interface, thank you very much.

(Caveat: I know I'm a minority in these views, so don't get offended. I
do feel very strongly about these things. :))


T

-- 
The peace of mind---from knowing that viruses which exploit Microsoft system vulnerabilities cannot touch Linux---is priceless. -- Frustrated system administrator.

On 03/12/2014 07:51 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> Caveat: I know I'm a minority in these views,

Not around here, I hope.

On 03/12/2014 07:11 PM, bossfong wrote:
> As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
> developers scene is done in mailing lists.
> I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
> discussions on very specific issues.

I happen to know that they are suited quite well, so please substantiate.

> I even belive it's
> counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum
> software.

I don't understand. A comparison of paces will not change the direction of progress.

> By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like disqus[1].
> ...

Note that at this point I don't know what 'discussion centric' means, except that it sounds 'modern'.

> My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software

Well, all content is available from the server.

> (even though I
> value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
> ...

This is the only actual (if weak) argument presented, and it goes against your suggestion. Are there others?

> Is there anything specific holding us back?
>
> [1] http://disqus.com

I've read more of that than I wanted, and I am not smarter now. The entire page appears to be a sales pitch devoid of content relevant to our case.

On 03/12/2014 09:27 PM, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 03/12/2014 07:11 PM, bossfong wrote:
>> As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
>> developers scene is done in mailing lists.
>> I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
>> discussions on very specific issues.
>
> I happen to know that they are suited quite well, so please substantiate.

(Assuming 'mailing list' includes this newsgroup.)