Re: Fully winding down my involvement in GTK+

[John Emmas <johne53 tiscali co uk>]

On 22 Jul 2012, at 02:14, Michael Torrie wrote:

> 
> I consider web-based forums to be the scourge of the internet.
> 

Curiously, that's exactly how I feel about mailing lists.  Mailing lists work well as long as the volume of traffic is relatively low.  They probably also work well if you're a dedicated user who's willing to install and configure an email client that supports them.  But once they start becoming busy, mailing lists become a turn-off for the average user who doesn't want that level of sophistication and doesn't need to be involved in most of the discussions.

Taking myself as an example...  during the past 3 years I've probably signed up to 30 mailing lists.  Today, only 3 of those subscriptions are still active.  I've unsubscribed from the other 27.

Conversely, I've never unsubscribed from a web forum.  There are plenty of forums that I use only rarely - but I've never unsubscribed from one.  I still feel a connection to the relevant community, even if I rarely use it.  But I don't feel any connection at all to a community once I've unsubscribed from its mailing list.

So if the aim is to make users feel more engaged / more connected, I don't believe that mailing lists are helpful.  In fact, if that's what you're trying to achieve I'd go as far as saying that mailing lists are actually a hindrance.  Whilst they can (and do) build a strong sense of community between developers and the more dedicated users, the high volume of traffic (which often isn't of much interest to the more casual user) makes them feel irrelevant and excluded.  That's been my experience anyway.

John