Re: [Caml-list] Ask questions on the mailing lists too

[Sam Kuper <sampablokuper@posteo.net>]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 10:06:51PM +0100, Gabriel Scherer wrote:
> With my OCaml Foundation hat on, let me give credit where credit is
> due: the Foundation wasn't actually involved in creating or
> maintaining the Discourse forum.  It was an initiative of Anil
> Madhavapeddy,

Fair enough.


> and the list of administrators and moderators is publicly available:
> https://discuss.ocaml.org/about

Alas, only in an accessibility-limited way - i.e. not to everybody.


> The fact that Discourse offers hosting for the forum reduces the
> administration work quite a bit. We may not have this forum at all if
> we had decided that self-hosting was a requirement.

Indeed.

OTOH, the advantage of not having the forum would be that more
discussions would have happened on the mailing list, instead of being
fragmented into a different, accessibility-limited silo.


> I don't personally have a strong opinion on whether the usage of
> forums is a good or bad thing,

See below for a reason to have such an opinion, at least re: forums with
accessibility issues such as those powered by Discourse.


> but I can only remark that while some people are more comfortable with
> the mailing-list (or forced to use them for accessibility reason,
> which is not the same thing at all), some other people are not
> comfortable with mailing-lists anymore.

You seem to acknowledge that:

-   mailing lists are accessible (score: ~1 point for accessibility),
    and are also comfortable for some though not all users (score: ~0.5
    points for comfort); whereas

-   Discourse is not accessible for all users (score: ~0.5 points for
    accessibility), and is comfortable for some though not all users
    (score: ~0.5 points for comfort).

On this analysis, then, mailing lists score higher overall, especially
if accessibility is given extra weighting (as, IMO, it should be).

As mentioned earlier, the existence of a forum alongside a mailing list
tends to divert some traffic from the mailing list (where it is
accessible) to the forum (where it may not be - depending on the forum
software).

Taken together, these facts allow the conclusion that the usage of
not-universally-accessible forums, alongside or instead of mailing
lists, is a bad thing.


> [..] If you know people who would be willing to work on improving the
> accessibility of Discourse, we should think about funding this work.
> Please get in touch!

That is very good of you - thank you.

If anyone reading this is available for that work, or knows someone who
is, then I hope they will take you up on that offer.

Best wishes,

Sam

-- 
A: When it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: When is top-posting a bad thing?

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