Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
Hello, On Sat 05 Oct 2019 at 10:13PM +01, Samuel Henrique wrote: > I don't understand the argument of it being a social problem, isn't our > own constitution a technical solution to a social problem? Hmm, I think that "social problem" is not what I meant. It's difficult to communicate effectively in writing, and we do not have good ways of collating best practices for doing that and passing them on to new and existing contributors. Further, communicating effectively in writing takes energy that isn't always available. To my mind, this is what's responsible for us communicating less effectively. When I say that's it's not a technical problem, I just mean that it seems like a problem we can't program our way out of. -- Sean Whitton signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
On 2019-10-05 22:13:49 +0100 (+0100), Samuel Henrique wrote: [...] > And the problems with relying on the tree view of email subthreads > have already been exposed here as it depends on people formatting > the subthread in a specific way, which does always happens. [...] Not necessarily. For me at least, mutt shows proper branching subthreads regardless of whether folks remember to modify the subject when they're changing topics. But as you already pointed out, expecting people to use available tools which solve these problems is unrealistic--they'd rather keep using the tools they're familiar with and then complain about the medium--asking for (or better still, implementing themselves) improvements in the tools they use is going to be the last thing they consider. -- Jeremy Stanley signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 14:51, Antonio Terceiro wrote: > On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 01:37:58PM +0100, Samuel Henrique wrote: > > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 10:48, Mathias Behrle wrote: > > > > > ...BTW no discussion tool can help in automating > > > separate discussion threads when the topic changes. > > > > > > > They can, I think reddit and hackernews are good at this. > > That's the "tree-like" structure that I mentioned in my email. > > Note that email already has a "tree-like" structure, since forever. You > just don't see it if you (ironically) use web application email clients > like gmail that decided to not show it. Most console/desktop clients > that I ever saw do support it. > Hm, but I wonder of the ones you saw how much they are used, because from the ones I see people using, I would say less than 5% (by usage) has this. And even then we are talking about tools that are either console or desktop-only, there is still the smartphone user cases and, most importantly, being able to follow the discussions without the need to authenticate and being subscribed to the list, which would be useful for outsiders (and an outsider is someone who will become a contributor eventually). And the problems with relying on the tree view of email subthreads have already been exposed here as it depends on people formatting the subthread in a specific way, which does always happens. On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 15:29, Jeremy Stanley wrote: > If you find that mailing list discussions lack a tree-like > structure, that's a failing of the mail client you've chosen, not > the medium itself. I don't think it helps with having new contributors to require them to use specific mail clients that are used by a small niche of mail users (talking about client percentage usage). Besides it also require one to be subscribed to the list and authenticated, so outsiders can't easily follow. I know there is a web interface for the archives but is isn't good to follow the threads as well. On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 15:36, Sean Whitton wrote: > > BTW no discussion tool can help in automating separate discussion > > threads when the topic changes. > > Yes, and more generally, what we are trying to deal with seems to be a > social problem, not a technical problem, so moving away from mailing > lists is unlikely to have a large impact. I don't understand the argument of it being a social problem, isn't our own constitution a technical solution to a social problem? When dealing with behavior/social problems, it's fine if you don't solve 100% of the cases, but you can certainly help by having tools that makes it harder for one to follow trough the wrong way of doing things, that's the whole point of UX. In this case, for example, this subthread started by saying that the titles need to be formatted in a correct way so it's easier to follow the big picture. Reddit and Hackernews doesn't have this problem as you're always replying to a given comment, if it's not the OP, it's a subthread. It's very hard to accidentally not open a subthread when you want to, as the "add comment" screen shows you only the one you're replying to. In the end, I'm not saying the hackernews and reddit solution are perfect, they still probably do have other problems when used as a discussion tool. I'm fine with not talking about changing the status quo anymore, I thought there would be people exposing the problems and talking about the pros/cons of the tools but it's clear that I'm the outlier here. It seems most of the community doesn't think we could have a better tool for discussions. -- Samuel Henrique
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
Hello, On Wed 02 Oct 2019 at 11:30AM +02, Mathias Behrle wrote: > first of all it would help a lot to identify when a new subthread is > openend and make this visible in the usual way (like this mail does). It would > increase a lot(!) the readability of Debian lists where this is an > often encountered problem. Thank you for the reminder about that; it's useful. > BTW no discussion tool can help in automating separate discussion > threads when the topic changes. Yes, and more generally, what we are trying to deal with seems to be a social problem, not a technical problem, so moving away from mailing lists is unlikely to have a large impact. > Meanwhile we are at the often introduced question if better tooling could > help. > I don't think another tool can save a lot of time. We *ourselves* can help > that with more discipline in following the good old rules in marking > subthreads > when they are going offtopic. Finally the scheduling of the different topics > led partly to the fact that only quite few members could participate. This > will > be a constant problem in a project of volunteers and I think we will have to > live with that fact. Yes. -- Sean Whitton signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
On 2019-10-02 10:51:22 -0300 (-0300), Antonio Terceiro wrote: > On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 01:37:58PM +0100, Samuel Henrique wrote: > > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 10:48, Mathias Behrle wrote: > > > > > ...BTW no discussion tool can help in automating > > > separate discussion threads when the topic changes. > > > > > > > They can, I think reddit and hackernews are good at this. > > That's the "tree-like" structure that I mentioned in my email. > > Note that email already has a "tree-like" structure, since forever. You > just don't see it if you (ironically) use web application email clients > like gmail that decided to not show it. Most console/desktop clients > that I ever saw do support it. Indeed, mutt is showing me a very branchy tree for this very discussion. MUAs include references to the message IDs replied to within each message's headers, precisely so that readers can construct a reference graph of message relationships for this use case. If you find that mailing list discussions lack a tree-like structure, that's a failing of the mail client you've chosen, not the medium itself. -- Jeremy Stanley signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 01:37:58PM +0100, Samuel Henrique wrote: > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 10:48, Mathias Behrle wrote: > > > ...BTW no discussion tool can help in automating > > separate discussion threads when the topic changes. > > > > They can, I think reddit and hackernews are good at this. > That's the "tree-like" structure that I mentioned in my email. Note that email already has a "tree-like" structure, since forever. You just don't see it if you (ironically) use web application email clients like gmail that decided to not show it. Most console/desktop clients that I ever saw do support it. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
Samuel Henrique writes: > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 10:48, Mathias Behrle wrote: > >> ...BTW no discussion tool can help in automating >> separate discussion threads when the topic changes. >> > > They can, I think reddit and hackernews are good at this. > That's the "tree-like" structure that I mentioned in my email. > Are there any good reddit or hackernews-style front-ends to mail archives with a reply view similar to github's, including preview view? (IIRC the email-paradigm example web-thing project mentioned earlier in the thread didn't mention anything on this topic) Extra points if the user can hold , highlight the passages from multiple messages, hit reply, and get a markdown-style reply interface that enforces in-line quoting style with no top posting or unnecessarily CCing. And would that be approachable enough for new members? Are we ok with receiving emails in markdown? Emails sent to the list magically appear in the right place on the web-interface, so long as the In-Reply-To header is kept intact. Honestly I wonder if anything with a "tree-like structure" will intimidate users...maybe if one could bookmark one's position in the thread it would be ok, but frankly when I look at the tree structure for long complex threads I usually think "I don't have time for this" or "making sense of this is too much work". And if there's a stigma against repeating arguments/sentiments/info, then there's also an implicit requirement to read the whole thread before replying. IMHO that's the biggest barrier to participation, but on the other hand notice how many near-identical replies are found in different branches of a sub-reddit... BTW, would there be any value in a web-thing poll that sends out a once-daily results to the thread? The idea being it's a "me too" reply option without the stigma. Cheers, Nicholas signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 10:48, Mathias Behrle wrote: > ...BTW no discussion tool can help in automating > separate discussion threads when the topic changes. > They can, I think reddit and hackernews are good at this. That's the "tree-like" structure that I mentioned in my email. > You will definitely lose me when I am forced to enter such an online > platform to > follow and participate in discussions. > I am 100% sure that there will be people saying they won't interact anymore if $something changes, and there will also be people who will actually stop interacting if it happens, and there will also be people that say they don't interact because of the current situation, and there will be people who will start interacting if we address it. It's impossible to do anything with 100% approval on Debian, and I think when we discuss about this we are talking about trading off receiving new contributors to the project over keeping the current ones. Both things are bad: losing current contributors and not being able to get new ones, due to the tools we use. So I'm not saying that we should totally ignore one of them. I just want to point to the fact that we need to be careful when people start saying they will stop interacting/leave if something changes because on the other side there are new contributors that don't join because of it and we need to balance both. And I mean, this is not news, almost everyone outside of Debian that I talk to have this idea that "Debian uses old and bad tools" for communications, bug reporting, and etc. I don't consider our situation to be bad as some people say, I'm here and overall happy after all, but there's definitely room for improvement. Regards, -- Samuel Henrique
Re: Discussion tooling (was: Bits from the DPL (August 2019))
On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 11:30:58AM +0200, Mathias Behrle wrote: > first of all it would help a lot to identify when a new subthread is > openend and make this visible in the usual way (like this mail does). It would > increase a lot(!) the readability of Debian lists where this is an > often encountered problem. BTW no discussion tool can help in automating > separate discussion threads when the topic changes. very true. and i'm very sceptical people will manage this. currently most writers are already unable to avoid cc:ing when replying to list mails even though this is against our rules which is especially ironic (and depressing) when talking about respect and consensus... [discourse] > You will definitely lose me when I am forced to enter such an online platform > to > follow and participate in discussions. I guess I will also not participate in discussions using online tools. -- cheers, Holger --- holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C signature.asc Description: PGP signature
