Hello Maxim, I know this message is a reply to Gabriel, but I would like to clarify something.
Maxim Cournoyer <[email protected]> writes: > Sure, why not :-). Or if it's really important, as someone else > suggested, we could even message all the committers directly (though > that shouldn't be abused). That may not be easy right now, but we could > have for example a mail entry for the people registered in > .guix-authorization file, that etc/teams.scm could present in a > convenient way to send an email. > > For comparison, how would Zulip solve that problem? You would also need > to define a group/alias for the committers, I assume? My main idea with the Zulip proposal was not to replace the devel mailing list, I know this very ingrained in the community and it's not realistic to change for now. What I'm more concerned about is IRC and the Guix help mailing list, as well as all the unofficial rooms where newcomers seek assistance (Matrix, XMPP, Telegram, etc.). I would like to sunset those with a communication platform more familiar for newcomers used to interact with modern platforms. One that does not require a bouncer and that is easily accessible from a phone. As I stated before, one of the advantages of Zulip, in contrast with any of the existent unofficial platforms, is that we will get an accessible and searchable knowledge base of user questions and answers. > The nice thing about mailing list is that the data is out there for > anyone to use, and there are typically various frontends to > access/search it. For Guix/Guile there is Yhetil > (https://yhetil.org/guix/) which is hosting public-inbox instance. I > think it's good! It has never been good enough for me when I was starting, but I understand that your mileage my vary. In any case, that's an unofficial client. The official one for the project are the archives[1]; which, in my opinion, are not user friendly. [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix >> I again agree on the account >> creation thing. But then—again—we should consider reach (beyond who has >> already boarded the hacker's Guix train) and think about scalability and >> **community**. We have not one medium where many, most or (dare to >> imagine!) all feel welcome, read, take part in discussions. This is >> bad. If we want to be a big project that allows as many people as >> possible to partake (and this not only means: send in patches but rather >> voice their opinions and read important stuff when it happens) then we >> absolutely need to open our minds to the problems we currently have. > > And is email really the problem?. Your introduction to the problem at > hand in your original mail: I think it is a problem for newcomers, specially for the purpose that Guix help and the IRC room try to fulfill. The shortcomings of the official platform has lead to the current fragmentation of the communications channels. A fragmentation not necessarily present in other communities. To clarify, I'm not discussing here whether we should do anything about the devel mailing list, this is purely about the newcomer's barrier of entry. Best regards, Sergio
