Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Gabriel Nützi]

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*Hi all :-)*

I was questioning, why pandoc uses an old style mailing list which is 
unable to format code samples (->markdown) etc....
Wouldn't it be much better also for new user, if it would support 
markdown -> meaning something like slack or discord.
I see lots of examples posted in this mailing list, which are hard to 
read and understand mainly by the lack of formatting. So this boils 
(eventually for me)
down to ignoring certain mails and to be unable to help etc...

Whats about discord or slack? or any other channel which can format 
markdown ...? Maybe other users feel the same?
Of course these solutions also have their disadvantages -> you need 
channels/threads etc...

*BR Gabriel*


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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Denis Maier]

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Or, maybe a discourse forum?

Am 26.08.2020 um 09:07 schrieb Gabriel Nützi:
>
> *Hi all :-)*
>
> I was questioning, why pandoc uses an old style mailing list which is 
> unable to format code samples (->markdown) etc....
> Wouldn't it be much better also for new user, if it would support 
> markdown -> meaning something like slack or discord.
> I see lots of examples posted in this mailing list, which are hard to 
> read and understand mainly by the lack of formatting. So this boils 
> (eventually for me)
> down to ignoring certain mails and to be unable to help etc...
>
> Whats about discord or slack? or any other channel which can format 
> markdown ...? Maybe other users feel the same?
> Of course these solutions also have their disadvantages -> you need 
> channels/threads etc...
>
> *BR Gabriel*
>
>
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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Albert Krewinkel]

Denis Maier writes:

> Or, maybe a discourse forum?

I love Discourse! It comes with a "Mailing list mode", which users can
enable individually. Thereby, it can be used as a forum or a mailing
list, depending on what a user prefers.

Questions like this have come up before, and the main argument against a
separate resource is that information about pandoc would be spread
across more parts of the web. We already have GitHub, the mailing list,
StackOverflow, and the RStudio community forum.

I'm not sure how easy or difficult it would be to move all googlegroups
contents into a fresh discourse instance, but if that's an option, then
I'd be in full favor moving.

> Am 26.08.2020 um 09:07 schrieb Gabriel Nützi:
>>
>> *Hi all :-)*
>>
>> I was questioning, why pandoc uses an old style mailing list which is unable
>> to format code samples (->markdown) etc....
>> Wouldn't it be much better also for new user, if it would support markdown ->
>> meaning something like slack or discord.
>> I see lots of examples posted in this mailing list, which are hard to read and
>> understand mainly by the lack of formatting. So this boils (eventually for me)
>> down to ignoring certain mails and to be unable to help etc...
>>
>> Whats about discord or slack? or any other channel which can format markdown
>> ...? Maybe other users feel the same?
>> Of course these solutions also have their disadvantages -> you need
>> channels/threads etc...
>>
>> *BR Gabriel*

--
Albert Krewinkel
GPG: 8eed e3e2 e8c5 6f18 81fe  e836 388d c0b2 1f63 1124

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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Denis Maier]

Am 26.08.2020 um 11:50 schrieb Albert Krewinkel:
> Denis Maier writes:
>
>> Or, maybe a discourse forum?
> I love Discourse! It comes with a "Mailing list mode", which users can
> enable individually. Thereby, it can be used as a forum or a mailing
> list, depending on what a user prefers.
Exactly.  That's also why I'd prefer to use it instead of Slack, etc.

> I'm not sure how easy or difficult it would be to move all googlegroups
> contents into a fresh discourse instance, but if that's an option, then
> I'd be in full favor moving.
The CSL mailing list has been migrated into a discourse instance. So, it 
should be possible somehow, but I don't know how complicated that is.

>
>> Am 26.08.2020 um 09:07 schrieb Gabriel Nützi:
>>> *Hi all :-)*
>>>
>>> I was questioning, why pandoc uses an old style mailing list which is unable
>>> to format code samples (->markdown) etc....
>>> Wouldn't it be much better also for new user, if it would support markdown ->
>>> meaning something like slack or discord.
>>> I see lots of examples posted in this mailing list, which are hard to read and
>>> understand mainly by the lack of formatting. So this boils (eventually for me)
>>> down to ignoring certain mails and to be unable to help etc...
>>>
>>> Whats about discord or slack? or any other channel which can format markdown
>>> ...? Maybe other users feel the same?
>>> Of course these solutions also have their disadvantages -> you need
>>> channels/threads etc...
>>>
>>> *BR Gabriel*
> --
> Albert Krewinkel
> GPG: 8eed e3e2 e8c5 6f18 81fe  e836 388d c0b2 1f63 1124
>

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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Marc Chantreux]

hello,

> > enable individually. Thereby, it can be used as a forum or a mailing
> > list, depending on what a user prefers.
> Exactly. That's also why I'd prefer to use it instead of Slack, etc.

Do you have experience using this "mailing-list" mode? i have pretty bad
experience of it and whenever someone ask to fix it, the classic answer
is just "please use the web interface" or "please don't do that way" ...

> The CSL mailing list has been migrated into a discourse instance. So, it
> should be possible somehow, but I don't know how complicated that is.

CSL?

regards,
marc

Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Denis Maier]

Hi,

Am 26.08.2020 um 15:07 schrieb Marc Chantreux:
> hello,
>
>>> enable individually. Thereby, it can be used as a forum or a mailing
>>> list, depending on what a user prefers.
>> Exactly. That's also why I'd prefer to use it instead of Slack, etc.
> Do you have experience using this "mailing-list" mode? i have pretty bad
> experience of it and whenever someone ask to fix it, the classic answer
> is just "please use the web interface" or "please don't do that way" ...

No extensive experience. I receive messages by mail to quickly read 
them, and I occasionally answer by mail.

What exactly do you mean with bad experiences?

>
>> The CSL mailing list has been migrated into a discourse instance. So, it
>> should be possible somehow, but I don't know how complicated that is.
> CSL?
CSL = Citation Style Language, sorry for just using the acronym.

Best,
Denis

Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Marc Chantreux]

> What exactly do you mean with bad experiences?

* i don't think i receive all messages (some messages seems to pop up
  from nowhere and seems to be part of a thread)
* threads are not nested the way a normal mailing list is
* from time to time, i see urls with the "upload://" scheme.
* people don't quote so it's very hard to read messages coming from
  the fora.

> > CSL?
> CSL = Citation Style Language, sorry for just using the acronym.

the problem with acronym is: there are so many ones.

regards
marc

Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[BPJ]

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Sorry to say this is probably to a great extent a generational thing. Those
who have grown up with the web and smartphones find the web and apps to be
the "natural" way and appreciate that workflow, while we who used to live
in a pre-smartphone or even a pre-web and/or pre-internet and/or pre-GUI
world appreciate the plaintext work flow and the powers that gives.

Yet it is a bit strange that this dichotomy should make itself felt in the
Pandoc community, since to the probable majority who use Markdown or the
other light-weight markup formats Pandoc supports as input format Pandoc
*is* a plaintext workflow, and I would expect most if not all of us to be
Markdown "literate". Surely we use Pandoc because we prefer to author in
the plaintext-based WYGIWYM formats rather than in a GUI/WYSIWYG? Perhaps
the difference here is whether you view Markdown etc. text/markup solely as
an ancillary format which should be converted to something else before
being presented to the world, or also as a legitimate format for "enriched"
plaintext in its own right, which has an aesthetic of its own, legitimate
to use in plaintext email. (After all Markdown traces its roots to informal
plaintext markup conventions of email and usenet (RIP)!)

I'm perhaps unusual in that I fiercely prefer plaintext and plaintext
editors to menu-driven GUI workflows. In my case the reason for that is
that I suffer from a motor disability which makes using a menu/mouse-driven
GUI somewhat difficult for me — especially if the menus aren't stay-down —,
yet I fully believe that I would prefer a plaintext interface (read: be a
Vim user :-) regardless. Ironically I read most of my email in the Gmail
app on my phone, since I have to lie down for several hours every day, and
tend to use that time for activities which can be conducted on a handheld
device, like reading, whether documents or email. However when *writing*
email I usually switch to an on-phone plaintext editor, write what I need
to write, naturally using Markdown syntax to enrich the semantics of the
text, then paste the result into the Gmail composition window, foregoing
any formatting controls which anyway are hard for me to use, and foregoing
rendering since Pandoc anyway isn't available on my handhelds. Maybe I'm
making a virtue out of a necessity, but I like to believe that it not
*just* that and that I would have been a "plaintext person" anyway.

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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Marc Chantreux]

hello people,

> I was questioning, why pandoc uses an old style mailing list which is unable
> to format code samples (->markdown) etc

what do you mean by "format"? i read this list with the text content.

so my anwser here is "freedom" (and nowadays, i'll add digital sobriety
for ecological reasons).

* you send me the data (without all those extra useless html garbage)
* i do whatever i want with it
  (not only reply and archive, modify, annoate, index the way *i* want
  and i can mix with other sources)

it would be hard to get the same level of productivity with a web page.

and i can work offline without even noticing:
* i send mails then my mta will relay it ASAP
* i archived, annotated, indexed some posts and i use it as
  documentation (as well as info and man pages when available)

finally: using vim and mutt makes things very fast. for pandoc
specifically: i use the vim ! operator all the time to test the code
online and :'<,'>w ~/pandoc/samples/cool-one.md (file is created)
when i see something interesting ... i have a bunch of scripts to
make the things even faster.

> Wouldn't it be much better also for new user, if it would support markdown
> -> meaning something like slack or discord.

new users can use whatever webmails they want so they are not lost?

> I see lots of examples posted in this mailing list, which are hard to read
> and understand mainly by the lack of formatting.

again: i don't get it: i don't use webpages but hope they *at least*
don't break the way the initial message is formated? what webmail are
you using ?

> Whats about discord or slack? or any other channel which can format markdown
> ...? Maybe other users feel the same?

well ... to me an active mailing list is a sine qua none to consider a project
because i have no time to waste with 40 browser tabs to connect to all those RAM
eaters to end up with a poor version of mutt.

i learnt vim and mutt 20 years ago and i'm daily rewarded by the confort
and the productivity i have since then (meanwhile, web people came thru
lot of different tools to end up with poor textareas to express
themselves. this is sad) so every abandoned or closed mailing-list (or
nntp forum) is a tragedy to me.

but maybe we should find a convention so your UA (whatever it is)
"formats" things the way you expect? can you tell us about the way you
read this forum?

> Of course these solutions also have their disadvantages -> you need
> channels/threads etc...

mailing lists have threads too: every message that isn't a reply to
another is a new thread.

regards
marc

Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[BPJ]

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Den ons 26 aug. 2020 10:24Marc Chantreux <eiro-fbXiWI9j2LLYtjvyW6yDsg@public.gmane.org> skrev:

> hello people,
>
> > I was questioning, why pandoc uses an old style mailing list which is
> unable
> > to format code samples (->markdown) etc
>
> what do you mean by "format"? i read this list with the text content.
>
> so my anwser here is "freedom" (and nowadays, i'll add digital sobriety
> for ecological reasons).
>
> * you send me the data (without all those extra useless html garbage)
> * i do whatever i want with it
>   (not only reply and archive, modify, annoate, index the way *i* want
>   and i can mix with other sources)
>
> it would be hard to get the same level of productivity with a web page
>

I agree emphatically with this and the rest of what Marc said.
I have been using computers since the early eighties and email since the
early  nineties, and am still to encounter something which beats plain text
— that's why I use Pandoc!

and i can work offline without even noticing:
> * i send mails then my mta will relay it ASAP
> * i archived, annotated, indexed some posts and i use it as
>   documentation (as well as info and man pages when available)
>
> finally: using vim and mutt makes things very fast. for pandoc
> specifically: i use the vim ! operator all the time to test the code
> online and :'<,'>w ~/pandoc/samples/cool-one.md (file is created)
> when i see something interesting ... i have a bunch of scripts to
> make the things even faster.
>
> > Wouldn't it be much better also for new user, if it would support
> markdown
> > -> meaning something like slack or discord.
>
> new users can use whatever webmails they want so they are not lost?
>
> > I see lots of examples posted in this mailing list, which are hard to
> read
> > and understand mainly by the lack of formatting.
>
> again: i don't get it: i don't use webpages but hope they *at least*
> don't break the way the initial message is formated? what webmail are
> you using ?
>
> > Whats about discord or slack? or any other channel which can format
> markdown
> > ...? Maybe other users feel the same?
>
> well ... to me an active mailing list is a sine qua none to consider a
> project
> because i have no time to waste with 40 browser tabs to connect to all
> those RAM
> eaters to end up with a poor version of mutt.
>
> i learnt vim and mutt 20 years ago and i'm daily rewarded by the confort
> and the productivity i have since then (meanwhile, web people came thru
> lot of different tools to end up with poor textareas to express
> themselves. this is sad) so every abandoned or closed mailing-list (or
> nntp forum) is a tragedy to me.
>
> but maybe we should find a convention so your UA (whatever it is)
> "formats" things the way you expect? can you tell us about the way you
> read this forum?
>
> > Of course these solutions also have their disadvantages -> you need
> > channels/threads etc...
>
> mailing lists have threads too: every message that isn't a reply to
> another is a new thread.
>
> regards
> marc
>
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> .
>

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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Marc Chantreux]

hello

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 10:35:01AM +0200, BPJ wrote:
> I agree emphatically with this and the rest of what Marc said.

actually, i replied to Gabriel also because i feel his pain and there is
an issue to adress there:

* web people are happy about web because it looks good and it's easy
  to dive in. i get it ...
* people like us don't want to loose all the opportunity the plain text
  gives us.

both visions are valid but incompatible and communities have to make
choices (and make a part of them unhappy) or try to use broken bridges
(like the so called "mailing-list mode" of discourse which is just unusable)
and break the whole flow.

i thought about it for years. even tried to contribute to a mailing list
manager but i quickly realize that webmails will never be capable enough
to embrace all the features i expect from an MUA (+ it is really hard to
find a very talented frontend devel to work on those kind of things
because they don't get the point).

So when i read "Just a thought...", i thought "what a thought" :)

At least we can help Gabriel about the "format" thing.

regards.
marc

Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Joseph Reagle]

For what it's worth, I like the current list and, please, no slack, discord, etc.

Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[Pranesh Prakash]

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FWIW, there's a #pandoc IRC channel on Freenode (created way back in 
2012).  It has ~ 50 participants, but isn't very active.  It can be 
accessed via the Web using either:

 * Kiwi (an IRC client): https://webchat.freenode.net/#pandoc
 * Element (a Matrix client): 
https://app.element.io/#/room/#freenode_#pandoc:matrix.org

Perhaps, as a start, that channel could be used by those who want a more 
synchronous discussions.  While IRC doesn't support markdown, if you use 
Element (the Matrix client) to access that channel, that client supports 
basic markdown formatting.[1]

 [1]: https://element.io/blog/riot-web-1-5/

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Re: Markdown Discord/Slack? Just a thought...

[John MacFarlane]

Google groups isn't the best, but the formatting isn't an issue
if you consume it like I do, as a regular email list.

It's just plain text, exactly as you type it!

Discourse is better in some ways, I suppose, but any change
that would not bring along this list's whole history would be
a big disadvantage.  And we'd have to host it ourselves.

The one thing I might be tempted by is the new GitHub Discussions
feature, which is in beta (but only when it's released).  But one
disadvantage is that it would require GitHub login, which isn't
currently required to participate in our list.