[oarsinsync]

So the downvotes on your perfectly legitimate comment are absurd, but here we are.

To get technical, the problem that you're having isn't that interacting with mailing lists is cumbersome, but rather, interacting with mailing list archives is cumbersome. You're not wrong. Web interfaces for mailing list archives haven't really changed in yonks, and there's little incentive to do so. The only people who use the archives are the people who explicitly do not interact with the list itself.

The people who actually use mailing lists, are members of the list itself, and receive the messages in their mailbox. From that point onwards, their interaction with the mailing list is only as cumbersome as their Mail User Agent (email client, MUA). Using a decent MUA that supports threading is step one to having an enjoyable experience with a mailing list.

Unfortunately, in 2021, we've regressed from a world where we have depth of options where it comes to MUAs, to where we are now where the vast majority use webmail solutions exclusively. Webmail has definitely improved since the 90s and 00s, but unfortunately not every feature has come along for the ride, making that also tricky.

As far as the barriers to entry go, thats subjective. Subscribing to a subreddit requires creating a reddit account. Subscribing to most forums requires signing up with an email address, password, possibly username as well, along with other biographical details (optional in some cases), and validating your email is real. Subscribing to a mailing list requires signing up with an email address and validating your email is real.

Anything you're not used to using, is always going to feel more cumbersome. If "happy mailman day" doesn't mean anything to you, you probably haven't had much experience with mailing lists (or have, but much more recent).

[tempest_]

That feels like a totally fair assessment.

I guess I would say that mailing lists favor producers over consumers.

Often when I am looking at a mailing list it is for the same reason I am poking through a GitHub issue. I am looking for someone who had a similar problem and maybe someone else had a solution.

Thus I think I am largely a consumer.

As a consumer I dont often think, let me go to my email client. My email client is where I get bills and notifications and some personal correspondence. It is definitely not where I go when I am looking to consume.

I would disagree that it is as easy as just signing up with an email. I have to set up filters etc and shift to an entirely different client after I sign up the entering an email address is just the first step.

I feel that for people who are core developers email lists are probably great. They are essentially looking to communicate with only a few people and the topics are quite specific. Where they fail me is they make it harder to convert a consumer to a producer. For all the problems I have with OSS's seemingly centralization on Github I am far more likely to drop into some random Github issue than I am to join a mailing list.

[dr_zoidberg]

How about an interface like GitHub issues? Do you feel that strikes a balance between consumers/producers for this kind of discussions?

Edit: I think you updated your comment while I replied (or maybe I just hit reply without seing the last part of your comment). I see now that you've mentioned GitHub issues, which is a kind of interface that I've seen get a better balance, but I'm not sure how it stands from a producor pov against a mailing list (decentralization is obviously lacking on them).

[yxhuvud]

GH issues does not fan out into contextual threads. That makes it a nonstarter.

[arp242]

They have "Discussions" now which includes threads and such, but I haven't really used it much other than leaving a comment just yesterday, so I don't really know how good or bad it is.

[marcosdumay]

> I guess I would say that mailing lists favor producers over consumers.

It favors insiders and temporal information, but there's no bias on the producers vs. consumers dimension. Unfortunately, you are an outsider trying to access old information, so you are severely disfavored here. A subredit is slightly less biased against outsiders but is much more heavily biased against old information.

If you can structure your information it is almost always better in another format, but there is always something that can't.

[mbreese]

I think you're missing the major aspect of mailing lists that is why they are used for projects like Postgres or Linux: transparency. (at least when the lists are also archived, which is a different issue).

Mailing lists lets the future user see the decision making process unfold throughout a thread. These interactions can be archived and searched. Most users don't interact with these mailing lists in realtime through an MUA. They search an archive to find the appropriate thread. And critically -- anyone on the list can build the archive. It doesn't require any special infrastructure on behalf of the list owners.

It can be cumbersome, but it's also robust. Imagine if the history was only present in bugzilla, Jira, GitHub issues, or a forum? Bug trackers aren't always the best way to work through a brand-new API design. Email back and forth with collaborators on the other hand...

Also -- mailing list archives are also ridiculously easy to index in a search engine. Data stored in bug trackers aren't always as simple...

[cobertos]

Is there a good primer on how exactly to even use a mailing list in an efficient way? I always thought the entry point was through the archives, but I guess that's not correct?