Is it just me or has this Property Accessors chain of emails been impossible to make heads or tails of? People replying within replies within replies, quoting partial emails, cross-posting and all sorts of chaos.
Would anyone be willing to entertain an alternative "communication method" with specific respect to building/refining an RFC or fleshing out an idea?
Heck, I think even live chat meeting over IRC would beat what's been going on...
Not saying abandon the mailing list, it's crucial, but when there gets to be 150+ emails on one subject and numerous sub-subjects it just seems inefficient at best and chaos at its worst...
I don't know of anything offhand that would work well but I'd be willing to try and find something we could try out.
-Clint
I may sound old fashioned, but what about a forum?
Is it just me or has this Property Accessors chain of emails been
impossible to make heads or tails of? People replying within replies
within replies, quoting partial emails, cross-posting and all sorts of
chaos.Would anyone be willing to entertain an alternative "communication method"
with specific respect to building/refining an RFC or fleshing out an idea?Heck, I think even live chat meeting over IRC would beat what's been going
on...Not saying abandon the mailing list, it's crucial, but when there gets to
be 150+ emails on one subject and numerous sub-subjects it just seems
inefficient at best and chaos at its worst...I don't know of anything offhand that would work well but I'd be willing
to try and find something we could try out.-Clint
I agree. VBulletin rules. It also permits voluntary participation rather
than getting every email for ever conversation. Should you prefer to get
everything via email, I believe it is possible to sync VBulletin with a
mailing list.
I may sound old fashioned, but what about a forum?
Is it just me or has this Property Accessors chain of emails been
impossible to make heads or tails of? People replying within replies
within replies, quoting partial emails, cross-posting and all sorts of
chaos.Would anyone be willing to entertain an alternative "communication method"
with specific respect to building/refining an RFC or fleshing out an idea?Heck, I think even live chat meeting over IRC would beat what's been going
on...Not saying abandon the mailing list, it's crucial, but when there gets to
be 150+ emails on one subject and numerous sub-subjects it just seems
inefficient at best and chaos at its worst...I don't know of anything offhand that would work well but I'd be willing
to try and find something we could try out.-Clint
Personally, I like IP.Board. Put that aside, I thought about PHPBB or
another open-source software :)
I agree. VBulletin rules. It also permits voluntary participation rather
than getting every email for ever conversation. Should you prefer to get
everything via email, I believe it is possible to sync VBulletin with a
mailing list.I may sound old fashioned, but what about a forum?
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 3:05 AM, Clint Priest cpriest@zerocue.com
wrote:Is it just me or has this Property Accessors chain of emails been
impossible to make heads or tails of? People replying within replies
within replies, quoting partial emails, cross-posting and all sorts of
chaos.Would anyone be willing to entertain an alternative "communication
method"
with specific respect to building/refining an RFC or fleshing out an
idea?Heck, I think even live chat meeting over IRC would beat what's been
going
on...Not saying abandon the mailing list, it's crucial, but when there gets to
be 150+ emails on one subject and numerous sub-subjects it just seems
inefficient at best and chaos at its worst...I don't know of anything offhand that would work well but I'd be willing
to try and find something we could try out.-Clint
I agree. VBulletin rules. It also permits voluntary participation rather than
getting every email for ever conversation. Should you prefer to get everything
via email, I believe it is possible to sync VBulletin with a mailing list.
If everybody would just follow our mailinglist guidelines (which f.e.
says: No top-posting) it wouldn't be such a mess. Let me once more refer
to: http://uk.php.net/reST/README.MAILINGLIST_RULES
cheers,
Derick
--
http://derickrethans.nl | http://xdebug.org
Like Xdebug? Consider a donation: http://xdebug.org/donate.php
twitter: @derickr and @xdebug
Posted with an email client that doesn't mangle email: alpine
Yahav Gindi Bar in php.internals (Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:18:12 +0300):
I may sound old fashioned, but what about a forum?
A forum is new fashioned. I am reading and writing this on news.php.net.
Webinterface: http://news.php.net/php.internals
But you'd better use a proper newsreader. Some browsers have one
built-in: nntp://news.php.net/php.internals
Jan
I was thinking more along the lines of a collaborative wiki with inline-threaded comments...
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Ehrhardt [mailto:phpdev@ehrhardt.nl]
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 8:00 PM
To: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Alternatives to mailing list?Yahav Gindi Bar in php.internals (Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:18:12 +0300):
I may sound old fashioned, but what about a forum?
A forum is new fashioned. I am reading and writing this on news.php.net.
Webinterface: http://news.php.net/php.internalsBut you'd better use a proper newsreader. Some browsers have one
built-in: nntp://news.php.net/php.internalsJan
I was thinking more along the lines of a collaborative wiki with
inline-threaded comments...-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Ehrhardt [mailto:phpdev@ehrhardt.nl]
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 8:00 PM
To: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Alternatives to mailing list?Yahav Gindi Bar in php.internals (Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:18:12 +0300):
I may sound old fashioned, but what about a forum?
I agree that having a forum would have some definite benefits and should be
explored further. The only caveat I'd add is that it should not be used as
a replacement for the listserv. The problem with forums is that most
registered users don't check it regularly. This can lead to obvious
communication problems. A listserv, on the other hand, rarely suffers from
this because people are far more likely to check their email inbox
frequently and consistently. The convenience factor with regard to
replies/etc is also apparent.
That said, I do believe we have a bit of a problem with threads getting
scattered due to slight changes in the subject text. The Property
Accessors thread, in particular, is a bit of a nightmare to navigate.
Perhaps what we need is a listserv with smarter digest options and a full,
forum-like UI. For example, when you subscribe to a list, you can have the
option of receiving only the first x number of messages via email, after
which you'll just get a one-shot link to the forum thread for further
reading. Another useful feature could be the creation of user-created
temporary lists. For example, if there's an RFC thread that's extremely
active but only of interest to the few people who are participating in it,
they could move the discussion to a new list that would only exist for some
defined period of time (preset, while active, etc).
Of course, those would all have to be custom solutions most likely. But in
an ideal world at least, that's how it would look I think.
---Kris
Clint Priest wrote:
I was thinking more along the lines of a collaborative wiki with inline-threaded comments...
Actually just using the wiki better would work, but it tends to get even more
messy without someone moderating everything.
I know people don't like my stance, but when one is supporting 15+ year old
systems that people just expect to work, strange messages popping up because
someone has upgraded a machine cause panic. 'Mailing list' with it's parallel
news feed is a good stable archaic method that just works, and forums that do
not provide a PROPER mail link are an utter pain. I'm on a few lists where
things have been improved by 'moving to a forum' ... and the majority of the
users are still on the mailing list!
github's issues area is another backward step 'improvement', trying to track
bugs across several repos ( pear, php-src and the like ) are just impossible and
when the repos are modules of the one project ...
In the case of the current discussions, a LOT of edge cases have been pointed
out, and yes it is difficult to track them in the discussions. SO what is needed
is a wiki page which lists them all? I seem to recall a list of several items
that were being proposed as the skeleton for a new rework, some of which were
disputed, at which point a separate wiki page would be appropriate. Stas listed
some 11 points which marry up with that list but the answers get messy and
disjointed.
Given the nature of the problem, several pages on the wiki does not seem
inappropriate and will make discussions more focused.
--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk
hi,
Clint Priest wrote:
I was thinking more along the lines of a collaborative wiki with
inline-threaded comments...Actually just using the wiki better would work, but it tends to get even
more messy without someone moderating everything.I know people don't like my stance, but when one is supporting 15+ year old
systems that people just expect to work, strange messages popping up because
someone has upgraded a machine cause panic.
It is not about your 15 years old systems, we all have that and
really, they don't dictate what PHP should be today or tomorrow. It is
about hi jacking discussions with totally irrelevant topics,
repetitive, nonconstructive posts in rows, in all possible ways.
Please simply and immediately stop that. Thanks.
Cheers.
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://blog.thepimp.net | http://www.libgd.org
That would be a big help, when there are 14 topics brought up in a single email, it generates 24 - 36 replies. I tried to separate the topics with new email threads but that led to cross-topic issues as well.
-----Original Message-----
From: Pierre Joye [mailto:pierre.php@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 4:43 AM
To: Lester Caine
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Alternatives to mailing list?hi,
Clint Priest wrote:
I was thinking more along the lines of a collaborative wiki with
inline-threaded comments...Actually just using the wiki better would work, but it tends to get
even more messy without someone moderating everything.I know people don't like my stance, but when one is supporting 15+
year old systems that people just expect to work, strange messages
popping up because someone has upgraded a machine cause panic.It is not about your 15 years old systems, we all have that and really, they don't dictate what PHP should be today or tomorrow. It is
about hi jacking discussions with totally irrelevant topics, repetitive, nonconstructive posts in rows, in all possible ways.
Please simply and immediately stop that. Thanks.Cheers.
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://blog.thepimp.net | http://www.libgd.org
It is about hi jacking discussions with totally irrelevant topics,
repetitive, nonconstructive posts in rows, in all possible ways.
The issue is that the proposed solution (a forum) does not solve
irrelevant topics being mixed into a discussion about a different topic.
It can be even worse, since many forums are single-threaded, and I haven't
seem a threaded forum with good usability.
Using a mailing list it can be done efficiently. Changing subjects
when appropiate,
not breaking the threads, etc. (Plus usage of smart tools, as has
already been mentioned).
But it needs the people participating in the discussion to collaborate
in that. In
the end, it is a social problem.
hi,
To all readers of this exact thread. No, we won't install a forum on
php.net or nowhere else to discuss php.net issues. We have mailing
lists, and it works well.
We also do IRC discussions and post summaries here from time to time,
but that's somehow a personal matter.
Please keep focus on the topic threads and try to update the RFC
accordingly (before the code, actually much more easier than now where
the code does not match the RFC, creating too much WTF for real good
feedback).
Also keep the discussions constructive, avoid repeating the same
arguments over and over again without adding anything good to the
topic.
Thanks for your understanding, efforts and work!
Is it just me or has this Property Accessors chain of emails been impossible to make heads or tails of? People replying within replies within replies, quoting partial emails, cross-posting and all sorts of chaos.
Would anyone be willing to entertain an alternative "communication method" with specific respect to building/refining an RFC or fleshing out an idea?
Heck, I think even live chat meeting over IRC would beat what's been going on...
Not saying abandon the mailing list, it's crucial, but when there gets to be 150+ emails on one subject and numerous sub-subjects it just seems inefficient at best and chaos at its worst...
I don't know of anything offhand that would work well but I'd be willing to try and find something we could try out.
-Clint
--
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://blog.thepimp.net | http://www.libgd.org
(sorry if this is a double-post, I finger-fudged pretty hard)
Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com writes:
hi,
To all readers of this exact thread. No, we won't install a forum on
php.net or nowhere else to discuss php.net issues. We have mailing
lists, and it works well.
Just to throw in the opinion of someone who lurks this list and rarely,
if ever, posts -- it can be frustrating when communities split up
their "threaded" communications. Communities with separate forums and
mailing lists often end up with the same info posted in differente
places, and if you're looking for information, or looking to try to help
people, you have to check in a bunch of places -- and that's after
knowing what those places are.
I can understand the frustration people have over reading lists
in email readers, one solution to that is for them to use something that
knows how to handle USENET, a sane reader doesn't make viewing giant
threaded discussions a pain.
That said, it's a little ridiculous to expect people to figure out a new
reader or whatever. Luckily, forums are jut a web version of
USENET. There are a few existing tools that take a mailing list and
mirror it to a web-based forum and vice-versa, and it makes a lot of
sense -- different frontends for the same set of data.
It might make sense to consider setting up something like groupserver[1]
for the existing lists, I'm not familiar with your setup, so I don't
know if that would be more pain than it's worth.
Footnotes:
[1] http://groupserver.org/
--
Jeremiah Dodds
blog : http://jdodds.github.com
github : https://github.com/jdodds
freenode/skype : exhortatory
twitter : kaens
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Jeremiah Dodds
jeremiah.dodds@gmail.com wrote:
That said, it's a little ridiculous to expect people to figure out a new
reader or whatever. Luckily, forums are jut a web version of
USENET. There are a few existing tools that take a mailing list and
mirror it to a web-based forum and vice-versa, and it makes a lot of
sense -- different frontends for the same set of data.
http:.//news.php.net, which is the web frontend to view mail posts,
nttp is supported too (did not try for a while but.. :)
--
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://blog.thepimp.net | http://www.libgd.org
Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com writes:
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Jeremiah Dodds
jeremiah.dodds@gmail.com wrote:That said, it's a little ridiculous to expect people to figure out a new
reader or whatever. Luckily, forums are jut a web version of
USENET. There are a few existing tools that take a mailing list and
mirror it to a web-based forum and vice-versa, and it makes a lot of
sense -- different frontends for the same set of data.http:.//news.php.net, which is the web frontend to view mail posts,
nttp is supported too (did not try for a while but.. :)
Sure, but that's a read-only interface.
--
Jeremiah Dodds
blog : http://jdodds.github.com
github : https://github.com/jdodds
freenode/skype : exhortatory
twitter : kaens
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Jeremiah Dodds
jeremiah.dodds@gmail.com wrote:That said, it's a little ridiculous to expect people to figure out a new
reader or whatever. Luckily, forums are jut a web version of
USENET. There are a few existing tools that take a mailing list and
mirror it to a web-based forum and vice-versa, and it makes a lot of
sense -- different frontends for the same set of data.http:.//news.php.net, which is the web frontend to view mail posts,
nttp is supported too (did not try for a while but.. :)
NNTP works great! The only pain in the ass is that it's hellishly slow
and very very often times out, making the reading of longer threads
(like this one) take... ages...
Perhaps it could be mirrored / load distributed as well? Daniel?
- Tul
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Maciek Sokolewicz
maciek.sokolewicz@gmail.com wrote:
NNTP works great! The only pain in the ass is that it's hellishly slow and
very very often times out, making the reading of longer threads (like this
one) take... ages...
Perhaps it could be mirrored / load distributed as well? Daniel?
You know, that's been on the back-burner for about two years. I
guess it is time to finally get off my duff and do something about it.
I'll try to set up a public-access news server this week or next, and
use news.php.net just for master distribution and internal stuff.
I always get sidetracked, though, so feel free to poke and prod me
on this one.
--
</Daniel P. Brown>
Network Infrastructure Manager
http://www.php.net/