[ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
Dear all, (dropping types-announce)
First, many thanks to Derek for moderating the list over the past years. I am
excited to take up this role.
Moving forward:
A. It appears (to me, but shout if you disagree) that the TYPES/announce list
is serving its purpose reasonably well, with a constant flow of
conference, job-related news, and other announcements in the general area
of types, programming languages, semantics, logic, formal
methods etc.
B. On the other hand, the TYPES discussion list is quiet. The past few years
we've had around 10-12 discussion threads a year.
This might mean several things:
- Relevant discussion is happening, but happening elsewhere. E.g. you
see category theory posts in the
Haskell mailing lists, core type theory posts in the Coq mailing
lists, and general questions and discussions in
lambda-the-ultimate.
- Mailing lists are too old fashioned and discussions have moved to
blogs and wikis.
- TYPES is potentially a slightly intimidating place for newcomers to
post questions or have conversations with
world-class experts?
- Somewhat contradicting the first possibility: TYPES is perceived as a
very specialized theoretical list (e.g.
only about types) so people who don't have a specialized question
would not post here.
- Other? (e.g. fewer people interested in the core TYPES topics?)
The questions really are:
- Is this situation problematic for you or is TYPES serving you ("you" the
seasoned researchers, as well as "you" the newcomers or students)
just fine and we should not worry?
- If you think there is a problem, what is your diagnosis?
- Should we do anything about it? Would you like to see TYPES becoming a
more active forum and do you have concrete ideas about how to do it?
Please do email me ([email protected]) with feedback or any thoughts on
the future of this list.
I will collect responses and compile answers, conclusions and try to identify
action items.
Kind regards,
Dimitrios Vytiniotis
-----Original Message-----
From: Types-list [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Derek Dreyer
Sent: Wednesday, May 7, 2014 4:13 PM
To: [email protected]; Types list
Subject: [TYPES] New moderator: Dimitrios Vytiniotis
[ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
Dear Types and Types/announce members,
It has been my pleasure to serve as moderator of the Types and Types/announce
lists for 5 years now, but it's time to hand over the reins to someone else.
Dimitrios Vytiniotis of Microsoft Research Cambridge has kindly agreed to take
over as moderator. I want to thank him for agreeing to moderate the list, and
I'm sure he'll do a great job!
In fact, he and I have discussed it, and one of the first things he would like
to do as new moderator is to solicit feedback from the community on whether the
Types list is serving its members as well as it could, and if not, how best to
evolve it going forward. He will be sending mail about that shortly.
Best regards,
Derek Dreyer
