> Email is a highly manual medium and degrades rapidly unless people use it well.
I'd argue that is a bad technology, at least for a general-use tool. I admit that I don't use mailing lists but I don't see how they have any advantages over a well-implemented forum. Trying to run a project over email and building an archival service to cope with it seems like a reversal of priorities.
Linux [1] and Mediawiki [2] are two communities finding success with email lists. In those examples, the list archives can be read like a forum. Replies must be sent by email. It seems like the archive browser could benefit from a UX upgrade.
I'd argue that is a bad technology, at least for a general-use tool. I admit that I don't use mailing lists but I don't see how they have any advantages over a well-implemented forum. Trying to run a project over email and building an archival service to cope with it seems like a reversal of priorities.