Hi Niclas, The thing about archiving is a great point and I agree with you that it is important to have archives that survive technologies disruptions, and mailing lists are unparalleled there. The main thing I see here is that we would want to be inclusive and bring discussions back to archives, either through automatic means or manual means. It is not always an argument to reject "newer tech". For any technology we choose, we need to be extremely careful with data lock-in and mitigate the risks when the technology disappears.
Also absolutely agree that there is a big difference between dev@ and user@. Jeff - I understand why it was a shock to you when I mentioned "wechat" and why you would draw parallel to snapchat. I personally don't get why people would use wechat for serious business, since it is painful to type on a mobile phone, but it is very common in China. Dozens of Apache projects have wechat groups (mostly by users of those projects and not by PMCs or committers, with some projects having multiple groups with thousands of users). On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Jeff Genender <jgenen...@savoirtech.com> wrote: > > > On Nov 13, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Reynold Xin <r...@apache.org> wrote: > > > > "a better global way to A) communicate across a medium that everyone > uses daily B) archive to search and come back to" > > > > How would we even validate or decide that? For discussions like this it > is very easy to fall into confirmation bias. > > How? Dunno… maybe about 17 years of historical data from Apache? This > one is pretty easy to “confirm”, no? > > > > > I use mailing lists all the time since it is the Apache Way, but I also > admit there are potentially better ways for other projects. People that are > used to mailing lists might think mailing lists are the best thing in the > world, but the reality is that majority of the developers in this world, > outside a few core open source projects, have never used mailing lists. If > we talk to the QQ/Wechat/web-based-forum generation in China and force them > to use mailing lists, they might comply because it is the Apache Way, but > they will also develop the sentiment that the ASF refuses to change and > adapt newer technologies. > > Wechat? Really? Lets throw in Snapchat too while we are at it so there > is no footprint for that discussion. Seriously? Reynold, is this really > coming from you of all people? > > This project wanted to come to Apache, right? Did they (or other Chinese > projects) not look at the way things are done and all of a sudden have an > issue with it? I’m just sayin’… there shouldn’t be surprises here, right? > > Jeff > > > > > > And to be honest, while I think mailing lists are great for simple > voting and information dissemination, there are obvious downsides of > mailing lists too. That's why a lot of projects also augment mailing lists > via video discussions, google docs for commenting, wiki, etc. > > > > In reality, there are also legal reasons why we use mailing lists, and > those are not as well known. We should document those and make them more > visible too. > > > > > > > > On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 12:25 PM, Jeff Genender <jgenen...@apache.org > <mailto:jgenen...@apache.org>> wrote: > > > On Nov 13, 2016, at 11:33 AM, Gunnar Tapper <tapper.gun...@gmail.com > <mailto:tapper.gun...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > As mentioned, the Apache Way is that "everything happens on the > mailing lists." As a matter of fact, key parts of being an incubator is to > learn how to operate per the Apache Way and to build communities. We even > include statistics about mailing list engagement as an indicator of > community building. > > > > > > > Gunnar, I’m going to give you a big -1 to this. > > > > Unless you can come up with a better global way to A) communicate across > a medium that everyone uses daily B) archive to search and come back to, I > am in full disagreement. Since I have been with Apache (about 14 years), I > have yet to find a better medium than the lists, and its always been a > known fact that ultimately, any non-mail list discussions that result in > some form of a decision are brought to the mail lists for global discussion. > > > > Our mail lists are indexed by Google and others. Its easy to find what > one looks for. > > > > Jeff > > > > > >
