Quoting Luis Villa (l...@lu.is):
> I obviously agree that using simple tools is better, and barriers to
> entry must be kept reasonably low, but email is deceptively simple. It
> provides lots of ways to create vast morasses of email ("it is simple
> - just hit send!") , and no ways to turn vast morasses of discussion
> into something better and more useful. For example, someone complained
> that Discourse is not archivable, but even if that were true, I'd
> rather have a good, consistent, timely summary of big threads than the
> actual threads.
What I said was quite a bit more nuanced and carefully worded than that:
About archiving, I said that its heavy AJAX-orientation combined with
continuous scrolling makes it nearly impossible to (locally,
independently) save archived copies of traffic. Obviously, anything
displayable on a Web browser can be archived if you're determined
enough and diligently do it manually -- each and every time. (By
contrast, everything I've ever e-mailed since round 1992 has been
autocopied to ~/Mail/* and is still there in case it's needed again..)
Moreover, on a related matter, I mentioned that to my knowledge (and in
my experience) it and other continuously scrolled Web-forums have
slim-to-no representation on Web search engines, and none on archiving
repositories such as web.archive.org (Internet Archive). I infer that
Discourse forums' absence that I have observed on (at least)
web.archive.org owes to their continuous-scrolled design, but I could be
mis-guessing about root cause.
What I didn't go on to say at the time (as it was out of scope for that
topic), but am glad to say now, is that certainly mailing lists (and
newsgroups) have damning deficiencies for organising and tracking issues.
They're also pretty dreadful as a way to capture knowledge -- for all
the reasons you mention, Luis, among others.
The usual remedy, in my experience, is to combine that or some
alternative discussion medium (e.g., a Web forum) with a different tool
that is more suited to task. That could be something as simple as wiki
pages maintained by a limited group of people.
> I suggested [Discourse] in part because administration is quite easy;
> if hosted by discourse.org, much less effort than a mailing list or
> the sad excuse for the state of the art in wikis :(
For clarification, are you talking about an arrangement where users
would be required to enter a contractual relationship with Civilized
Discourse Construction Kit, Inc. (CDCK aka 'discourse.org'), in order to
participate in a Discourse forum hosted by 'discourse.org' for OSI?
I.e., would this be one of those things where we'd have to agree to
CDCK terms of service and give them a bunch of legal rights, in
consideration of which we can use the CDCK-hosted OSI forum?
Previous to this moment, I'd assumed you were talking about OSI
operating a self-hosted Discourse instance, rather than OSI outsourcing
that initiative, and implicitly requiring contributors to enter into a
contractual relationsihip with a for-profit El Cerrito, California
corporation.
--
Cheers, "I am a member of a civilization (IAAMOAC). Step back
Rick Moen from anger. Study how awful our ancestors had it, yet
r...@linuxmafia.com they struggled to get you here. Repay them by appreciating
McQ! (4x80) the civilization you inherited." -- David Brin
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