subject:"\[Python\-ideas\] Clearer communication"

On Sat, Feb 02, 2019 at 11:12:02AM -0500, James Lu wrote:

> This list IS hard for newcomers. I wish there was one place where I 
> could read up on how to not feel like a noob.

It has become unfashionable to link to this, because it is allegedly too 
elitest and unfriendly and not welcoming enough, but I still think it is 
extremely valuable:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

(Its also somewhat unpopular because the maintainer has become 
something of a politically Right-wing extremist.)

If you think of *proposals* as a kind of question:

"What are the Pros and Cons of this suggestion?"

rather than

"We must do this. I have spoken, make it so!"

then the Smart Questions document is relevant. Do your research first. 
What have you tried? Have you tried to knock holes in your own proposal 
or are you so excited by the Pros that you are blind to the Cons? What 
do other languages do? Do they differ from Python in ways which matter 
to your proposal?

Did you make even a feeble attempt to search the archives, 
Stackoverflow, etc, or just post the first ill-formed thought that came 
to your mind?

If your proposal been asked before, unless you are bringing something 
new to the discussion, don't waste everyone's time covering old ground.

-- 
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Sat, Feb 02, 2019 at 10:59:36AM -0500, James Lu wrote:

> I think we need to step away from the egalitarian ideal and have some 
> way of knowing that Python committees are python committers. It’s 
> really difficult to know how well your proposal is doing without 
> having this.

Speaking of clearer communication (see the subject line), who are you 
referring to and which proposal do you mean?


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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread James Lu

I think we need to step away from the egalitarian ideal and have some way of 
knowing that Python committees are python committers. It’s really difficult to 
know how well your proposal is doing without having this.
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread James Lu

This list IS hard for newcomers. I wish there was one place where I could read 
up on how to not feel like a noob. 
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread James Lu

It’s very demotivating to hear just negative feedback on this list.

Was starting this thread useful for y’all?
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread Adrien Ricocotam

The community is really opened on the subject and I didn't receive any bad
feelings about my English writing.
I just wanted to remember everyone that a lot of us are non-native and
despite the fact we speak well, we might not actually transmit exactly
what we thought, nor understand what was meant. It's already not always the
case when speaking native language.

Actually my paragraph was more a point to introduce the following one :
detailing what we said doesn't necessary mean we think the other is dumb.
A lot of my sentence formulations are inspires by french and might mislead
the understanding. A french would probably get what I mean, non-french will
probably not.

But we're focusing on something that's not the central subject here (even
though it's pretty important).

Le sam. 2 févr. 2019 à 15:30, Hasan Diwan  a écrit :

>
> On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 06:12, Paul Moore  wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 13:55, Adrien Ricocotam 
>> wrote:
>> > Just a point about writing clear and precise English. For a good part
>> of the audience and the writers, English is not our native language. Even
>> if I’m considered good in English according to the standards in France,
>> will far from being bilingual and expressing myself in English is not that
>> easy. Technical discussions are not easy, no matter the language. Using a
>> different language is harder and makes it really difficult some times.
>> That’s why, in my case, I felt I mis expressed myself and proposed
>> explanations on the answers I gave : I thought that was not clear because
>> I’m not English-speaker.
>>
>
> Agreed 100%.
>
> There's also a cultural difference between, even, the UK and the US,
> whereby I'll mean certain things one way and have others interpret it
> differently. For example, the expression to "table" something, means the
> opposite across the pond.  When my American colleagues say things like
> "let's table that", I always have to pinch myself to realise that means
> "put it off" and not "talk about it right now". And I **am** a native
> English speaker, despite what my name would lead some to believe.
>
> The above written, I have found that the python community, insofar as I've
> interacted with it, is more understanding and tolerant of these
> communication nuances when compared to other communities. -- H
>
> One point I will make - for myself (and maybe for the other native
>> English speakers here) I find it really hard to determine when someone
>> here is not a native speaker, basically because in general their
>> English is so good that it's hard to tell! (I certainly couldn't
>> communicate in any way effectively in French, which is the only
>> language I could even claim to have a basic grasp of outside of
>> English). So I'm sure some misunderstandings come from simply assuming
>> people meant what they said, when in fact they were trying to say
>> something slightly different, but didn't realise the nuances.
>
>
>> It's hard to know what to do about this. As an English speaker I try
>> to remember that not everyone is a native speaker, but being able to
>> communicate effectively in another language *at all* is sufficiently
>> foreign to my experience that I can't really understand the
>> implications of being in that position. And expecting non-native
>> speakers to continually remind us that they are speaking in a language
>> other than their native one is unreasonable - not least because they
>> are communicating better than many native speakers (in my experience).
>>
>> I guess the best answer is the usual one - assume good faith on
>> everyone's part, and forgive minor inaccuracies. Also, while pedantic
>> precision is common in technical discussions (and speaking for myself,
>> something I often overindulge in for the fun of it...) it's better
>> avoided in discussions on the list, where the fine distinctions
>> involved may be lost on other participants.
>>
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread Hasan Diwan

On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 06:12, Paul Moore  wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 13:55, Adrien Ricocotam  wrote:
> > Just a point about writing clear and precise English. For a good part of
> the audience and the writers, English is not our native language. Even if
> I’m considered good in English according to the standards in France, will
> far from being bilingual and expressing myself in English is not that easy.
> Technical discussions are not easy, no matter the language. Using a
> different language is harder and makes it really difficult some times.
> That’s why, in my case, I felt I mis expressed myself and proposed
> explanations on the answers I gave : I thought that was not clear because
> I’m not English-speaker.
>

Agreed 100%.

There's also a cultural difference between, even, the UK and the US,
whereby I'll mean certain things one way and have others interpret it
differently. For example, the expression to "table" something, means the
opposite across the pond.  When my American colleagues say things like
"let's table that", I always have to pinch myself to realise that means
"put it off" and not "talk about it right now". And I **am** a native
English speaker, despite what my name would lead some to believe.

The above written, I have found that the python community, insofar as I've
interacted with it, is more understanding and tolerant of these
communication nuances when compared to other communities. -- H

One point I will make - for myself (and maybe for the other native
> English speakers here) I find it really hard to determine when someone
> here is not a native speaker, basically because in general their
> English is so good that it's hard to tell! (I certainly couldn't
> communicate in any way effectively in French, which is the only
> language I could even claim to have a basic grasp of outside of
> English). So I'm sure some misunderstandings come from simply assuming
> people meant what they said, when in fact they were trying to say
> something slightly different, but didn't realise the nuances.


> It's hard to know what to do about this. As an English speaker I try
> to remember that not everyone is a native speaker, but being able to
> communicate effectively in another language *at all* is sufficiently
> foreign to my experience that I can't really understand the
> implications of being in that position. And expecting non-native
> speakers to continually remind us that they are speaking in a language
> other than their native one is unreasonable - not least because they
> are communicating better than many native speakers (in my experience).
>
> I guess the best answer is the usual one - assume good faith on
> everyone's part, and forgive minor inaccuracies. Also, while pedantic
> precision is common in technical discussions (and speaking for myself,
> something I often overindulge in for the fun of it...) it's better
> avoided in discussions on the list, where the fine distinctions
> involved may be lost on other participants.
>
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread Paul Moore

On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 13:55, Adrien Ricocotam  wrote:
> Just a point about writing clear and precise English. For a good part of the 
> audience and the writers, English is not our native language. Even if I’m 
> considered good in English according to the standards in France, will far 
> from being bilingual and expressing myself in English is not that easy. 
> Technical discussions are not easy, no matter the language. Using a different 
> language is harder and makes it really difficult some times. That’s why, in 
> my case, I felt I mis expressed myself and proposed explanations on the 
> answers I gave : I thought that was not clear because I’m not English-speaker.

One point I will make - for myself (and maybe for the other native
English speakers here) I find it really hard to determine when someone
here is not a native speaker, basically because in general their
English is so good that it's hard to tell! (I certainly couldn't
communicate in any way effectively in French, which is the only
language I could even claim to have a basic grasp of outside of
English). So I'm sure some misunderstandings come from simply assuming
people meant what they said, when in fact they were trying to say
something slightly different, but didn't realise the nuances.

It's hard to know what to do about this. As an English speaker I try
to remember that not everyone is a native speaker, but being able to
communicate effectively in another language *at all* is sufficiently
foreign to my experience that I can't really understand the
implications of being in that position. And expecting non-native
speakers to continually remind us that they are speaking in a language
other than their native one is unreasonable - not least because they
are communicating better than many native speakers (in my experience).

I guess the best answer is the usual one - assume good faith on
everyone's part, and forgive minor inaccuracies. Also, while pedantic
precision is common in technical discussions (and speaking for myself,
something I often overindulge in for the fun of it...) it's better
avoided in discussions on the list, where the fine distinctions
involved may be lost on other participants.

Paul
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-02 Thread Adrien Ricocotam

Thanks Steve, that’s a good point, I might have been in one of the bad
things you describe.

It’s kinda funny that Python is conservative while being heavily used in
the most recent techonologies (referring to machine learning). I personally
think it’s not good but I might be too young for being conservative.

Just a point about writing clear and precise English. For a good part of
the audience and the writers, English is not our native language. Even if
I’m considered good in English according to the standards in France, will
far from being bilingual and expressing myself in English is not that easy.
Technical discussions are not easy, no matter the language. Using a
different language is harder and makes it really difficult some times.
That’s why, in my case, I felt I mis expressed myself and proposed
explanations on the answers I gave : I thought that was not clear because
I’m not English-speaker.

Another point, if when answering you (and others including me) you
understood farther than the author, juste say what you understood further
and all the implications. It will benefit everyone and discard ambiguities
(especially for new-comers).

On Sat 2 Feb 2019 at 13:45, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 11:40:37AM -0500, James Lu wrote:
>
> > So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?
>
> Remember the Curse of Knowledge: just because you know something, don't
> imagine that all your readers know it too.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
>
>
> https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-curse-of-knowledge-pinker-describes-a-key-cause-of-bad-writing
>
> https://sites.williams.edu/nk2/files/2011/08/Curse_of_Knowledge.pdf
>
> Try putting yourself in the reader's position. Will they understand what
> you are talking about? Re-read (and edit) your email for clarity before
> you hit send.
>
> Read your own email when it arrives in your inbox. If there are any
> major mistakes or confusing bits, reply to the list and clarify. With
> luck, maybe people will read your clarification before they respond.
>
> Try not to make rapid-fire knee-jerk responses to other people. (I know
> that's one bit of advice I personally find hard to follow.)
>
> Try to write clear and precise language.
>
>
> https://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/style_purpose_strategy/writing_clearly.html
>
> But note that *clear* and *precise* are often opposed to each other. The
> page above gives an example:
>
> The biota exhibited a one hundred percent mortality response.
>
> All the fish died.
>
> but the two sentences don't mean the same thing. (In the first,
> *everything* died; in the second, only the fish died.)
>
> Jargon is a double-edged sword for this reason: not everyone will know
> what the jargon means, but for those that do, jargon terms are both
> concise and precise in ways that plain English terms usually are not. As
> programmers, we use a lot of jargon, but remember than not everyone has
> the same background. My obvious technical term may be your obfuscatory
> gibberish.
>
> If you expect that a jargon term will be unfamiliar, either explain what
> you mean, or give a link to a site that explains it. If you're not sure
> whether a jargon term will be unfamiliar to others, remember the Curse
> of Knowledge: it probably will be.
>
> Remember that *most ideas are bad* -- that is equally true here as on
> Wikipedia:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_ideas_are_bad
>
> Be critical about your own ideas before you post. Try to anticipate
> objections. Either you will decide the objections are right, or you may
> be able to pre-empt them.
>
> Have a bit of humility: just because others disagree with you, doesn't
> mean that they haven't understood you. Perhaps they have understood your
> idea and its consequences better than you have yourself.
>
> It is *really hard* to read criticism of your ideas, but necessary. If
> the criticism was valid, then either your idea needs to fixed to avoid
> the problems given, or it needs to be abandoned as unfixable.
>
> Remember too that sometimes there is no right or wrong answer, just a
> matter of taste, or of value judgements. This especially applies when
> there are trade-offs involved. As a language, Python makes many
> trade-offs (as do all other languages). Some ideas are not bad in and of
> themselves, but they go against those trade-offs and consequently
> aren't a good fit for Python.
>
> On the flip side, sometimes we're too quick to reject ideas because
> they've never been done before. For some definition of "never". (Usually
> "never that I know of, not that I've looked too closely, or at all".) In
> my experience, Python programmers tend to be very conservative, perhaps
> more so than in other communities. Like cats, we often dislike things
> merely because they are new and different.
>
> Consequently sometimes its just a matter of patience and timing. Python
> as a language rarely is a

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 11:40:37AM -0500, James Lu wrote:

> So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?

Remember the Curse of Knowledge: just because you know something, don't
imagine that all your readers know it too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-curse-of-knowledge-pinker-describes-a-key-cause-of-bad-writing

https://sites.williams.edu/nk2/files/2011/08/Curse_of_Knowledge.pdf

Try putting yourself in the reader's position. Will they understand what
you are talking about? Re-read (and edit) your email for clarity before
you hit send.

Read your own email when it arrives in your inbox. If there are any
major mistakes or confusing bits, reply to the list and clarify. With
luck, maybe people will read your clarification before they respond.

Try not to make rapid-fire knee-jerk responses to other people. (I know
that's one bit of advice I personally find hard to follow.)

Try to write clear and precise language.

https://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/style_purpose_strategy/writing_clearly.html

But note that *clear* and *precise* are often opposed to each other. The
page above gives an example:

The biota exhibited a one hundred percent mortality response.

All the fish died.

but the two sentences don't mean the same thing. (In the first,
*everything* died; in the second, only the fish died.)

Jargon is a double-edged sword for this reason: not everyone will know
what the jargon means, but for those that do, jargon terms are both
concise and precise in ways that plain English terms usually are not. As
programmers, we use a lot of jargon, but remember than not everyone has
the same background. My obvious technical term may be your obfuscatory
gibberish.

If you expect that a jargon term will be unfamiliar, either explain what
you mean, or give a link to a site that explains it. If you're not sure
whether a jargon term will be unfamiliar to others, remember the Curse
of Knowledge: it probably will be.

Remember that *most ideas are bad* -- that is equally true here as on
Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_ideas_are_bad

Be critical about your own ideas before you post. Try to anticipate
objections. Either you will decide the objections are right, or you may
be able to pre-empt them.

Have a bit of humility: just because others disagree with you, doesn't
mean that they haven't understood you. Perhaps they have understood your
idea and its consequences better than you have yourself.

It is *really hard* to read criticism of your ideas, but necessary. If
the criticism was valid, then either your idea needs to fixed to avoid
the problems given, or it needs to be abandoned as unfixable.

Remember too that sometimes there is no right or wrong answer, just a
matter of taste, or of value judgements. This especially applies when
there are trade-offs involved. As a language, Python makes many
trade-offs (as do all other languages). Some ideas are not bad in and of
themselves, but they go against those trade-offs and consequently
aren't a good fit for Python.

On the flip side, sometimes we're too quick to reject ideas because
they've never been done before. For some definition of "never". (Usually
"never that I know of, not that I've looked too closely, or at all".) In
my experience, Python programmers tend to be very conservative, perhaps
more so than in other communities. Like cats, we often dislike things
merely because they are new and different.

Consequently sometimes its just a matter of patience and timing. Python
as a language rarely is a trend-setter. Let other languages take the
risks, we'll steal the ideas that work and leave those that don't.

This conservativeness is only getting worse, as more of the core devs
decide that we ought to slow the pace of change down even more, perhaps
even halt it completely. I don't know what can be done about that.

(Biologists have a word for complex systems which are stable: "dead".)

--
Steven
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 05:36:09PM -0600, Abe Dillon wrote:

> B) I don't know of any forum system that allows you to misrepresent some
> one else.

Core developer Brett Cannon has taken up editing other people's comments 
on github if he doesn't approve of their tone.

I'm now proactively editing people's comments on issues so 
they are less aggressive, e.g. "You need" becomes "it would
be great if", etc.

https://twitter.com/brettsky/status/1006660998860640256

And later:

If they don't like it then I will simply ban them.

Take note of how many people responding to Brett think it is a wonderful 
idea. The ability to edit other people's posts is considered a feature, 
not a bug.

Github (currently) provides the full history of edits to each post. 
Reddit just has a flag that shows you whether a post was edited or not. 
Isn't technology wonderful?

-- 
Steven
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 12:35:15PM -0600, Abe Dillon wrote:
> I've pitched this before but gotten little feedback (especially positive
> feedback), but I think a Reddit-style forum would be a pretty vast
> improvement. We could easily start a python_ideas subreddit to try it out.

I don't think you need anyone's permission to do so. Provided you don't 
try to pass it off as in any way official or blessed by the PSF (not to 
be confused with the Python Secret Underground which most emphatically 
does not exist) you might as well try it and see what happens.

But some reasons why I am luke-warm on the idea:

- I can have as many email identities as I like; I can only have one 
Reddit identity at a time.

If I want to keep my Reddit persona seperate from my Python persona, I 
need to create multiple accounts (possibly violating the terms of 
service?) and remember to log out of one and into the other.

- Too difficult (impossible?) to keep local human-readable copies of 
either the discussion thread, or even your own posts.

- I have to explicitly go to the site to see what is happening, rather 
than have the posts automatically arrive in my inbox.

- Ads.

- Reddit's new web UI. (How long before the "old.reddit..." URLs stop 
working?)

-- 
Steven
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

* I didn't have time to read the whole convo' yet *

I think linking to a tutorial on "how to use a mailing list" that shows
some examples on popular email client like Gmail on android or Mail in iOS
would be something really helpful to beginners.

When they subscribe, a bot would send that link alongside a nice welcoming
message.
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Greg Ewing


Abe Dillon wrote:
As I've pointed out before, putting things in 
chronological order doesn't force people to read anything, it just 
favors new over old.


Um, what? People talking about chronological order here mean
*oldest to newest*, not the other way around. This is not meant
to "favour" anything, it's so that you get to read the discussion
in the order it was written. If that's what you want to do.

--
Greg
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Marcos Eliziario]

> Typical technical discussion in threaded discussion foruns
> --First Post
>   -- First Level
>   -- First level with an interesting idea (let's do B?)
>  -- 2nd level discussing some potential issues with B
>  -- 2nd level workaround for said issues, namely, making sure D
>  -- 2nd level more discussion
>  -- 2nd level add nausean
> -- 3rd replied by mistake last poster, not parent thread
> -- 3rd some are answering here now
> -- 2nd another guy answering ad nausean here
>  -- 2nd unrelated thoughts
>  -- 2nd discussion continues on the parent level, but some answers are
> buried on the level below "ad nausean
>  -- a consensus is found!
>  -- Yeah, let's do B, but taking care of D
>-- bla bla bla
>
>
>-- Hey, what if we did B?
>   -- all over again.


Is this intended to make forums look better or worse than the typical
Python-ideas thread. My experience has been:

-- First Post
-- Counterpoint A
-- I'm -1 on this
-- Counterpoint A
-- Counterpoint A
-- Counterpoint B
-- Counterpoint A
-- I'm -1 on this
-- Counterpoint A
...


On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:38 PM Marcos Eliziario 
wrote:

> Typical technical discussion in threaded discussion foruns
> --First Post
>   -- First Level
>   -- First level with an interesting idea (let's do B?)
>  -- 2nd level discussing some potential issues with B
>  -- 2nd level workaround for said issues, namely, making sure D
>  -- 2nd level more discussion
>  -- 2nd level add nausean
> -- 3rd replied by mistake last poster, not parent thread
> -- 3rd some are answering here now
> -- 2nd another guy answering ad nausean here
>  -- 2nd unrelated thoughts
>  -- 2nd discussion continues on the parent level, but some answers are
> buried on the level below "ad nausean
>  -- a consensus is found!
>  -- Yeah, let's do B, but taking care of D
>-- bla bla bla
>
>
>-- Hey, what if we did B?
>   -- all over again.
>
>
>
> Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 22:30, Abe Dillon 
> escreveu:
>
>> [David Mertz]
>>
>>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>>> readers.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>>
>>
>> Then just sort by chronological order.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:19 PM David Mertz  wrote:
>>
>>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>>> readers.
>>>
>>> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>>>
>>> There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have
>>> in common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon >>
  [Dan Sommers]

> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
> or owns the server.


 There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and
 probably others)
 That lets you control a great deal of the display and other
 preferences, however; I'm not
 sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.

 One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if
 you've already discussed something at length in another thread,
 you can simply refer to that discussion.

  [Dan Sommers]

> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
> confirm the methodology.


 A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we
 could define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need
 this clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.

 I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
 approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
 It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of
 better.

 On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:

> On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
> > [Dan Sommers]
>

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[David Mertz]

> To be clear. Most of what I don't want is a system where OTHER people are
> relying on ratings rather than careful reading.

In my experience, there's nothing you can do to make other people read
anything carefully. Plus, many of the counterpoints have been "I have a lot
more freedom in filtering and organizing emails with my email client", so I
fear your dreams of forcing everybody to read everything will never be
realized. As I've pointed out before, putting things in chronological order
doesn't force people to read anything, it just favors new over old. I
haven't read any of the discussions before 2016 (save a few).

[David Mertz]

> Mind you, I do know this other than this sort of discussion had other
> needs. GitHub issues are very useful. Occasionally I'll even go back and
> edit a prior comment rather than add another. But there I'm trying to make
> the issue genuinely correctly describe the issue at hand.

The ability to edit in discussions is useful for the exact same reason.

I have to say. I've frequented Reddit for years and never had to deal with
a disingenuous edit. I think that fear is a bit overblown.

[David Mertz]

> Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange are very useful for finding technical
> answers. Voting up best response there is extremely useful.
> I do not want python-ideas to resemble those. It is simply not the
> appropriate kind of discussion.

I find it very useful for discussion. I don't know why people keep
declaring it's no good for discussion without explaining why.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:37 PM David Mertz  wrote:

> To be clear. Most of what I don't want is a system where OTHER people are
> relying on ratings rather than careful reading. I want to communicate on
> changes where posts cannot be "voted up" or edited, etc.
>
> Mind you, I do know this other than this sort of discussion had other
> needs. GitHub issues are very useful. Occasionally I'll even go back and
> edit a prior comment rather than add another. But there I'm trying to make
> the issue genuinely correctly describe the issue at hand.
>
> Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange are very useful for finding technical
> answers. Voting up best response there is extremely useful.
>
> I do not want python-ideas to resemble those. It is simply not the
> appropriate kind of discussion.
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 7:30 PM Abe Dillon 
>> [David Mertz]
>>
>>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>>> readers.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>>
>>
>> Then just sort by chronological order.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:19 PM David Mertz  wrote:
>>
>>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>>> readers.
>>>
>>> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>>>
>>> There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have
>>> in common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon >>
  [Dan Sommers]

> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
> or owns the server.

 There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and
 probably others)
 That lets you control a great deal of the display and other
 preferences, however; I'm not
 sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.

 One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if
 you've already discussed something at length in another thread,
 you can simply refer to that discussion.

  [Dan Sommers]

> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
> confirm the methodology.

 A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we
 could define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need
 this clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.

 I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
 approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
 It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

Typical technical discussion in threaded discussion foruns
--First Post
  -- First Level
  -- First level with an interesting idea (let's do B?)
 -- 2nd level discussing some potential issues with B
 -- 2nd level workaround for said issues, namely, making sure D
 -- 2nd level more discussion
 -- 2nd level add nausean
-- 3rd replied by mistake last poster, not parent thread
-- 3rd some are answering here now
-- 2nd another guy answering ad nausean here
 -- 2nd unrelated thoughts
 -- 2nd discussion continues on the parent level, but some answers are
buried on the level below "ad nausean
 -- a consensus is found!
 -- Yeah, let's do B, but taking care of D
   -- bla bla bla
   
   
   -- Hey, what if we did B?
  -- all over again.



Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 22:30, Abe Dillon 
escreveu:

> [David Mertz]
>
>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>> readers.
>
>
>
> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>
>
> Then just sort by chronological order.
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:19 PM David Mertz  wrote:
>
>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>> readers.
>>
>> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>>
>> There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have
>> in common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon >
>>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>>
 Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
 that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
 and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
 or owns the server.
>>>
>>>
>>> There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and probably
>>> others)
>>> That lets you control a great deal of the display and other preferences,
>>> however; I'm not
>>> sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.
>>>
>>> One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if
>>> you've already discussed something at length in another thread,
>>> you can simply refer to that discussion.
>>>
>>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>>
 In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
 don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
 merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
 confirm the methodology.
>>>
>>>
>>> A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we could
>>> define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need this
>>> clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.
>>>
>>> I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
>>> approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
>>> It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of
>>> better.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
>>> 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:
>>>
 On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
 > [Dan Sommers]
 >
 >> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan
 of
 >> mailing lists and real email clients.
 >
 >
 > I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and
 moves
 > each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
 > I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you
 suggest one?

 I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
 thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
 up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
 based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).

 Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
 that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
 and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
 or owns the server.

 > [Dan Sommers]
 >
 >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I
 can
 >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
 >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
 >
 >
 > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based
 solution to
 > me.
 Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
 individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

To be clear. Most of what I don't want is a system where OTHER people are
relying on ratings rather than careful reading. I want to communicate on
changes where posts cannot be "voted up" or edited, etc.

Mind you, I do know this other than this sort of discussion had other
needs. GitHub issues are very useful. Occasionally I'll even go back and
edit a prior comment rather than add another. But there I'm trying to make
the issue genuinely correctly describe the issue at hand.

Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange are very useful for finding technical
answers. Voting up best response there is extremely useful.

I do not want python-ideas to resemble those. It is simply not the
appropriate kind of discussion.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 7:30 PM Abe Dillon  [David Mertz]
>
>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>> readers.
>
>
>
> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>
>
> Then just sort by chronological order.
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:19 PM David Mertz  wrote:
>
>> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
>> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
>> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
>> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
>> readers.
>>
>> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
>> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>>
>> There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have
>> in common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon >
>>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>>
 Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
 that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
 and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
 or owns the server.
>>>
>>>
>>> There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and probably
>>> others)
>>> That lets you control a great deal of the display and other preferences,
>>> however; I'm not
>>> sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.
>>>
>>> One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if
>>> you've already discussed something at length in another thread,
>>> you can simply refer to that discussion.
>>>
>>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>>
 In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
 don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
 merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
 confirm the methodology.
>>>
>>>
>>> A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we could
>>> define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need this
>>> clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.
>>>
>>> I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
>>> approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
>>> It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of
>>> better.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
>>> 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:
>>>
 On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
 > [Dan Sommers]
 >
 >> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan
 of
 >> mailing lists and real email clients.
 >
 >
 > I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and
 moves
 > each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
 > I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you
 suggest one?

 I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
 thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
 up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
 based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).

 Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
 that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
 and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
 or owns the server.

 > [Dan Sommers]
 >
 >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I
 can
 >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
 >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
 >
 >
 > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based
 solution to
 > me.
 Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
 individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and
 then to display higher scoring messages "above" the others,
 or not display certain messages at all.  Personally, I

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Dan Sommers


On 2/1/19 4:07 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:

One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if you've
already discussed something at length in another thread,
you can simply refer to that discussion.


Mailman keeps an archive of all email sent to the python
mailing list, and the individual messages have unique links.

Usually, referring to a discussion by the subject of the
email messages and some sort of date range is enough for
someone to find the relevant discussions in the archive.

I agree that it's not painless.

After a while, I end up with my own "archive" in my email
client (or in my email server), and I can reply to old
messages as needed.  This is also not painless.
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Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[David Mertz]

> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
> readers.



I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
> system where such ratings of comments existed.


Then just sort by chronological order.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:19 PM David Mertz  wrote:

> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
> readers.
>
> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>
> There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have
> in common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon 
>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>
>>> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
>>> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
>>> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
>>> or owns the server.
>>
>>
>> There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and probably
>> others)
>> That lets you control a great deal of the display and other preferences,
>> however; I'm not
>> sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.
>>
>> One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if you've
>> already discussed something at length in another thread,
>> you can simply refer to that discussion.
>>
>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>
>>> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
>>> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
>>> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
>>> confirm the methodology.
>>
>>
>> A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we could
>> define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need this
>> clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.
>>
>> I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
>> approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
>> It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of
>> better.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
>> 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
>>> > [Dan Sommers]
>>> >
>>> >> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan of
>>> >> mailing lists and real email clients.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and
>>> moves
>>> > each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
>>> > I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you
>>> suggest one?
>>>
>>> I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
>>> thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
>>> up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
>>> based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).
>>>
>>> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
>>> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
>>> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
>>> or owns the server.
>>>
>>> > [Dan Sommers]
>>> >
>>> >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
>>> >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
>>> >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based
>>> solution to
>>> > me.
>>> Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
>>> individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and
>>> then to display higher scoring messages "above" the others,
>>> or not display certain messages at all.  Personally, I don't
>>> use the automated systems, but they're very comprehensive
>>> (arguably too complicated), and again, *user* adjustable.
>>>
>>> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
>>> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
>>> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
>>> confirm the methodology.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>> ___
>>> Python-ideas mailing list
>>> Python-ideas@python.org
>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>>
>> ___
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas@python.org
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>
>
___
Python-ideas mailing

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

Simple tools, free-format are always more conductive to the free exchange
of ideas.
Let's not forget that a huge chunk of our current science and math was
built with scientists collaborating over physical mail delivered by
sailboats across the channel, train and even horse carriages.


Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 22:20, David Mertz  escreveu:

> I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
> anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
> rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
> based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
> readers.
>
> I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
> system where such ratings of comments existed.
>
> There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have
> in common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon 
>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>
>>> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
>>> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
>>> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
>>> or owns the server.
>>
>>
>> There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and probably
>> others)
>> That lets you control a great deal of the display and other preferences,
>> however; I'm not
>> sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.
>>
>> One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if you've
>> already discussed something at length in another thread,
>> you can simply refer to that discussion.
>>
>>  [Dan Sommers]
>>
>>> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
>>> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
>>> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
>>> confirm the methodology.
>>
>>
>> A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we could
>> define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need this
>> clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.
>>
>> I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
>> approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
>> It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of
>> better.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
>> 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
>>> > [Dan Sommers]
>>> >
>>> >> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan of
>>> >> mailing lists and real email clients.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and
>>> moves
>>> > each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
>>> > I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you
>>> suggest one?
>>>
>>> I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
>>> thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
>>> up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
>>> based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).
>>>
>>> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
>>> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
>>> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
>>> or owns the server.
>>>
>>> > [Dan Sommers]
>>> >
>>> >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
>>> >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
>>> >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based
>>> solution to
>>> > me.
>>> Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
>>> individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and
>>> then to display higher scoring messages "above" the others,
>>> or not display certain messages at all.  Personally, I don't
>>> use the automated systems, but they're very comprehensive
>>> (arguably too complicated), and again, *user* adjustable.
>>>
>>> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
>>> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
>>> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
>>> confirm the methodology.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>> ___
>>> Python-ideas mailing list
>>> Python-ideas@python.org
>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>>
>> ___
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas@python.org
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>
> ___
> Python-ideas mailing list
> Python-ideas@python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>


-- 
Marcos Eliziário Santos

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Greg Ewing


Adrien Ricocotam wrote:
I think something that hasn't been cited is the poor readability of code 
posted by mails. It's juste aweful to me. You may have a trick for good 
formating but I think that's a good point for other systems, or at least 
complementary systems to mails.


In my experience, the only "tricks" required are to post in
plain text and use only spaces for indentation.

--
Greg
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Greg Ewing


Adrien Ricocotam wrote:
On a forum (no matter the form), you can edit the original post. Thus, 
when something was unclear, false or needed an edit, the author (or 
others) can edit the original post. So when someone actually reads the 
original post, s-he doesn't have to read the 20 mails of clearing things 
up to have a clear idea of what's the proposal.


On the other hand, you have to skip over the 20 replies confusingly
talking about things in the original post that are no longer there.
Being able to edit posts has both advantages and disadvantages.

--
Greg
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

I have absolutely no interest in any system that arranges comments in
anything but related thread and chronological order. I DO NOT want any
rating or evaluation of comments of any kind other than my own evaluation
based on reading them. Well, also in reading the informed opinions of other
readers.

I would find it useless if not actively counterproductive to follow any
system where such ratings of comments existed.

There is one property that every system invented to supercede email have in
common. They are all dramatically worse in almost every way.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019, 5:09 PM Abe Dillon   [Dan Sommers]
>
>> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
>> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
>> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
>> or owns the server.
>
>
> There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and probably
> others)
> That lets you control a great deal of the display and other preferences,
> however; I'm not
> sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.
>
> One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if you've
> already discussed something at length in another thread,
> you can simply refer to that discussion.
>
>  [Dan Sommers]
>
>> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
>> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
>> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
>> confirm the methodology.
>
>
> A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we could
> define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need this
> clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.
>
> I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
> approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
> It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of better.
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
> 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
>> > [Dan Sommers]
>> >
>> >> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan of
>> >> mailing lists and real email clients.
>> >
>> >
>> > I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and moves
>> > each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
>> > I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you suggest
>> one?
>>
>> I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
>> thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
>> up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
>> based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).
>>
>> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
>> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
>> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
>> or owns the server.
>>
>> > [Dan Sommers]
>> >
>> >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
>> >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
>> >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
>> >
>> >
>> > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based solution
>> to
>> > me.
>> Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
>> individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and
>> then to display higher scoring messages "above" the others,
>> or not display certain messages at all.  Personally, I don't
>> use the automated systems, but they're very comprehensive
>> (arguably too complicated), and again, *user* adjustable.
>>
>> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
>> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
>> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
>> confirm the methodology.
>>
>> Dan
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Marcos Eliziario]

> Email is based on open standards with multiple implementations, most of
> them open source, that you can run basically wherever you want.
> Reddit is a product from a company, with a privately controlled API, and
> that may not even be here tomorrow, and it is not based on open standards.
> What happens if Reddit goes bankrupt tomorrow?


That's a good point. I suggested Reddit because it has a pretty extensive
feature list and is fairly simple to set-up and try. Maybe we could make
/r/python_thoughts instead of /r/python_ideas to denote the separation
(i.e. nothing posted on /r/python_thoughts will be automatically shared on
the python-ideas email list or vice-versa) or maybe there's some forum
software based on open standards that has a similar feature set? Or maybe
there are no open standards for internet forums, in which case, how would
one go about advocating for such a thing?

[Marcos Eliziario]

>  Simple is good. Email is simple.


Simple *can* be good, but it *can* also get in the way of fruitful
conversation...

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 5:26 PM Marcos Eliziario 
wrote:

> Email is based on open standards with multiple implementations, most of
> them open source, that you can run basically wherever you want.
> Reddit is a product from a company, with a privately controlled API, and
> that may not even be here tomorrow, and it is not based on open standards.
> What happens if Reddit goes bankrupt tomorrow?
>
> And let's not forget that mailing lists have a small barrier to entry.
> Moving this list to a forum would likely become an "eternal september" kind
> of event.
>
> Simple is good. Email is simple.
>
>
>
> Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 21:17, Abe Dillon 
> escreveu:
>
>> [Chris Angelico]
>>
>>> With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
>>> get the forum host's choice of tools.
>>
>>
>> There are many 3rd party tools for interacting with Reddit.
>> It's all just data behind an API. There's no reason you couldn't have a
>> choice of tools for a forum system.
>> The biggest difference I see is that email APIs are more standardized.
>> Maybe we should push for an open standard for forum-style communication.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 5:03 PM Chris Angelico  wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 10:00 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
>>> >
>>> > [Steven D'Aprano]
>>> >>
>>> >> The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled,
>>> sliced
>>> >> and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client
>>> >> isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > There's no reason a forum system couldn't accommodate sorting,
>>> filtering, shuffling, slicing and dicing.
>>> > It seems the only problem is the lack of tools.
>>>
>>> With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
>>> get the forum host's choice of tools.
>>>
>>> ChrisA
>>> ___
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>>> Python-ideas@python.org
>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Marcos Eliziário Santos
> mobile/whatsapp/telegram: +55(21) 9-8027-0156
> skype: marcos.elizia...@gmail.com
> linked-in : https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliziario/
>
>
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Chris Angelico]
>
> > It's common etiquette to clearly label your edits. That's why you'll see
> people write "EDIT: I changed X, Y, and Z due to ".
> Requires cooperation and discipline.


Any form of civil communication requires cooperation and discipline.

[Chris Angelico]

> You have no proof that someone didn't unintentionally (or even
> maliciously) change the content of the
> post to misrepresent someone.


A) As I said in the post you're quoting, it's not necessarily true that you
have no proof.
B) I don't know of any forum system that allows you to misrepresent some
one else.
Editing your own post maliciously can only be used to misrepresent what you
said.
Even then, if your edit history is available, any attempt to do so can be
called out.

[Chris Angelico]

> > Reddit can show how long ago a given post was edited (if it was at all)
> and commenters can flag posts that were edited in a misleading way. There's
> also no inherent reason a forum couldn't keep and expose the full history
> of edits to each post.
> >
> Sure, it's possible to keep them all. It's not easy to adequately
> *show* them unless someone specifically says "show me the history".


That's a matter of interface design. It may be just as easy as
un-collapsing responses.
Hopefully, if the community isn't full of liars and jerks, I don't see why
the edit history would
need to be super easy to explore.

[Chris Angelico]

> > It would be interesting if you could link to a specific edit so when
> some one says "I don't understand X and you weren't clear about Z" you
> could edit your post to clarify and link to the edit in a response saying
> "I edited my post to clarify. Thanks!"
> >
> I've seen that. It tends to result in posts that say "I've edited my
> preceding post", which is just as spammy as a followup but still
> disrupts the conversation.


Just saying "I've edited my preceding post" is not the same as being able
to link to the edit so that
the person can clearly see exactly how you addressed their question.

[Chris Angelico]

> Still can't see it as an advantage.


The advantage is that other people don't have to dig down into a
conversation to get all the clarifications and explanations that would
otherwise be missing in your original post.

[Chris Angelico]

> Edits like that are great for something that's meant to be a lasting
> document. That's why a PEP can be edited, and it retains its full
> history. You can go back and look at everything. But the mailing list
> is a discussion forum, not a document showing the final state of a
> discussion.


 I don't see how it would hurt discussion to have both. You can keep the:
"X doesn't make any sense and I don't get Y" comment *and* the response
referencing where those points are addressed *and* the make the fully
edited version of the OP visible *and* allow anyone to review the edit
history. None of those things are mutually exclusive.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 5:02 PM Chris Angelico  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 9:52 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
> >
> > [Chris Angelico]
> >>
> >> And then people wonder whether quoted text really aligns with the
> >> original post, whether "sort by post date/time" actually means what it
> >> says, and whether people have actually changed their stance while
> >> editing a post. No thank you. In accounting, git repositories, and
> >> mailing lists, you cannot edit the past - you can only post a
> >> follow-up.
> >
> >
> > It's common etiquette to clearly label your edits. That's why you'll see
> people write "EDIT: I changed X, Y, and Z due to ".
>
> Requires cooperation and discipline. You have no proof that someone
> didn't unintentionally (or even maliciously) change the content of the
> post to misrepresent someone.
>
> > Reddit can show how long ago a given post was edited (if it was at all)
> and commenters can flag posts that were edited in a misleading way. There's
> also no inherent reason a forum couldn't keep and expose the full history
> of edits to each post.
> >
>
> Sure, it's possible to keep them all. It's not easy to adequately
> *show* them unless someone specifically says "show me the history".
>
> > It would be interesting if you could link to a specific edit so when
> some one says "I don't understand X and you weren't clear about Z" you
> could edit your post to clarify and link to the edit in a response saying
> "I edited my post to clarify. Thanks!"
> >
>
> I've seen that. It tends to result in posts that say "I've edited my
> preceding post", which is just as spammy as a followup but still
> disrupts the conversation. Still can't see it as an advantage.
>
> Edits like that are great for something that's meant to be a lasting
> document. That's why a PEP can be edited, and it retains its full
> history. You can go back and look at everything. But the mailing list
> is a discussion forum, not a document showing the final state of a
> discussion.
>
> ChrisA
> ___
> Python-ideas

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

Email is based on open standards with multiple implementations, most of
them open source, that you can run basically wherever you want.
Reddit is a product from a company, with a privately controlled API, and
that may not even be here tomorrow, and it is not based on open standards.
What happens if Reddit goes bankrupt tomorrow?

And let's not forget that mailing lists have a small barrier to entry.
Moving this list to a forum would likely become an "eternal september" kind
of event.

Simple is good. Email is simple.



Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 21:17, Abe Dillon 
escreveu:

> [Chris Angelico]
>
>> With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
>> get the forum host's choice of tools.
>
>
> There are many 3rd party tools for interacting with Reddit.
> It's all just data behind an API. There's no reason you couldn't have a
> choice of tools for a forum system.
> The biggest difference I see is that email APIs are more standardized.
> Maybe we should push for an open standard for forum-style communication.
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 5:03 PM Chris Angelico  wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 10:00 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
>> >
>> > [Steven D'Aprano]
>> >>
>> >> The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled, sliced
>> >> and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client
>> >> isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.
>> >
>> >
>> > There's no reason a forum system couldn't accommodate sorting,
>> filtering, shuffling, slicing and dicing.
>> > It seems the only problem is the lack of tools.
>>
>> With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
>> get the forum host's choice of tools.
>>
>> ChrisA
>> ___
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas@python.org
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>
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>


-- 
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mobile/whatsapp/telegram: +55(21) 9-8027-0156
skype: marcos.elizia...@gmail.com
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Chris Angelico]

> With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
> get the forum host's choice of tools.


There are many 3rd party tools for interacting with Reddit.
It's all just data behind an API. There's no reason you couldn't have a
choice of tools for a forum system.
The biggest difference I see is that email APIs are more standardized.
Maybe we should push for an open standard for forum-style communication.


On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 5:03 PM Chris Angelico  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 10:00 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
> >
> > [Steven D'Aprano]
> >>
> >> The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled, sliced
> >> and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client
> >> isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.
> >
> >
> > There's no reason a forum system couldn't accommodate sorting,
> filtering, shuffling, slicing and dicing.
> > It seems the only problem is the lack of tools.
>
> With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
> get the forum host's choice of tools.
>
> ChrisA
> ___
> Python-ideas mailing list
> Python-ideas@python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 10:00 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
>
> [Steven D'Aprano]
>>
>> The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled, sliced
>> and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client
>> isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.
>
>
> There's no reason a forum system couldn't accommodate sorting, filtering, 
> shuffling, slicing and dicing.
> It seems the only problem is the lack of tools.

With emails, you get your choice of tools. With web forum systems, you
get the forum host's choice of tools.

ChrisA
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 9:52 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
>
> [Chris Angelico]
>>
>> And then people wonder whether quoted text really aligns with the
>> original post, whether "sort by post date/time" actually means what it
>> says, and whether people have actually changed their stance while
>> editing a post. No thank you. In accounting, git repositories, and
>> mailing lists, you cannot edit the past - you can only post a
>> follow-up.
>
>
> It's common etiquette to clearly label your edits. That's why you'll see 
> people write "EDIT: I changed X, Y, and Z due to ".

Requires cooperation and discipline. You have no proof that someone
didn't unintentionally (or even maliciously) change the content of the
post to misrepresent someone.

> Reddit can show how long ago a given post was edited (if it was at all) and 
> commenters can flag posts that were edited in a misleading way. There's also 
> no inherent reason a forum couldn't keep and expose the full history of edits 
> to each post.
>

Sure, it's possible to keep them all. It's not easy to adequately
*show* them unless someone specifically says "show me the history".

> It would be interesting if you could link to a specific edit so when some one 
> says "I don't understand X and you weren't clear about Z" you could edit your 
> post to clarify and link to the edit in a response saying "I edited my post 
> to clarify. Thanks!"
>

I've seen that. It tends to result in posts that say "I've edited my
preceding post", which is just as spammy as a followup but still
disrupts the conversation. Still can't see it as an advantage.

Edits like that are great for something that's meant to be a lasting
document. That's why a PEP can be edited, and it retains its full
history. You can go back and look at everything. But the mailing list
is a discussion forum, not a document showing the final state of a
discussion.

ChrisA
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Steven D'Aprano]

> The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled, sliced
> and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client
> isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.


There's no reason a forum system couldn't accommodate sorting, filtering,
shuffling, slicing and dicing.
It seems the only problem is the lack of tools.

[Steven D'Aprano]

> The link was intended as a starting point for people to do their own
> research, not a finishing point. But the main things from my perspective
> are:
> - stable web URLs for archives;
> - better searching;
> - a web interface that allows posting as well as reading posts.


Thanks! I followed the link and was pretty lost by about half-way through
the page. This clears things up!

One thing I will say is that Reddit's search functionality has been pretty
useless in my experience.
It would be nice to have a useful search.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 4:27 PM Steven D'Aprano  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 01:01:06PM -0600, Abe Dillon wrote:
>
> [...]
> > 2) You can control, to some degree, what gets to the top of your feed. In
> > an email list, it's based on who posted last which seems hardly an
> > improvement.
>
> In any serious, non-toy mail client you can sort your mail by any of
> Date, Size, Sender, Receiver, Thread or Subject line.
>
> More powerful mail clients should allow automatic filtering of messages
> into subfolders, hiding or muting threads, and displaying or hiding
> messages based on text searches. I've seen some that also allow you to
> add your own custom topics, like "Work", "Personal" etc.
>
> The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled, sliced
> and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client
> isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.
>
>
> [...]
> > > In the future this list may be migrated to Mailman 3 which includes a
> > > more modern web-forum-like interface as well as email.
> > >
> > > http://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/userguide.html
> >
> >
> > Can you summarize what mailman3 brings to the table? The docs aren't very
> > clear and have a lot of preamble.
>
> The link was intended as a starting point for people to do their own
> research, not a finishing point. But the main things from my perspective
> are:
>
> - stable web URLs for archives;
> - better searching;
> - a web interface that allows posting as well as reading posts.
>
>
> My guess is that most people who aren't happy with email will care about
> the web interface, Hyperkitty.
>
> https://pypi.org/project/HyperKitty/
>
>
> https://duffy.fedorapeople.org/presentations/libreplanet%202014/Hyperkitty2.pdf
>
>
> Demo: https://lists.stg.fedoraproject.org/archives/
>
>
> --
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Chris Angelico]
>
> And then people wonder whether quoted text really aligns with the
> original post, whether "sort by post date/time" actually means what it
> says, and whether people have actually changed their stance while
> editing a post. No thank you. In accounting, git repositories, and
> mailing lists, you cannot edit the past - you can only post a
> follow-up.

It's common etiquette to clearly label your edits. That's why you'll see
people write "EDIT: I changed X, Y, and Z due to ". Reddit
can show how long ago a given post was edited (if it was at all) and
commenters can flag posts that were edited in a misleading way. There's
also no inherent reason a forum couldn't keep and expose the full history
of edits to each post. It would be interesting if you could link to a
specific edit so when some one says "I don't understand X and you weren't
clear about Z" you could edit your post to clarify and link to the edit in
a response saying "I edited  my post to clarify.
Thanks!"

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 4:29 PM Chris Angelico  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 9:21 AM Adrien Ricocotam 
> wrote:
> > On a forum (no matter the form), you can edit the original post. Thus,
> when something was unclear, false or needed an edit, the author (or others)
> can edit the original post. So when someone actually reads the original
> post, s-he doesn't have to read the 20 mails of clearing things up to have
> a clear idea of what's the proposal. This is a minus one for mailing lists
> in my opinion.
> >
>
> And then people wonder whether quoted text really aligns with the
> original post, whether "sort by post date/time" actually means what it
> says, and whether people have actually changed their stance while
> editing a post. No thank you. In accounting, git repositories, and
> mailing lists, you cannot edit the past - you can only post a
> follow-up.
>
> ChrisA
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 9:21 AM Adrien Ricocotam  wrote:
> On a forum (no matter the form), you can edit the original post. Thus, when 
> something was unclear, false or needed an edit, the author (or others) can 
> edit the original post. So when someone actually reads the original post, 
> s-he doesn't have to read the 20 mails of clearing things up to have a clear 
> idea of what's the proposal. This is a minus one for mailing lists in my 
> opinion.
>

And then people wonder whether quoted text really aligns with the
original post, whether "sort by post date/time" actually means what it
says, and whether people have actually changed their stance while
editing a post. No thank you. In accounting, git repositories, and
mailing lists, you cannot edit the past - you can only post a
follow-up.

ChrisA
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 01:01:06PM -0600, Abe Dillon wrote:

[...]
> 2) You can control, to some degree, what gets to the top of your feed. In
> an email list, it's based on who posted last which seems hardly an
> improvement.

In any serious, non-toy mail client you can sort your mail by any of 
Date, Size, Sender, Receiver, Thread or Subject line.

More powerful mail clients should allow automatic filtering of messages 
into subfolders, hiding or muting threads, and displaying or hiding 
messages based on text searches. I've seen some that also allow you to 
add your own custom topics, like "Work", "Personal" etc.

The bottom line is that email can be sorted, filtered, shuffled, sliced 
and diced in an almost infinite number of ways. If your email client 
isn't good enough, blame the tool, not the technology.

[...]
> > In the future this list may be migrated to Mailman 3 which includes a
> > more modern web-forum-like interface as well as email.
> > 
> > http://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/userguide.html
> 
> 
> Can you summarize what mailman3 brings to the table? The docs aren't very
> clear and have a lot of preamble.

The link was intended as a starting point for people to do their own 
research, not a finishing point. But the main things from my perspective 
are:

- stable web URLs for archives;
- better searching;
- a web interface that allows posting as well as reading posts.

My guess is that most people who aren't happy with email will care about 
the web interface, Hyperkitty.

https://pypi.org/project/HyperKitty/

https://duffy.fedorapeople.org/presentations/libreplanet%202014/Hyperkitty2.pdf

Demo: https://lists.stg.fedoraproject.org/archives/

-- 
Steve
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Cameron Simpson


On 01Feb2019 12:35, Abe Dillon  wrote:

I've pitched this before but gotten little feedback (especially positive
feedback), but I think a Reddit-style forum would be a pretty vast
improvement. We could easily start a python_ideas subreddit to try it out.


Bear in mind that many participants here are against forums, myself 
included. A mailing list comes to me, its user interface is as _I_ want 
it rather than a single web based interface, and it isn't a web page.


My laptop collects my email constantly in the background; I can read and 
reply to email while offline because the messages are local and my 
laptop has a working mail system which queues.


Email comes to me; a forum must be visited.


I know the google group presents threaded conversations, but I've run into
enough bugs trying to use that platform that I now only interact with
python-ideas via my gmail account, and threads are flattened here.


The flatness of threads is a mail reader artifact. I'm no fan of the 
GMail web interface on a personal basis. I use mutt, and have it 
configured to fold up read threads and unfold threads with unread 
content.


The point here is that with email there are many many clients and one 
should find one which suits your preferred interface and behaviour.


With a web interface this is basicly not a choice. And IMO web browsers 
are terrible email readers.


Some systems like discourse offer a web interface and also email.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson 
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Adrien Ricocotam

@Steven D'Aprano 's big answer
Hi, thanks for this complete answer. I might have been a bit confusing so
i'll clear some details ;)

I sent about 3 mails (may be 4) in this mailing list and the python dev's
one. If I sent those emails it's because I felt legitimate to give my
opinion, ie : I had enough knowledge to actually have an opinion and the
arguments I had were (imo) relevent. In many subjects I actually have an
opinion but not the knowledge to  argument. That's what I was trying to
express : mailing lists are kinda hard for newcomers.

> That sounds pretty spammy to me. The last thing I want to see is
> something (either technology or culture) encouraging people to flood the
> list with a bunch of content-free "+1" or "metoo!" messages.

I'm not suggesting to actually send emails. I was more refering to reddit's
possibility of voting and we couldn't do it on mails. Ofc, don't send a
mail to 1k people for a "+1", that's exactly what I'm saying : I'm not
gonna send an email to say "I agree" full stop.

> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to
> the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical
> mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit,
> not the number of votes.

That's not what I was suggesting either but I get it's confusing. The votes
I was talking about have no values of popularity it's just "agree",
"disagree", "neutral" like we would find in "classical" forums (this

is an example of what I'm talking about, french site).

> But within reason, if you have something well thought out and/or
> important to say, you can and should just reply to a post and say it.

That's a point for mailing lists.

> I'm confused. First you complain that "a lot of emails are just
> explanations of what the authors meant". That's a *good* thing, surely.
> This is a technical discussion list, and if a message is unclear, then
> explaning what you meant should make it more clear.
> And then you say "a few messages exchanged ... would correct this" but
> what do you think those messages exchanged would be if not explanations
> of what the authors meant?

That's probably the most unclear point of my first mail !
On a forum (no matter the form), you can edit the original post. Thus, when
something was unclear, false or needed an edit, the author (or others) can
edit the original post. So when someone actually reads the original post,
s-he doesn't have to read the 20 mails of clearing things up to have a
clear idea of what's the proposal. This is a minus one for mailing lists in
my opinion.

Le ven. 1 févr. 2019 à 19:39, Steven D'Aprano  a
écrit :

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 06:42:33PM +0100, Adrien Ricocotam wrote:
> > I'm kinda new to those mailing lists and those are the only ones I ever
> > subscribed so I'm a bit in the audience you're targeting James.
>
> Hi Adrien, I see that you first posted in November and haven't posted
> since.
>
> > What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd
> often
> > like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the author
> I'm
> > with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.
>
> That sounds pretty spammy to me. The last thing I want to see is
> something (either technology or culture) encouraging people to flood the
> list with a bunch of content-free "+1" or "metoo!" messages.
>
> The occasional "I agree but have nothing else to say" message is okay,
> but I wouldn't want to see fifty a day.
>
> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to
> the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical
> mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit,
> not the number of votes.
>
>
> > In some of the recent threads,
> > some of the ideas I agreed with were just smashed by others. I couldn't
> > give my two cents and the debate juste ended and I couldn't say the
> author
> > I was behind him.er.
>
> I see that the Reply button on your email client does work, so you
> clearly *can* give your two cents worth (which is exactly what you are
> doing now).
>
> And the nature of email is that you can reply to any message in your
> inbox, no matter how old. You can reply to a ten year old message
> provided you still have it available in a mail folder, resurrecting
> the thread.
>
> Whether it is polite to resurrect such long-dead threads, or whether
> anyone else will respond, are separate questions.
>
> I realise that sometimes people are busy and cannot reply immediately to
> a discussion. There have been times that I have not been able to respond
> to a thread until long after it has faded away naturally, and I have
> *chosen* to not respond because I decided that the discussion had been
> settled and I didn't care enough to restart the discussion.
>
> (Sometimes a discussion settles to "nobody can decide so the status quo
>

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

 [Dan Sommers]

> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
> or owns the server.


There is a tool called the Reddit Enhancement Suite or RES (and probably
others)
That lets you control a great deal of the display and other preferences,
however; I'm not
sure how that control compares to something like Thunderbird.

One thing that's nice about Reddit is you can link to posts, so if you've
already discussed something at length in another thread,
you can simply refer to that discussion.

 [Dan Sommers]

> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
> confirm the methodology.


A lot can be said about how an ideal world would work. Ideally, we could
define the meaning of life and good and evil and we wouldn't need this
clumsy system of laws and courts to approximate the whole mess.

I don't think it's that crazy to think that a voting system might
approximate merit a little better than the timestamp on a post.
It's not going to be perfect, but perfect shouldn't be the enemy of better.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:17 PM Dan Sommers <
2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:

> On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
> > [Dan Sommers]
> >
> >> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan of
> >> mailing lists and real email clients.
> >
> >
> > I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and moves
> > each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
> > I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you suggest
> one?
>
> I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
> thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
> up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
> based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).
>
> Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
> that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
> and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
> or owns the server.
>
> > [Dan Sommers]
> >
> >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
> >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
> >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
> >
> >
> > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based solution
> to
> > me.
> Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
> individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and
> then to display higher scoring messages "above" the others,
> or not display certain messages at all.  Personally, I don't
> use the automated systems, but they're very comprehensive
> (arguably too complicated), and again, *user* adjustable.
>
> In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
> don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
> merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
> confirm the methodology.
>
> Dan
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Chris Angelico]

> Maybe not, but it's consistent. You can easily scan through a thread
> in the order it was posted.

That's true in the case of a subreddit conversation too.
I wouldn't suggest a system that doesn't let you see the whole conversation.
You can order comments by post-time if you think that's relevant for
whatever reason.

[Chris Angelico]

> Anything that allows things to be upvoted
> above other things specifically encourages you to read only the
> most-upvoted answers.

Anything presented in a list format specifically encourages you to read
only the things at the top of the list.
I haven't read discussions from 2012 because they're way down the list and
I only joined python-ideas recently.
A voting system is simply an attempt to make sure the stuff at the top of
the list is more relevant than the stuff
at the bottom.

[Chris Angelico]

> it does not work for extended discussions (which is why SO specifically
> discourages extended discussions in comments).

Why not? I've seen it work many times for extended discussions just fine.

[Chris Angelico]

> Got any ideas for a "merit-based" ordering?

Yes, a voting system.

 [Chris Angelico]

> Or: got any definition of "merit" that would actually be useful to this
> style of discussion?

No. Merit is very hard to define, but again, there are subreddits with well
curated discussions and in those subreddits, the voting system seems to be
a decent approximation for merit. Even in less well-curated subreddits, the
voting system seems to be a decent approximation to merit.

I mean, the platform exists. We don't have to rely solely on theory in
hypothetical land. It's kind-of like discussing whether an encyclopedia
based on user-generated content could ever be useful. It's not even hard to
make a subreddit.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:06 PM Chris Angelico  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 7:59 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
> >>
> >> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
> >> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
> >> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
> >
> >
> > That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based solution
> to me.
> >
>
> Maybe not, but it's consistent. You can easily scan through a thread
> in the order it was posted. Anything that allows things to be upvoted
> above other things specifically encourages you to read only the
> most-upvoted answers. That works for Stack Overflow, since individual
> answers are meant to be coherent and self-contained, and have their
> own comments threads; it does not work for extended discussions (which
> is why SO specifically discourages extended discussions in comments).
>
> Got any ideas for a "merit-based" ordering? Or: got any definition of
> "merit" that would actually be useful to this style of discussion?
>
> ChrisA
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Stefan Behnel

James Lu schrieb am 01.02.19 um 17:40:
> A lot of the traffic on this email list is people saying “I don’t understand” 
> or “that’s not what I meant” or trying to re-explain. A lot of “-1”s are 
> really “I don’t see the usefulness of this”.
> 
> So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?

While I agree with others that this is a good question worth asking, I also
think that it's somewhat the nature of this list that a) the topics
discussed here often require a good understanding of Python and the
workings of the language, b) the described use cases and ideas are often
novel and therefore may not immediately ring bells in everyone's ears, and
c) many topics are recurring, so people who give a quick "-1" may just be
reluctant to discuss them all over again without expecting new facets to
appear (which rarely happens, in fact, although there are famously PEP-ed
exceptions).

And, last but not least, "I don't see the usefulness of this" is a
perfectly valid counter-argument, especially for a well designed language
like Python. I can think of at least one programming language that was not
so lucky to have enough people say this.

Stefan

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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Dan Sommers


On 2/1/19 2:58 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:

[Dan Sommers]


A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan of
mailing lists and real email clients.



I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and moves
each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you suggest one?


I used mutt for a long time, and then claws-mail, and now
thunderbird.  They all met my needs, although I did give
up on claws-mail when I got a hidpi display (claws-mail
based on gtk2, which doesn't grok hidpi displays).

Another point in favor of email clients over web pages is
that there are many of them, and *you* control the display
and other preferences rather than whoever wrote the forum
or owns the server.


[Dan Sommers]


Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.



That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based solution to
me.

Perhaps not all by itself.  Many/most email clients allow
individual users to "score" emails by various criteria, and
then to display higher scoring messages "above" the others,
or not display certain messages at all.  Personally, I don't
use the automated systems, but they're very comprehensive
(arguably too complicated), and again, *user* adjustable.

In an optimal technical discussion, opinions from users
don't count for anything.  The ideas stand on their own
merits and research and metrics; users only serve to
confirm the methodology.

Dan
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 7:59 AM Abe Dillon  wrote:
>>
>> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
>> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
>> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
>
>
> That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based solution to me.
>

Maybe not, but it's consistent. You can easily scan through a thread
in the order it was posted. Anything that allows things to be upvoted
above other things specifically encourages you to read only the
most-upvoted answers. That works for Stack Overflow, since individual
answers are meant to be coherent and self-contained, and have their
own comments threads; it does not work for extended discussions (which
is why SO specifically discourages extended discussions in comments).

Got any ideas for a "merit-based" ordering? Or: got any definition of
"merit" that would actually be useful to this style of discussion?

ChrisA
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Dan Sommers]

> A mailing list is not a feed... Dan, a decades and decades long fan of
> mailing lists and real email clients.


I'm only familiar with Gmail which keeps reply chains coherent and moves
each chain to the top of my "forums" tab based on who responded last.
I haven't explored the various email clients available, can you suggest one?

[Dan Sommers]

> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.


That doesn't like any closer an approximation to a merit-based solution to
me.

[Dan Sommers]

> > 3) There are well moderated and/or cultivated subs like
> > www.reddit.com/r/science where the votes end up being a good
> approximation
> > to merit.
> Because the moderators understand the merit(s) of who is behind every +1
> vote, or because only approved voters are allowed to vote?


Part of it has to do with the subject matter.
the python subreddit  also has, I would
say, higher quality than average discussion
just like the PBS Space Time YouTube channel
 is one of the few places on
YouTube
where the comments don't generally make you abandon hope for the future of
humanity.

A lot of it has to do with rules put in place and enforced by the
moderators.
They cultivate a higher quality community by promoting a higher standard of
interaction.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 1:34 PM Dan Sommers <
2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com> wrote:

> On 2/1/19 1:01 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
>  > [Steven D'Aprano]
>  >
>  >> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move
>  >> to the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a
>  >> technical mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends
>  >> on merit, not the number of votes.
>  >
>  > Since I just (almost simultaneously with this post) suggested giving
>  > Reddit a try, I feel obligated to defend it a little bit.
>
> [...]
>
>  > 2) You can control, to some degree, what gets to the top of your
>  > feed. In an email list, it's based on who posted last which seems
>  > hardly an improvement.
>
> A mailing list is not a feed.
>
> Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
> read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
> last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.
>
> In my email client, I do, in fact, have complete control over what gets
> to the [logical] "top of the list"; in a web-based forum, I have only
> what the forum allows.
>
>  > 3) There are well moderated and/or cultivated subs like
>  > www.reddit.com/r/science where the votes end up being a good
> approximation
>  > to merit.
>
> Because the moderators understand the merit(s) of who is behind every +1
> vote, or because only approved voters are allowed to vote?
>
> Dan, a decades and decades long fan of mailing lists and real email clients
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Dan Sommers

On 2/1/19 1:01 PM, Abe Dillon wrote:
> [Steven D'Aprano]
>
>> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move
>> to the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a
>> technical mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends
>> on merit, not the number of votes.
>
> Since I just (almost simultaneously with this post) suggested giving
> Reddit a try, I feel obligated to defend it a little bit.

[...]

> 2) You can control, to some degree, what gets to the top of your
> feed. In an email list, it's based on who posted last which seems
> hardly an improvement.

A mailing list is not a feed.

Whoever posted last ends up at the bottom of the thread, so that I can
read threads from top to bottom in chronological order.  Getting the
last word in shouldn't earn a spot at the top of the list.

In my email client, I do, in fact, have complete control over what gets
to the [logical] "top of the list"; in a web-based forum, I have only
what the forum allows.

> 3) There are well moderated and/or cultivated subs like
> www.reddit.com/r/science where the votes end up being a good 
approximation

> to merit.

Because the moderators understand the merit(s) of who is behind every +1
vote, or because only approved voters are allowed to vote?

Dan, a decades and decades long fan of mailing lists and real email clients
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread James Lu

> I want the discussion to focus not only on technical solutions like +1 or 
> Mailman 3, but also social ones and how to better express oneself.
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

If any non-email system is adopted, it will exclude me, and probably many
other contributors to this list.  A mailing list is an appropriate and
useful format. "Discussion systems" are not.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 1:36 PM Abe Dillon  wrote:

> I've pitched this before but gotten little feedback (especially positive
> feedback), but I think a Reddit-style forum would be a pretty vast
> improvement. We could easily start a python_ideas subreddit to try it out.
>
> I know the google group presents threaded conversations, but I've run into
> enough bugs trying to use that platform that I now only interact with
> python-ideas via my gmail account, and threads are flattened here. Also, a
> Reddit-style forum has voting built in. As a bonus, we can write moderation
> bots and present useful info in the side-bar.
>
> If people find Reddit distasteful or otherwise a bad idea, maybe we can
> find some forum software that replicates the feature set of Reddit and host
> it ourselves?
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 10:41 AM James Lu  wrote:
>
>> A lot of the traffic on this email list is people saying “I don’t
>> understand” or “that’s not what I meant” or trying to re-explain. A lot of
>> “-1”s are really “I don’t see the usefulness of this”.
>>
>>
>> So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?
>>
>>
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>>
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from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the
uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting
advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual property is
to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

[Steven D'Aprano]

> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to
> the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical
> mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit,
> not the number of votes.


Since I just (almost simultaneously with this post) suggested giving Reddit
a try, I feel obligated to defend it a little bit.

1) You might be right. It might result in lower quality discussions, but it
seems like a very low barrier to entry to at least try and see.
2) You can control, to some degree, what gets to the top of your feed. In
an email list, it's based on who posted last which seems hardly an
improvement.
3) There are well moderated and/or cultivated subs like
www.reddit.com/r/science where the votes end up being a good approximation
to merit.

[Steven D'Aprano]

> In the future this list may be migrated to Mailman 3 which includes a
> more modern web-forum-like interface as well as email.
>


http://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/userguide.html


Can you summarize what mailman3 brings to the table? The docs aren't very
clear and have a lot of preamble.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 12:39 PM Steven D'Aprano  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 06:42:33PM +0100, Adrien Ricocotam wrote:
> > I'm kinda new to those mailing lists and those are the only ones I ever
> > subscribed so I'm a bit in the audience you're targeting James.
>
> Hi Adrien, I see that you first posted in November and haven't posted
> since.
>
> > What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd
> often
> > like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the author
> I'm
> > with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.
>
> That sounds pretty spammy to me. The last thing I want to see is
> something (either technology or culture) encouraging people to flood the
> list with a bunch of content-free "+1" or "metoo!" messages.
>
> The occasional "I agree but have nothing else to say" message is okay,
> but I wouldn't want to see fifty a day.
>
> This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to
> the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical
> mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit,
> not the number of votes.
>
>
> > In some of the recent threads,
> > some of the ideas I agreed with were just smashed by others. I couldn't
> > give my two cents and the debate juste ended and I couldn't say the
> author
> > I was behind him.er.
>
> I see that the Reply button on your email client does work, so you
> clearly *can* give your two cents worth (which is exactly what you are
> doing now).
>
> And the nature of email is that you can reply to any message in your
> inbox, no matter how old. You can reply to a ten year old message
> provided you still have it available in a mail folder, resurrecting
> the thread.
>
> Whether it is polite to resurrect such long-dead threads, or whether
> anyone else will respond, are separate questions.
>
> I realise that sometimes people are busy and cannot reply immediately to
> a discussion. There have been times that I have not been able to respond
> to a thread until long after it has faded away naturally, and I have
> *chosen* to not respond because I decided that the discussion had been
> settled and I didn't care enough to restart the discussion.
>
> (Sometimes a discussion settles to "nobody can decide so the status quo
> wins". See Nick Coghlan's blog.)
>
> But within reason, if you have something well thought out and/or
> important to say, you can and should just reply to a post and say it.
>
>
> > Another thing I think is not good is the absence of
> > little chit-chat
>
> This mailing list is often too busy as it is, without encouraging
> chit-chat.
>
> "Hi Bob, how are the wife and kids? I've been pretty good myself,
> thanks for asking, but my old injury has been aching a bit. Did I
> ever tell you the story about that, its quite funny. What do you
> think of Trump's latest shocking comment? Did you see that hilarious
> video about a cat? Did you learn the latest trick that doctors don't
> want you to know? Oh, I nearly forgot, your proposal for adding GOTO
> to Python and removing for-loops is an awesome idea, +1."
>
>
> > and editing. Actually, a lot of emails are just
> > explanations of what the authors meant. That's pretty spammy and a few
> > messages exchanged + editing would correct this spammy thing.
>
> I'm confused. First you complain that "a lot of emails are just
> explanations of what the authors meant". That's a *good* thing, surely.
> This is a technical discussion list, and if a message is unclear, then
> explaning what you meant should make it more clear.
>
> And then you say "a few messages exchanged ... would correct this" but
> what do you think those messages exchanged would be if not explanations
> of what the authors meant?
>
>
> > In another hand, I think mailing lists are great

Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 05:43:54PM +, Alex Shafer via Python-ideas wrote:

> Is there already, or would anyone be opposed to the creation of a 
> #python-ideas on a large IRC network? I'd hope discussions there can 
> have the same weight, merit, community involvement, and potential for 
> PEP-tracking ideas.

That biases the community against people who aren't available to chat at 
the same time as the majority. E,g, people in different time zones, or 
who work or have other committments during which time they can't take 
part in the discussion.

The beauty of email is that it sits in your inbox until you get a chance 
to respond, even if that is a few days later. In IRC, you might have a 
window of opportunity of a few hours. In a busy chat room, it might be a 
few seconds before the comment you are replying to disappears off screen 
into irrelevance.

IRC encourages one sentence replies. There really isn't room for complex 
reasoning or long debates. It is good for simple answers and knee-jerk 
responses.

-- 
Steve
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 06:42:33PM +0100, Adrien Ricocotam wrote:
> I'm kinda new to those mailing lists and those are the only ones I ever
> subscribed so I'm a bit in the audience you're targeting James.

Hi Adrien, I see that you first posted in November and haven't posted 
since.

> What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd often
> like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the author I'm
> with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.

That sounds pretty spammy to me. The last thing I want to see is 
something (either technology or culture) encouraging people to flood the 
list with a bunch of content-free "+1" or "metoo!" messages.

The occasional "I agree but have nothing else to say" message is okay, 
but I wouldn't want to see fifty a day.

This isn't Facebook or Reddit, where +1 Likes cause messages to move to 
the top of your feed. (And thank goodness for that.) This is a technical 
mailing list where the worth of a proposals usually depends on merit, 
not the number of votes.

> In some of the recent threads,
> some of the ideas I agreed with were just smashed by others. I couldn't
> give my two cents and the debate juste ended and I couldn't say the author
> I was behind him.er.

I see that the Reply button on your email client does work, so you 
clearly *can* give your two cents worth (which is exactly what you are 
doing now).

And the nature of email is that you can reply to any message in your 
inbox, no matter how old. You can reply to a ten year old message 
provided you still have it available in a mail folder, resurrecting 
the thread.

Whether it is polite to resurrect such long-dead threads, or whether 
anyone else will respond, are separate questions.

I realise that sometimes people are busy and cannot reply immediately to 
a discussion. There have been times that I have not been able to respond 
to a thread until long after it has faded away naturally, and I have 
*chosen* to not respond because I decided that the discussion had been 
settled and I didn't care enough to restart the discussion.

(Sometimes a discussion settles to "nobody can decide so the status quo 
wins". See Nick Coghlan's blog.)

But within reason, if you have something well thought out and/or 
important to say, you can and should just reply to a post and say it.

> Another thing I think is not good is the absence of
> little chit-chat 

This mailing list is often too busy as it is, without encouraging 
chit-chat.

"Hi Bob, how are the wife and kids? I've been pretty good myself, 
thanks for asking, but my old injury has been aching a bit. Did I 
ever tell you the story about that, its quite funny. What do you 
think of Trump's latest shocking comment? Did you see that hilarious 
video about a cat? Did you learn the latest trick that doctors don't 
want you to know? Oh, I nearly forgot, your proposal for adding GOTO 
to Python and removing for-loops is an awesome idea, +1."

> and editing. Actually, a lot of emails are just
> explanations of what the authors meant. That's pretty spammy and a few
> messages exchanged + editing would correct this spammy thing.

I'm confused. First you complain that "a lot of emails are just 
explanations of what the authors meant". That's a *good* thing, surely. 
This is a technical discussion list, and if a message is unclear, then 
explaning what you meant should make it more clear.

And then you say "a few messages exchanged ... would correct this" but 
what do you think those messages exchanged would be if not explanations 
of what the authors meant?

> In another hand, I think mailing lists are great to avoid short and useless
> messages. There's no spammy message like "I'm ok" which could be replaced
> by just a "+1" button.

Which does what? Send a +1 email to a thousand people? That's pretty 
spammy.

>  It forces us using LBYL principle (@poke Robert) and
> it (imho) better fills the needs of such discussions.
> 
> As you may have get it, I'd rather a forum like thing rather than mailing
> lists but mailings lists are great.

Mailing lists and web forums each have their advantages and 
disadvantages, but in general, I find web forums far noisier and of less 
value.

In the future this list may be migrated to Mailman 3 which includes a 
more modern web-forum-like interface as well as email.

http://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/userguide.html

As I understand it, there have already been a few low-volume Python 
mailing lists migrated to Mailman 3, and if they end up being successful 
eventually the rest will follow.

-- 
Steve
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

I've pitched this before but gotten little feedback (especially positive
feedback), but I think a Reddit-style forum would be a pretty vast
improvement. We could easily start a python_ideas subreddit to try it out.

I know the google group presents threaded conversations, but I've run into
enough bugs trying to use that platform that I now only interact with
python-ideas via my gmail account, and threads are flattened here. Also, a
Reddit-style forum has voting built in. As a bonus, we can write moderation
bots and present useful info in the side-bar.

If people find Reddit distasteful or otherwise a bad idea, maybe we can
find some forum software that replicates the feature set of Reddit and host
it ourselves?

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 10:41 AM James Lu  wrote:

> A lot of the traffic on this email list is people saying “I don’t
> understand” or “that’s not what I meant” or trying to re-explain. A lot of
> “-1”s are really “I don’t see the usefulness of this”.
>
>
> So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?
>
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

+1 votes hardly add anything to a technical discussion, and in the
contrary, can and do easily lead to a dysfunctional decision style.
If you agree with someone else's idea, you probably have some rational
arguments behind it, some hard evidence that has not yet been discussed and
that could change the course of the discussions.
If you can't come up with even a single reason why you like a proposal,
probably you didn't think too much about, and so, your +1 would be an
uninformed vote.
And last, this list is not a decision instance for python, it is just a
place where people can share ideas about it, but the final decisions are
not meant to be taken here.

Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 16:02, Marcos Eliziario <
marcos.elizia...@gmail.com> escreveu:

> +1 votes hardly add anything to a technical discussion, and in the
> contrary, can and do easily lead to a dysfunctional decision style.
> If you agree with someone else's idea, you probably have some rational
> arguments behind it, some hard evidence that has not yet been discussed and
> that could change the course of the discussions.
> If you can't come up with even a single reason why you like a proposal,
> probably you didn't think too much about, and so, your +1 would be an
> uninformed vote.
> And last, this list is not a decision instance for python, it is just a
> place where people can share ideas about it, but the final decisions are
> not meant to be taken here.
>
> Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 15:49, David Mertz  escreveu:
>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 12:43 PM Adrien Ricocotam 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd
>>> often like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the
>>> author I'm with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.
>>>
>>
>> I feel like the strongest virtue of mailing lists is the absence of votes.
>>
>> Various chat systems where you can add a "thumbs up" or "smile" or the
>> like encourage laziness and content-free interaction.  On a mailing list,
>> for the most part, we encourage people to formulate complete opinions
>> supported by reasons and arguments.  That is what python-ideas should be.
>> It should not be a democracy or a voting system.
>>
>> That said, obviously sometimes people do just reply with +1 to
>> something.  I do that myself at times.  There are times when that really is
>> an appropriate reply, but I think it should be discouraged as the default
>> answer style.
>>
>> Yours, David...
>>
>> --
>> Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food
>> from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the
>> uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting
>> advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual property is
>> to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.
>> ___
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas@python.org
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>
>
>
> --
> Marcos Eliziário Santos
> mobile/whatsapp/telegram: +55(21) 9-8027-0156
> skype: marcos.elizia...@gmail.com
> linked-in : https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliziario/
>
>

-- 
Marcos Eliziário Santos
mobile/whatsapp/telegram: +55(21) 9-8027-0156
skype: marcos.elizia...@gmail.com
linked-in : https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliziario/
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

+1 votes hardly add anything to a technical discussion, and in the
contrary, can and do easily lead to a dysfunctional decision style.
If you agree with someone else's idea, you probably have some rational
arguments behind it, some hard evidence that has not yet been discussed and
that could change the course of the discussions.
If you can't come up with even a single reason why you like a proposal,
probably you didn't think too much about, and so, your +1 would be an
uninformed vote.
And last, this list is not a decision instance for python, it is just a
place where people can share ideas about it, but the final decisions are
not meant to be taken here.

Em sex, 1 de fev de 2019 às 15:49, David Mertz  escreveu:

> On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 12:43 PM Adrien Ricocotam 
> wrote:
>
>> What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd
>> often like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the
>> author I'm with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.
>>
>
> I feel like the strongest virtue of mailing lists is the absence of votes.
>
> Various chat systems where you can add a "thumbs up" or "smile" or the
> like encourage laziness and content-free interaction.  On a mailing list,
> for the most part, we encourage people to formulate complete opinions
> supported by reasons and arguments.  That is what python-ideas should be.
> It should not be a democracy or a voting system.
>
> That said, obviously sometimes people do just reply with +1 to something.
> I do that myself at times.  There are times when that really is an
> appropriate reply, but I think it should be discouraged as the default
> answer style.
>
> Yours, David...
>
> --
> Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food
> from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the
> uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting
> advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual property is
> to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.
> ___
> Python-ideas mailing list
> Python-ideas@python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>


-- 
Marcos Eliziário Santos
mobile/whatsapp/telegram: +55(21) 9-8027-0156
skype: marcos.elizia...@gmail.com
linked-in : https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliziario/
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

>
>
> I honestly cannot tell if you are being rhetorical, or if you are
> so technically naive that you genuinely don't know that this is an email
> mailing list rather than instant messenger or IRC or some other form of
> instantaneous chat.
>
Both :p

Newcomers that never spoke on a forum are sometimes lost, they don't see
the structure. Therefore I'm helping those newcomers, and the old timer
will be like "yeah, he technically defines terms that are obvious for me".

When I was a newcomer on this list, I was lost, people said things like
"don't up post" or "don't put the answer below" or "answer inline" in a
jargon I didn't know about.

I'm CS teacher, and I see everyday that things not said explicitly create
misunderstanding to newcomers.


> [...]
> > When I speak on TraditionalDifferedEmail, I'm more like LBYL (Look before
> > you Leap), I write a long, but structured message, such that people see
> > first the structure, (intro, body, conclusion), and look in the message
> if
> > they want.
>
> That doesn't sound like the sorts of messages you have been sending
> here recently.
>
Yep, depending on the thread, I'm either type EAFP or LBYL, and I think
people can easily guess which type :) (long message = LBYL).

However, I don't always "read myself two times" before I send (because of
my EAFP nature) so my last mail for example was LBYL but has some spelling
mistakes.

--

And I guess people will ask if they are not sure.

I don't mean this as a criticism of such short posts. Sometimes all that
> needs to be said is a single sentence.

Agreed !!

But when you describe your
> posting style one way, but actually post another way, that is precisely
> the sort of confusing lack of clarity that this thread is about.
>
Indeed, mixing standards is bad, but on the other hand, people can think
"Robert is Eafp", "Robert is more LBYL when writing long messages")
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

Email Can be fast, as long as it is structured.

The list only impose the structure of "Thread" ie. Two mails are in the
same thread if they have the same subject.

Each thread can have it's own format.

Email use the quoting mechanism using leading ">" ane generally people do
not like html (switch to TextOnly in your mail client if it helps you).

Therefore inline images are not used often (one prefer).

In the end, anyone can see the list of email, by date, or by thread, on
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2019-February/thread.html


On Fri, 1 Feb 2019, 18:42 Adrien Ricocotam 

Did you use inclusive writing ? :D do you speak French ? :D Generally I
suggest using the middle dot, "·" easily accessible by copy paste, or by
long pressing the "-" key on android.
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Adrien Ricocotam

I'm kinda new to those mailing lists and those are the only ones I ever
subscribed so I'm a bit in the audience you're targeting James.

What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd often
like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the author I'm
with him and I think s.he's ideas are great. In some of the recent threads,
some of the ideas I agreed with were just smashed by others. I couldn't
give my two cents and the debate juste ended and I couldn't say the author
I was behind him.er. Another thing I think is not good is the absence of
little chit-chat and editing. Actually, a lot of emails are just
explanations of what the authors meant. That's pretty spammy and a few
messages exchanged + editing would correct this spammy thing.

In another hand, I think mailing lists are great to avoid short and useless
messages. There's no spammy message like "I'm ok" which could be replaced
by just a "+1" button. It forces us using LBYL principle (@poke Robert) and
it (imho) better fills the needs of such discussions.

As you may have get it, I'd rather a forum like thing rather than mailing
lists but mailings lists are great.

Le ven. 1 févr. 2019 à 18:22, Robert Vanden Eynde  a
écrit :

> That's a nice question !
>
> The main thing is "is this list more EmailLike or MessengerLike"
>
> When I speak on Messenger (or any instantaneous conversation software) I
> send a lot of very small messages, like "+1", it's interactive, I'm
> expecting a short answer.
>
> If I say something stupid, I undo, if I can't undo because the delay of my
> client is done, I send another message beginning with "Oops" or something
> obvious. It's the EAFP (Easier to ask for forgiveness than Permission)
> style.
>
> The point is "looking ar my first few words, people understand the message"
>
> When I speak on TraditionalDifferedEmail, I'm more like LBYL (Look before
> you Leap), I write a long, but structured message, such that people see
> first the structure, (intro, body, conclusion), and look in the message if
> they want.
>
> On Fri, 1 Feb 2019, 17:40 James Lu 
>> A lot of the traffic on this email list is people saying “I don’t
>> understand” or “that’s not what I meant” or trying to re-explain. A lot of
>> “-1”s are really “I don’t see the usefulness of this”.
>>
>>
>> So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas@python.org
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>>
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 06:21:07PM +0100, Robert Vanden Eynde wrote:
> That's a nice question !
> 
> The main thing is "is this list more EmailLike or MessengerLike"

This is a perfect example of the problem that James is referring to. I 
honestly cannot tell if you are being rhetorical, or if you are 
so technically naive that you genuinely don't know that this is an email 
mailing list rather than instant messenger or IRC or some other form of 
instantaneous chat.

[...]
> When I speak on TraditionalDifferedEmail, I'm more like LBYL (Look before
> you Leap), I write a long, but structured message, such that people see
> first the structure, (intro, body, conclusion), and look in the message if
> they want.

That doesn't sound like the sorts of messages you have been sending 
here recently.

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2019-January/055022.html

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2019-January/055028.html

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2019-January/055032.html

I don't mean this as a criticism of such short posts. Sometimes all that 
needs to be said is a single sentence. But when you describe your 
posting style one way, but actually post another way, that is precisely 
the sort of confusing lack of clarity that this thread is about.

-- 
Steve
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

2019-02-01 Thread Alex Shafer via Python-ideas

Agreed, thanks James for asking.

And thanks for bringing up the issue of communication mode in different 
mediums, Robert. I personally think the type of discussions taking place on 
this list would be better suited to a more interactive or conversational medium.

Is there already, or would anyone be opposed to the creation of a #python-ideas 
on a large IRC network? I'd hope discussions there can have the same weight, 
merit, community involvement, and potential for PEP-tracking ideas.

I think accommodating different people's best communication modes is essential 
to the continued development of any community and project.
 Original Message 
On Feb 1, 2019, 10:21, Robert Vanden Eynde wrote:

> That's a nice question !
>
> The main thing is "is this list more EmailLike or MessengerLike"
>
> When I speak on Messenger (or any instantaneous conversation software) I send 
> a lot of very small messages, like "+1", it's interactive, I'm expecting a 
> short answer.
>
> If I say something stupid, I undo, if I can't undo because the delay of my 
> client is done, I send another message beginning with "Oops" or something 
> obvious. It's the EAFP (Easier to ask for forgiveness than Permission) style.
>
> The point is "looking ar my first few words, people understand the message"
>
> When I speak on TraditionalDifferedEmail, I'm more like LBYL (Look before you 
> Leap), I write a long, but structured message, such that people see first the 
> structure, (intro, body, conclusion), and look in the message if they want.
>
> On Fri, 1 Feb 2019, 17:40 James Lu 
>> A lot of the traffic on this email list is people saying “I don’t 
>> understand” or “that’s not what I meant” or trying to re-explain. A lot of 
>> “-1”s are really “I don’t see the usefulness of this”.
>>
>> So I want an open discussion on: How can we communicate clearer?
>>
>> ___
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas@python.org
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 12:43 PM Adrien Ricocotam 
wrote:

> What I think is bad using mailing list it's the absence of votes. I'd
> often like to just hit a "+1" button for some mails just to say to the
> author I'm with him and I think s.he's ideas are great.
>

I feel like the strongest virtue of mailing lists is the absence of votes.

Various chat systems where you can add a "thumbs up" or "smile" or the like
encourage laziness and content-free interaction.  On a mailing list, for
the most part, we encourage people to formulate complete opinions supported
by reasons and arguments.  That is what python-ideas should be.  It should
not be a democracy or a voting system.

That said, obviously sometimes people do just reply with +1 to something.
I do that myself at times.  There are times when that really is an
appropriate reply, but I think it should be discouraged as the default
answer style.

Yours, David...

-- 
Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food
from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the
uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting
advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual property is
to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.
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Re: [Python-ideas] Clearer communication