Moving to dev@community — take 2 (the reply-to in the last one was to board@)
> On Oct 20, 2017, at 10:56 AM, Harbs <ha...@in-tools.com > <mailto:ha...@in-tools.com>> wrote: > > I’m wondering if it makes sense to take a step back and rethink email and > communication. This feels like part of a bigger challenge. > > Apache has gotten big enough that email overload is becoming (became?) an > issue. The market at large has been making efforts to solve the email > overload issue with varying degrees of success. Slack come to mind as an > example (with mixed success). > > To be clear, I’m NOT suggesting that we should replace email with something > like Slack, but I do think it might be beneficial to examine some of the > techniques out there to make communication more manageable. > > There’s an additional element to the problem as I see it: A certain amount of > chit-chat is important for maintaining a sense of community. However when the > chit-chat becomes overwhelming it backfires. > > Some concepts which might be worth exploring: > > 1. Priority — If there was some way to subscribe to emails about a certain > priority level, it could be much easier to only get what’s appropriate and/or > filter out the unimportant items. > 2. Better threading — If there was a way to not see (by default) chit-chat > threads that one does not participate in, that could enable side discussions > while not being overwhelming. > 3. Topic tags / subtopics — I find the Slack channels to be very helpful. I > generally subscribe to any channels which I’m slightly interested in, but > being able to instantly see which channels have discussions allows me to > decide whether I have the time or interest at the moment to read it. > > Now, I have no idea how to go about implementing any of these ideas, but it > feels like that in this day and age, these should be solvable problems. > > Some thoughts on possible directions: > - better use of email features. Email headers can have priority set. How can > we take advantage of this? > - Finer-grained subscriptions. Right now it’s binary. You are either > subscribed or not subscribed to a list. (Yes. I know there’s digests, but > those don’t really count.) There’s no way to subscribe to lists based on > content or headers, etc. (How) can this be improved? > - Would it make sense to create an “Apache Communication App” tailor made to > the needs of Apache communication? We have some of the best minds in software > architecture here, and it feels like if anyone can do this, it should be us… > ;-) Besides having the potential of solving these issues and more, it could > be useful for alerting folks about and collaborating on time-critical issues > (such as the recent media responses about Struts). > > Thoughts? > > Harbs > >> On Oct 19, 2017, at 11:19 PM, jan iversen <jancasacon...@gmail.com >> <mailto:jancasacon...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >> >> >> Sent from my iPad >> >> On 19 Oct 2017, at 21:17, Kevin Meyer <ke...@kmz.co.za >> <mailto:ke...@kmz.co.za>> wrote: >> >>> Call me grumpy but my pet peeve are the numerous *personal responses* to a >>> board member that are cc'd to board@ whenever a board member announces when >>> they go on vacation, has a personal issue, etc. >>> Communication is great, but "have fun, get well and condolences" *replies* >>> don't need to go 200+ PMC chair mailboxes! >> >> Count me as grumpy as well :-) >> >> and filtering those are quite a challenge. >> >> rgds >> jan i >>> >>> Kevin >>> >>> On 19 October 2017 18:24:10 CEST, Tom <t...@falkensweb.com >>> <mailto:t...@falkensweb.com>> wrote: >>> +1 >>> As my first month on this list, it's a torrent. >>> It's just encouraging me to divert it all out of my inbox, so guarantees >>> I'll miss the important things because I'm drowned in robot generated near >>> identical mails about a couple of hundred projects. >>> >>> -- >>> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. >
