Hi Warren,
________________________________
From: Warren Michelsen <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Until there's a REAL effing way to communicate, that
evey1 can use, I'm DONE
On Jun 18, 2013, at 9:47 AM, Cat S wrote:
I don't want to re-hash _years_ old debates, please read the bug report links
and other links I posted to old tor-talk threads.
Bug reports? Email bug reports? Tor bug reports?
That will explain why I and many others feel there should be an official Tor
forum.
That there should be a forum I am not questioning. I'm just wanting
clarification on what's wrong with email. You asserted, numerous times, that
email sucks for this community but never explained why. I fail to understand
how reading old bug reports would clarify this for me.
TL;DR: Newbs won't use mailing-lists;
Newbs to what, Tor? Why won't they use mailing lists? Personal preference, lack
of skill or something else?
mailing-lists are a entry barrier to newbs getting help.
Why? Just trying to understand the "barrier" aspect.
TBB is geared for newbs, yet we don't try to help them in an efficient and
meaningful way.
And TBB is....?
And I never suggested the mailing-lists should go away, the problem is
mailing-lists only help a small sub-set of TBB users, those that don't really
need basic newbish help.
Are you saying that newbs don't *like* email, preferring forum-type interfaces
instead? Is there research on this? Or do you have only anecdotal evidence?
Personally, there is enough variation in the mechanisms and functioning of the various
forums to which I subscribe that I vastly prefer the consistency of email, filtered right
into mailboxes I can peruse without missing a thing. No need to "subscribe" to
threads. It just works.
But do explain how email is a barrier to newbs.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't feel the need to re-hash all the arguments, like I wrote. Read this
e-mail thread for info on why I feel the way I do, and read this bug report
(the same one I referred to in my last e-mail):
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3592
The "barriers to newbs" e.g. is that using mailing-lists is not easy for newbs, I've had
newbs try this and none of them thought it was simple or fun, they all complied about the
complexity and that it's "not simple" [0].
Barrier example:
A newb must choose an e-mail client (most newbs use web based e-mail), figure
out how to use the client, figure out how to setup e-mail address for
themselves using the client (let's not even get into TLS/SSL!), figure out how
to sign up to tor-talk, then learn list etiquette (e.g. top-posting) and learn
about threading (e.g. how to respond), and then learn how to filter out
messages they don't care about (if they ever get that far), lastly, they have
to read (or at least open) dozens and dozens and dozens of e-mails they don't
care about.
Following a thread is not easy, especially when you're not used to e-mail
client and mailing-lists.
We should not make it any harder than it has to be, for newbs to get the help
they need.
Please re-read this thread for examples given my myself and adrelanos, as to the barriers
to newbs. "Newbs" means people new to Tor, and people new to the Internet and
to computers in general, i.e., a large group of people that use Tor. A CEO of a fortune
500 company can be a newb, as can my grandmother, or my nephew.
[0] 20-something kids in a computer class, and my mother and my older sister,
as well as co-workers that I teach to use Tor; I'd say I've tested a ~dozen
people.
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