
Zed Shaw: Librelist to take on Google, Yahoo mailing lists - mattculbreth
http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-12-03.html
======
stcredzero
_This isn’t to say that for-profit companies are bad, it’s just that if they
can make money by tracking your behavior and serving you ads, then that will
take precedence over giving your project a good user experience._

This strikes me as hitting the nail on the head!

~~~
petervandijck
That doesn't make any sense. Making money somehow causes less focus on user
experience?

~~~
zedshaw
Yes, because the primary "user" for a company like Yahoo! or Google is the
advertiser, not the mailing list user.

~~~
netcan
The primary "user" for a TV show is the advertiser. Doe that mean they don't
care about ratings?

~~~
scott_s
The ratings for a show determine how much a network can charge the advertisers
for commercial time.

~~~
netcan
Yes that is true. But that isn't the point of the question.

The implication of the parent is that since Google (by analogy TV companies)
make money from advertising, they have less incentive to take care of users.

Ratings determine how much a network can charge the advertisers for commercial
time. Ratings are a measure of viewer satisfaction. This isn't coincidental.

~~~
boucher
Actually, ratings don't really measure viewer satisfaction. They measure the
number of people watching. Those aren't really the same things.

The advertising based system on television is part of the reason why shows
must have broad appeal, and often cater to a lowest common denominator. Shows
which may require more effort from the viewer may get a smaller audience, but
that audience may be much more satisfied. Unfortunately, since television's
model is based only on total viewing audience, it doesn't matter how satisfied
the viewer really is, just as long as they keep watching.

~~~
netcan
You're nitpicking.

Gross viewer satisfaction by some definition of 'viewer' & 'satisfactions.'
Very similar metric to box office sales where consumers pay directly. Better?

None of this is relevant to the point being discussed. The point is that just
because company A gets paid by Advertiser B that wants to reach Customer C
does not mean that company A does not have the incentive to serve customer C
properly.

~~~
stcredzero
_You're nitpicking.

Gross viewer satisfaction by some definition of 'viewer' & satisfactions._

I don't think that's a nitpick. I'll sometimes watch a TV show, but still not
be wholly satisfied with it. He's pointing out a problem with the metric. With
the current economics, companies that produce TV would be most pleased if a
whole ton of somewhat dissatisfied people watch a show, versus a few that
_love_ a show. The economics encourage mediocrity.

------
rufo
EDIT: Zed just addressed this with some basic plans:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=974744>

Overall it looks nice. The most interesting/controversial bit to me is the
following (taken from librelist.com):

 _Nobody Can Be Taken Off

The “libre” in the name means freedom for everyone to discuss their opinions,
so nobody will have the right to boot you off or enforce arbitrary “list Nazi”
rules simply because you disagree with them.

That of course doesn’t mean you should act like a jerk, but the librelist.com
philosophy is that healthy communities can survive and need “trolls”._

~~~
nollidge
So it's freedom, just not for the list manager.

Can anyone provide a defense (from Zed or anyone) for the idea that a healthy
community _needs_ trolls? I can understand the need for dissent and argument,
but it seems to me that trolling is categorically different from those.

~~~
gloob
A not-very-good-but-still-fun argument:

Trolls are the predators of internet communities. They prey on the sick, the
weak, and the perennially outraged (mostly this last group) and, if they are
successful, drive them away from the community. A community without
perennially outraged people is better than a community with them.

The question is whether this benefit is worth the potential cost, which is
probably something that almost entirely dependent on the nature of the
community and the personalities of the trolls involved.

Edit: By "perennially outraged", I am referring to people who are constantly
angry or miserable for no reason other than that such an emotional state is
"what they do". They aren't trolls themselves, any more than a particularly
unpleasant customer is a troll. They're just constantly unhappy and vocal
about it.

~~~
zedshaw
No, not hardly at all.

Generally there's three classes of trolls (this is just my opinion):

Griefers are what you describe. People who are more interested in gaming the
implied social norms of the community in order to destroy it. These people
suck, but totally blocking them eliminates the second class:

Dissenters are people who just disagree with you, and considering nearly every
open source project is started by opinionated dissenters it's just bound to
happen. I believe that without these people though your project dies because
your ideas stagnate and you never really deal with actual criticism until it's
too late. Also, they may just be the vocal part of your user base that wants
something you don't.

Finally, moderators who use their moderation powers to "indirectly troll". By
this I mean people who unilaterally deny people's communications because it
would interfere with their hidden agendas. If you go look at nearly every
failed community, at the heart is someone like this.

What I think, and what we'll find out, is that what really drives people away
is not the presence of all of these, but the dominance of one of these types
of "trolls". My idea is to just balance them out and give the community a real
vote on what is what.

~~~
scott_s
We have different definitions of "troll." Your second category does not fit
into mine; I do not consider someone who is genuinely trying to communicate to
be a troll.

Your assumption is that it's impossible to differentiate category one from
category two. I see no reason for that to be true.

~~~
zedshaw
Nope, I never said it was impossible to differentiate, I just said that the
differentiation shouldn't be controlled by a few people who potentially won't
understand the difference.

Here's a question for you: If you moderate a list, do you let subscribers see
what you've moderated and why? If it's for the benefit of the mailing list
community, then why not?

~~~
scott_s
You should make this clear on librelist.com; right now, it appears that there
will be no mechanism to deal with trolls.

If I did moderate a list (which I don't), and there was an ability for
subscribers to see the raw feed, I'd allow that. I am curious if your approach
will work. It's similar to how things operate here, but I wonder if it can
work with no moderators. (HN does have editors who monitor flagged articles
and comments.)

~~~
zedshaw
I'm curious if also that could bring up another model: lists can be moderated,
but there's "Sousveillance" on the moderators with feedback rating from the
community. That way, you get moderators, but people who are member get to see
if you're just crushing dissenting opinion. People could then see that your
moderation style is rated at "Nazi" and just not join.

~~~
ThinkWriteMute
Wouldn't this become a sort of Ycombinator/Reddit style voting list? Not that
it's a bad thing but just an interesting thought.

------
AndrewWarner
I created a Hacker News list so we can test it out. hackernews@librelist.com
will let you see it.

Glad he's taking on the neglected lists @ google & yahoo.

------
whyenot
_Many systems allow a small minority to tyrannically control the group,
applying censorship where nobody actually wants it._

Many systems _may_ allow this behavior, but that doesn't mean it actually
happens. At least I've never personally encountered it on a mailing list. Is
it really that big a problem?

On the other hand, maybe the current state of comp.lang.lisp is a good example
of what a mailing list with no moderation might look like. There are still
good conversations, but there is so much spam and trolling that I don't bother
reading it anymore -- it took too much work to sift through all the junk. Even
worse, the trolls create an environment that is not exactly inviting to new
users.

------
gojomo
_They make you log in just to see archives, which ruins any promotional and
educational value your archives have._

That's not exactly true. At Yahoo, I believe this is up to the list owner. (I
know my most active list there allows viewing of archives without logging in.)

At Google, it's weirder: if you're _not logged into Google at all_ , you can
often view the archives without being prompted for a login. But if you are
logged into Google elsewhere, they demand you either reconfirm your login with
Groups, or logout entirely, before allowing you to view to the archives.

(That's still a problem -- enough of an annoyance in fact that I wouldn't
consider hosting any more groups there until it's fixed. But it seems mainly
an eccentricity of their cross-site login policies, and does still offer a
route to non-logged-in viewing.)

------
pieter
I wanted to use it, but then came across this:

>You also subscribe to a list by simply sending your first message to
list@librelist.com. It will then confirm you and send your original email on
to the list. No special subscribe addresses, difficult workflows, or endless
help references. Just send an email.

Totally unacceptable IMHO, and unlike how any other mailing list functionality
works. If you send a message to the list, it should arrive there, without
confirmation from you, and you shouldn't be subscribed unless you explicitly
want that. Otherwise how can you participate in a conversation on the
mailinglist without subscribing or allow cross-mailinglist posts?

~~~
zedshaw
Oops, it actually doesn't work that way anymore. Updated the main page.
Thanks.

------
j2d2
JSON access and spam filtering!!

I'm sold

------
dschobel
_Nothing to allow tyranny of the minority or majority. It’s all about free
speech and open communication. However, this is balanced with the above spam
marking, and potentially a “troll rating” that’s similar to a spam rating._

How do you reconcile these two when an unpopular opinion can be marginalized
as troll or spam?

~~~
codexon
I don't think that problem can ever be solved without resorting to human
administrative decisions.

------
philipn
Folks, if you're looking for an alternative that's run by a non-profit and
completely open source, please check out:

<http://www.coactivate.org/>

~~~
dschobel
_This is why I’m proposing that Librelist be run similar to freenode.net in
that it should be developed by the same community and a not-for-profit
operation._

What else do you have?

------
Aegean
If it works out to be a friendly list interface with a _group_ feeling, this
would be an absolute winner project.

As a year of graduates we use a yahoogroups list since 2000, and we never
changed it. Yahoogroups is currently running on 1995 technology, and google
groups get spammed, let alone the web pages look like a pharmacy store. Also
both lack the "we are a group" feeling.

So yes, since we're looking for a better interface and couldn't find one
hitting 2010, if done properly this would be a definite winner.

------
papersmith
Just curious, do most people here use the email client as the primary
interface for the group sites?

I personally use the web interface for busy listings just to keep things
separate from my actual email, and email client for only very low-volume
listings. Am I missing out on something?

~~~
sfk
Yes: Gnus, slrn, mutt, maildrop.

------
est
This is off topic, but are there any mailist that archive nothing, anonymize
every poster's ID except spam or uninvited, delete unnecessary headers, and do
not log anything?

~~~
zedshaw
Not that I know of, then again, if you want that, uh, why are you on a mailing
list that's public in the first place. Sounds like you want a PGP key ring and
a great Mutt alias setup.

------
bradgessler
Great idea. I've started to smell the "funk" recently around Google Groups;
Zed pinned down exactly what it was. This will be a very interesting project
moving forward.

