On 4 Mar 2026, at 12:04, Guus der Kinderen <[email protected]> wrote: > Personally, I am not in favor of abandoning mailing lists for this type of > discussion. Mailing lists have several important advantages: > Time to respond thoughtfully: Mailing lists allow participants to carefully > compose responses. Some people are naturally quick at finding the right words > in real time, but others (also including many for whom English is not a > native language) benefit from (or simply prefer) having more time to reflect. > For example, composing this email took me 41 minutes (longer than I care to > admit), a duration that would generally be impractical in a live chat room. > Asynchronous participation and time zones: Mailing lists naturally allow > people to contribute "later" which is much harder to do in chat rooms (where > conversations 'moved on'). This is especially helpful for people in different > time zones or those who cannot respond immediately. > Offline processing and focus: Threads in a mailing list are ordered and easy > to read offline. Chat rooms often mix multiple topics, making it harder to > follow the discussion. In practice, I don't expect the majority of people to > scroll back in history, which significantly reduces the potential reach. > Engaging quieter participants: Mailing lists often generate responses from > participants who do not otherwise join MUC discussions. > Record keeping and referencing: Mailing list archives provide a single, > persistent URL for referencing discussions. Chat logs are often fragmented > and thus lack a canonical link.
Strongly agree with this. /K
