

Ask HN: What's the deal with mailing lists? - cool-RR

I noticed that in almost all open source projects, the main avenue of communication is the mailing list, or multiple mailing lists for big projects.<p>Every time I want to ask a question, I have to sign up, and it's usually not a very friendly or intelligent system. Memorable messages include: <i>"Do not use a sensitive password because it will sometimes be mailed to you in cleartext"</i> and <i>"This is a reminder, sent out once a month, about your python.org mailing list memberships."</i><p>Then I have to mail my question in and wait for other people to answer, while in the meantime my inbox gets flooded with long threads about the project which are of no interest to me. After people have answered my question I still have to remain registered for some time, just in case someone will still have something insightful to say. All the while still getting unwanted messages. After that I have to interact again with the mailing list software to unsubscribe.<p>Why? Am I missing something here?
======
ephermata
Mailing lists are a way to collect high volume discussions on a topic in a way
that can be quickly scanned and searched. I can route everything through GMail
or other mail client, then use a single set of tools to manage my
conversations and "tasks" that arise from those conversations. In my case,
I've set up my mail clients to let me do most everything without taking my
hands off the keyboard, just "shoveling" mail through via shortcuts. I also
have mail filters that shunt different lists into different folders for
searching later.

Web forums are fine for many people, but they drive me nuts. Too much clicking
and too many pageloads, at least for the forums I have seen. This breaks my
communication "flow" and leaves me feeling unwilling to spend any more time at
the forum. It _is_ true that it is easier to drop in and ask a quick help
question in a forum, as you point out, but that doesn't outweigh the fact I
usually never want to visit the forum again. More fundamentally, my async
store/forward communication happens in my email client, I don't like having to
switch to other programs.

Now, don't get me wrong. Mailing list discussions are far from perfect. In
particular it's easy for the entire discussion to be hijacked by a few hot
topics. (Not necessarily trolls, although that works too.) This inflates
volume and drives away people who would otherwise make great contributions.
I've seen this repeatedly.

Really what I'd like is something that is to mailman what git was to version
control -- a way for me to opt in to different "versions" of a mailing list
potentially managed by different people but sharing the same core message
flows. Something that would let me avoid needing to keep my own set of
killfiles updated for each list all the time.

The Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer sort of tried this, but their focus
wasn't on different filters. They never had that many nodes anyway. The other
thing I've seen is people self-tagging posts with [<keyword>] in the title,
but that is brittle and still requires me to create new filters on the fly.

------
jeremymcanally
Well I think the idea is that a mailing list, and by extension, the whole open
source project, isn't a one way street. Most people who use open source
software contribute in one way or another, whether it's through supporting new
users, hacking on the source code, or offering helpful, informed suggestions
about the project.

Not to be a Negative Nancy® here, but the problem is that "You're Doing It
Wrong." If you're just wanting to get your questions answered without any sort
of input to the project, I think perhaps you're missing the spirit.

That's all to say, it's fine for you to do that, but don't expect for it to be
a frictionless process. The idea is that you don't do things that way. And
most people who aren't (like me) really like the mailing list concept; it's
easy, it integrates with something I already use all the time, and it exposes
me to things and conversations that are going on really easily.

~~~
Zev
_Not to be a Negative Nancy® here, but the problem is that "You're Doing It
Wrong." If you're just wanting to get your questions answered without any sort
of input to the project, I think perhaps you're missing the spirit._

Theres more reasons to want to get support for something then your own selfish
needs. Maybe you want to _start_ hacking on the project but don't want to step
on someone else's toes? Or how about if you're interested in learning about
the project to see if it fits your needs (to avoid wasting your and other
peoples time later on forcing a square peg into a round hole)?

And asking questions _is_ giving input to the project. If a question keeps
coming up, it _should_ be sending you a signal that goes "Hey, this needs some
work so that people don't have to spend so much time asking us how it works".
I would argue that _you're_ "missing the spirit" if you're arguing that its
wrong to only want to ask questions.

 _but don't expect for it to be a frictionless process. The idea is that you
don't do things that way._

Why shouldn't the process be frictionless? Why do you want to make it
difficult for people to start using or get help using your software?

~~~
antonovka
_Theres more reasons to want to get support for something then your own
selfish needs. Maybe you want to start hacking on the project but don't want
to step on someone else's toes?_

Then join the mailing list and participate in the discussion.

 _Why shouldn't the process be frictionless?_

There's very little software that supports both fly-by questions on the web,
and proper discussion via e-mail, so we optimize for ourselves, not users.

Web forums aren't frictionless. In fact, they're totally shit for the purpose
of carrying on detailed conversations over the course of days without
requiring constant attention from all the participants.

There's a reason why most forums will e-mail you when your watched threads are
updated. Why not just have the e-mail be the thread?

 _Why do you want to make it difficult for people to start using or get help
using your software?_

Users don't pay the bills, and questions are usually incredibly repetitive and
dull, no matter how easy-to-use or well documented the project is.

I'd rather the users that are unwilling to invest in the mailing list self-
segregate by posting their one-offs to sites like StackOverflow.

~~~
Zev
It may just be me, but it seems like you're contradicting yourself with:

 _There's very little software that supports both fly-by questions on the web,
and proper discussion via e-mail, so we optimize for ourselves, not users._

and

 _Users don't pay the bills, and questions are usually incredibly repetitive
and dull, no matter how easy-to-use or well documented the project is._

While there's absolutely nothing wrong with coding for yourself, it doesn't
usually pay the bills either. And (sadly), its rarer then it should be for
someone to be able to print money for themselves by making things for
themselves.

I reiterate: If different users are asking the _same_ question repeatedly,
perhaps its an indicator that there's something wrong with your software, not
your users?

Oh, and, incase you don't know, not all software needs to expand until they
can read mail. Multitasking has (sans the iPhone, if you want), been around
for decades. People are more than capable of having one program open at a
time. There's nothing wrong with this.

 _Web forums aren't frictionless. In fact, they're totally shit for the
purpose of carrying on detailed conversations over the course of days without
requiring constant attention from all the participants.

There's a reason why most forums will e-mail you when your watched threads are
updated. Why not just have the e-mail be the thread?_

Nowhere did I say that forums are better than email. They're both equally bad.
My personal preference for this sort of thing is IRC. Of course, I'm biased,
since one of the projects I spend the most time working on is an IRC client.

Also, forums are easier for end users to figure out then mailing lists. You
could argue thats because mailing list software tends to suck, but, thats
ignoring the issue.

 _I'd rather the users that are unwilling to invest in the mailing list self-
segregate by posting their one-offs to sites like StackOverflow._

Not all open source projects are programming languages or libraries, which is
SO's target area currently seems to be.

~~~
antonovka
_While there's absolutely nothing wrong with coding for yourself, it doesn't
usually pay the bills either. And (sadly), its rarer then it should be for
someone to be able to print money for themselves by making things for
themselves._

Feel free to treat "pay the bills" metaphorically. That was my intention.

 _I reiterate: If different users are asking the same question repeatedly,
perhaps its an indicator that there's something wrong with your software, not
your users?_

Perhaps. But more often than not it's an inherent complexity in the problem
space itself.

 _Oh, and, incase you don't know, not all software needs to expand until they
can read mail. Multitasking has (sans the iPhone, if you want), been around
for decades. People are more than capable of having one program open at a
time. There's nothing wrong with this._

I don't follow your meaning ...

 _My personal preference for this sort of thing is IRC._

IRC is real-time and ephemeral, which makes it considerably more difficult to
engage in conversations with contributors in other time zones, and refer back
to design discussions that occurred 5-20 years ago.

 _Also, forums are easier for end users to figure out then mailing lists._

I thought we already established that project communication channels are
primarily optimized for the project contributors who use them daily, not for
once-off questions from end users.

~~~
Zev
_Perhaps. But more often than not it's an inherent complexity in the problem
space itself._

That isn't to say there is only ever one way of performing an action or that
it is impossible to make it clearer how to perform a task. And if you make it
difficult for users to give you their opinion, it will be that much harder to
know what needs to be improved.

 _IRC is real-time and ephemeral, which makes it considerably more difficult
to engage in conversations with contributors in other time zones, and refer
back to design discussions that occurred 5-20 years ago._

There's not very many projects that date back 20 years ago that also have the
complexity that you're talking about. X11 and the Linux kernel are the only
two I can think of off the top of my head. And I would hope that a 5-20 year
old project that's continuously under development would have more
documentation than posts from a _mailing list_ about its design.

 _I thought we already established that project communication channels are
primarily optimized for the project contributors who use them daily, not for
once-off questions from end users._

I would be interested in seeing how many projects — open source in this case —
have > 1 or 2 contributors.

I may be off base, but I'd guess that you're optimizing towards large, highly
visible projects and not the small, norm of an open source project.

~~~
pyre
> _That isn't to say there is only ever one way of performing an action or
> that it is impossible to make it clearer how to perform a task. And if you
> make it difficult for users to give you their opinion, it will be that much
> harder to know what needs to be improved._

Not to berate users, but sometimes when people run into an issue they want a
solution yesterday. So they hop on to the mailinglist/irc and demand to have
their problem fixed... Only for more informed people to point them at the FAQ
which probably results for the first Google search on problem.

I'm not saying that the software could't have flaws. I'm saying that if people
are armed with the answer to their issue, then they are more equipped to make
suggestions at the future direction of the software. When they still don't
have an answer they are still in, "FIX THIS NOW!" mode.

------
kyro
And here I thought the title of this submission was the opener to a geek-
oriented comedy routine.

------
jackchristopher
Email has been around for a while. People really like it. Older hackers
(Torvalds) seem to in particular. I ignored it too. But I'm realizing the best
conversations happen over it.

A lot of older internet users generally use lists (or private mail) for
discussion. They also tend smarter. Like most scientist email and only a
fraction blog. I don't think that's a bug. Probably better to extend email
than force another medium.

Last time someone on HN asked about favorite lists it got nil response. Hope
that was a fluke. But a good one is the _Linux Kernel_ list. Intense. I don't
code. But I'm learning a lot about how big projects get done.

~~~
pyre
The problem that I have with busy lists is that if you get behind in reading
them it can look like a daunting task to see 100 conversations/threads (as in
gmail) waiting to be read.

Site note: Filtering email lists in Gmail is really easy. There's a 'list:'
modifier. So you can do 'list:python-list' if you've signed up to the mail
python mailing list. Filtering them in procmail can be a PITA if you're trying
to make a generic rule to filter list traffic into aptly-named folders,
especially when traffic goes to two lists (e.g. python-announce and python-
list).

------
blasdel
_"Do not use a sensitive password because it will sometimes be mailed to you
in cleartext" and "This is a reminder, sent out once a month, about your
python.org mailing list memberships."_

Blame GNU Mailman, the absolute worst mailing list daemon ever written:
<http://www.jwz.org/doc/mailman.html>

------
ndc
I don't think the problem is the mailing list style of discussion. Looks like
it works fine, even for big projects like the linux kernel. What I find
frustrating with mailing list is the archive:

* sometimes there is no archives

* sometimes the archive is unsearchable, only browsable

* for archives with search capability, sometimes the search results are not accurate enough

If end users can find answers through mailing list archive, they needn't post
nor subscribe.

------
chipsy
Mailing lists work exactly because of your complaint - they force you to stick
around longer than you would with a webforum or IRC. If the list is good
you'll say "yeah, I want to see what else is going on with this project." If
you're purely an end-user it's much more frustrating, of course.

My main gripe about mailing lists is that I prefer using digest mode because
it loads faster over webmail. But if I use it, it becomes non-trivial to reply
to a particular discussion thread.

Really, that isn't a huge gripe, in the grand scheme of things.

As for "good lists" - pretty much any active project with a topic you're
interested in will have some discussion.

~~~
pyre
Whatever webmail client you're using should get support for splitting digests.
IIRC, there are scripts that do this if you use console readers like mutt. You
should press your webmail provider/developer to add support for this. The
digests will still be smaller since they lack a lot of the email headers that
mailinglist traffic 'normally' send would have.

------
ephermata
Oh also, if the project happens to have an IRC channel, those can be excellent
places to ask these kinds of one-off questions. Depends on the project of
course but instant messaging is pretty good for the quick help kind of thing.

------
wmf
In many cases you can send a message to the list without subscribing, but this
isn't well documented.

In general I think the problem is just laziness; the people running the
project optimize it for themselves (active participants) rather than their
users. It doesn't help that the most popular software (Mailman/Pipermail) is
mediocre.

~~~
jacobolus
> _the people running the project optimize it for themselves_

This is pretty reasonable, if you think about it: it's worth making life nice
for the people donating hundreds or thousands of hours of their time to answer
questions, as well as for the people who only plan to interact with the system
for a couple of questions.

To the OP: Try the <http://gmane.org/> NNTP/web mirrors of mailing lists, if
you don't want to sign up for them. In particular, reading lists via NNTP from
gmane in Thunderbird is pretty nice, with real threaded discussions going back
as far as you want, and no need to sign up, etc. (screenshot:
<http://hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/TextMate/gmane-thunderbird.png>)

I really think the main problem is not the concept of mailing lists (and
email/nntp) generally, but instead, as you suggest, the software that runs it.
Google groups/mailman/etc. are all IMO pretty crappy from both maintainer and
user perspectives, but they work well enough that no one's really putting
effort into better mailing list software. Likewise, most mail clients are
pretty crappy –either unconfigurable or with a difficult learning curve for
configuration, with insufficiently easy-to-set-up and insufficiently flexible
rule systems, etc. – when you get down to it. I should be able to absolutely
instantly (<10 seconds) set up my email client to filter for only replies to
my topics or mentions of my name in a particular mailing list (for example),
but currently this is an involved process in every mail client I've ever used.

Of course, email is so so so much better for extended technical discussions
than any web forum I've seen, that we all stick with it despite its flaws.

~~~
jackchristopher
> _I really think the main problem is not the concept of mailing lists (and
> email/nntp) generally, but instead, as you suggest, the software that runs
> it._

Making email better is undervalued. Love to see startups help extend it.

~~~
pyre
The problem is... How? Other than providing some sort of web front-end onto
email (which is already done... Gmail.. Yahoo Mail.. etc), what can you do?
You can try and use some sort of fancy email processing algorithms to do fancy
things with email, but how does one make a business of that? Charge people to
pass email through your system that sanitizes it and spits it out with
better/cleaner headers for email clients to use?

~~~
jackchristopher
I mean do more stuff through email, like Posterous and Xobni did. People are
comfortable with the interface. I think Google Wave starts in email actually.
But they extend it into XMPP.

You got me on the money equation. But I'm sure there's some way to make it.

------
javanix
Never underestimate the power of inertia.

~~~
antonovka
Never underestimate the propensity of the younger generation to blithely
discount the previous.

~~~
pyre
Inertia is also what is keeping parts of the email system from being improved
too -- though this could be a good thing if the improvements are
'improvements.'

