[ripe-list] The Future of Discussion Lists

On Fri, May 26, 2023 at 09:41:59AM +0200, Leo Vegoda wrote:
> Dear RIPE community,
> 
> At yesterday’s community plenary I asked whether mailing lists are
> sustainable as our main communication channel. For those who were not
> able to attend, the slide and a recording are available here:
> 
> - https://ripe86.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/12-Mailing-Lists-RIPE-86.pdf
> - https://ripe86.ripe.net/archives/video/1115
> 
> I am obviously concerned that discussion lists might not serve us with
> fidelity in the future. If that is the case, I want us to manage any
> change we need to make. We should not be bounced into rapid change.
> 
> There was more discussion than I expected. I’m sending this message to
> ask the questions:
> 
> - Am I wrong? Are e-mail discussion lists a sustainable communication
> channel for the foreseeable future?
> - Are e-mail discussion lists an acceptable technology to people
> joining the industry?

Hello

The main advantage of e-mail is that it is that it is an acceptable
technology for everybody. Alternative approaches (to keeping just mailing
lists) are:

1) Select one alternative as the only replacement

It is unlikely that we would agree on one good alternative. It could
drive out dissenters, as many alternatives are unacceptable for some
people for several reasons:

 - some are proprietary instead of open (e.g. Discord, Slack)

 - some are silos (keep all state on central server)

 - some have just web / Electron clients instead of well-defined
   application protocol and collection of clients.


2) Offer multiple alternatives that are not connected

Some open-source projects do that, but it leads to fragmentation of
community, where instead of one group of people there are multiple groups
of people around each technology.


3) Offer multiple alternatives connected by bridges

Not sure how much realistic this is. Although i heard Qt project is going
this way.

-- 
Ondrej 'Santiago' Zajicek (email: santiago at crfreenet.org)
"To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so."