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digitalmars.D - Recent discussion about discussions

reply "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in 
the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated 
discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's 
counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern 
forum software.
By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like 
disqus[1].

My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even 
though I value really much, that the current webforum is 
implemented in D).

Is there anything specific holding us back?

[1] http://disqus.com
Mar 12 2014
next sibling parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:11:52 UTC, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in 
 the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated 
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's 
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like disqus[1].

 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even 
 though I value really much, that the current webforum is 
 implemented in D).

 Is there anything specific holding us back?


Many core contributors, as well as Walter Bright and Andrei 
Alexandrescu, communicate using news and email software (using 
the NNTP server and mailing list gateway). It would be 
unreasonable to ask them to switch. This forum was created as a 
compromise, as it provides a forum-like interface for those who 
prefer one, without dividing the community.

Which Disqus features would you like to see in the forum 
interface?
Mar 12 2014
parent reply "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:15:33 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
wrote:

 On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:11:52 UTC, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion 
 in the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for 
 heated discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's 
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like disqus[1].

 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software 
 (even though I value really much, that the current webforum is 
 implemented in D).

 Is there anything specific holding us back?


 Many core contributors, as well as Walter Bright and Andrei 
 Alexandrescu, communicate using news and email software (using 
 the NNTP server and mailing list gateway). It would be 
 unreasonable to ask them to switch. This forum was created as a 
 compromise, as it provides a forum-like interface for those who 
 prefer one, without dividing the community.


I can definitely understand that.


 Which Disqus features would you like to see in the forum 
 interface?


Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I would 
really like to have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion 
without having to go through the (to me tedious) process of 
writing a reply.
I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find 
to be annoying.
Another reason why I think a 
Like/Thanks/Upvote/whateveryouwanttocallit feature would be 
helpfully is the following:
In one thread (I believe it was about Memory Management), there 
was some "side duscussion" about a "vocal minority". Reasoning 
about a vocal minority seem odd to me. So if there was a really 
easy way to somehow express your opinion about some statement, 
that would help.
Another feature I would like is proper line breaks. Line breaks 
are inserted in places where they just don't belong. This becomes 
especially visible when someone pastes code that spans over the 
"automatically insert a linebreak here" width. I have no clue, 
but to me it seems to be a limitation of the forum being backed 
by a newsgroup.
These are just two problems that stand out to me on a regular 
basis.
There are more things that annoyed me once or twice, but they 
just won't come to my head right now. I'll post another reply, 
when I remember them.
Mar 13 2014
next sibling parent "Suliman" <evermind live.ru> writes:
If somebody would like my forum and site --> dlang.ru I can share 
my engine. It's ASP.NET, but it's have a lot of good futures 
like, show answers to post, PMs, oAuth and so on. It's text base 
and have not tons of Ajax crap.

I can share it only for D project purpose if someone will decided 
to adopt it.
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 3/13/2014 11:04 AM, bossfong wrote:

 Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I would really like
to
 have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion without having to go through the
 (to me tedious) process of writing a reply.
 I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find to be annoying.
 Another reason why I think a Like/Thanks/Upvote/whateveryouwanttocallit feature
 would be helpfully is the following:


I would also like a voting system, much like what reddit has. The downside is 
such a system can easily be gamed. I know reddit has stuff in place to blunt 
gaming, and such may be beyond our resources to do (it requires constant
attention).
Mar 13 2014
next sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:36:24 -0400, Walter Bright  
<newshound2 digitalmars.com> wrote:


 On 3/13/2014 11:04 AM, bossfong wrote:

 Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I would  
 really like to
 have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion without having to go  
 through the
 (to me tedious) process of writing a reply.
 I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find to be  
 annoying.
 Another reason why I think a Like/Thanks/Upvote/whateveryouwanttocallit  
 feature
 would be helpfully is the following:


 I would also like a voting system, much like what reddit has. The  
 downside is such a system can easily be gamed. I know reddit has stuff  
 in place to blunt gaming, and such may be beyond our resources to do (it  
 requires constant attention).


That may be one reason to use a pre-existing forum software.

My opinion is that we can put in a voting system, but require the person  
to have an account on forum.dlang.org to vote once. It doesn't have to be  
perfect.

Note that a voting system does not need to be tied to any kind of  
moderation. It can be simply informational.

-Steve
Mar 13 2014
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 3/13/2014 11:42 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 That may be one reason to use a pre-existing forum software.


It still requires constant attention.

We are not moving away from Vladimir's forum software. It is very fast, it 
integrates seamlessly with netnews while providing common forum behaviors, etc. 
And, it provides a premium example of kick-ass software written in D.

I've never used any forum software that is better (including Reddit). Reddit 
blows because there's no indication of which comments have been read and which 
have not, making it very tedious to monitor one thread over a period of time.
Mar 13 2014
next sibling parent reply "Kapps" <opantm2+spam gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 06:46:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I've never used any forum software that is better (including 
 Reddit). Reddit blows because there's no indication of which 
 comments have been read and which have not, making it very 
 tedious to monitor one thread over a period of time.


If you have Reddit Gold you can highlight new posts since a 
previous viewing of that thread. RES then allows you to navigate 
to new posts.

Obviously not a great solution though, but it does work to an 
extent.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
On 3/14/14, Kapps <opantm2+spam gmail.com> wrote:

 If you have Reddit Gold you can highlight new posts since a
 previous viewing of that thread. RES then allows you to navigate
 to new posts.


I don't think you need gold for that, afaik RES has that feature as is.
Mar 14 2014
parent "Jesse Phillips" <Jesse.K.Phillips+D gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 07:26:55 UTC, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 On 3/14/14, Kapps <opantm2+spam gmail.com> wrote:

 If you have Reddit Gold you can highlight new posts since a
 previous viewing of that thread. RES then allows you to 
 navigate
 to new posts.


 I don't think you need gold for that, afaik RES has that 
 feature as is.


Nope RES allows you to be notified when a new message is posted, 
but it won't tell you where it is. And it seems that Gold still 
fails when the new comment is "below the fold" meaning you'll 
have to unfold before you can find the new messages.

tldr; Gold still isn't perfect.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling parent "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Fri, 14 Mar 2014 02:46:05 -0400, Walter Bright  
<newshound2 digitalmars.com> wrote:


 On 3/13/2014 11:42 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 That may be one reason to use a pre-existing forum software.


 It still requires constant attention.

 We are not moving away from Vladimir's forum software. It is very fast,  
 it integrates seamlessly with netnews while providing common forum  
 behaviors, etc. And, it provides a premium example of kick-ass software  
 written in D.


I don't disagree, my point was merely if you want voting, and you don't  
want to reinvent the anti-gaming mechanisms, using another software would  
be a plausible option.

I personally don't think "gaming" the vote makes much sense. In the D  
forums, posts quickly fade from memory. If you want to "game" the votes, I  
don't see what that buys you when nobody remembers that post next week  
(sometimes even tomorrow!)


 I've never used any forum software that is better (including Reddit).  
 Reddit blows because there's no indication of which comments have been  
 read and which have not, making it very tedious to monitor one thread  
 over a period of time.


Reddit sucks. I personally like disqus for real-time discussion. It has a  
system of flagging new posts that have appeared while you were sitting  
there.

I would love to see d forums have more live-update features. It would make  
it more like a Newsgroup, where you don't have to refresh to see new  
things, posts just show up when they are posted.

-Steve
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "w0rp" <devw0rp gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 18:36:26 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I would also like a voting system, much like what reddit has. 
 The downside is such a system can easily be gamed. I know 
 reddit has stuff in place to blunt gaming, and such may be 
 beyond our resources to do (it requires constant attention).


I personally don't like Reddit's voting system because it ends up 
being controlled by a hivemind. I prefer the imageboard approach 
of everyone being on equal ground myself, but then again that 
requires anonymity and probably isn't appropriate here.

The Hacker News voting system seems to be pretty good, however. 
New things tend to go to the top, and then you can filter by 
points with say /over?points=x Inside comment threads, voting 
doesn't appear to be a factor. I still find the tree structure 
hard to read.

I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. I 
find it easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all 
have our own ways of getting at the threads.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. I find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all have our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts since last 
time I've read them all (something trivial with NNTP). I don't 
understand how others don't care for that.

Andrei
Mar 14 2014
next sibling parent reply "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. 
 I find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all have 
 our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts 
 since last time I've read them all (something trivial with 
 NNTP). I don't understand how others don't care for that.

 Andrei


The "basic" view mode has that. I don't regularly use it, but 
testing now, it also looks like the "threaded" view mode has it, 
so I guess you want a way to filter out already read posts from 
the threaded view?
Mar 14 2014
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/14/14, 1:16 AM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. I find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all have our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts since
 last time I've read them all (something trivial with NNTP). I don't
 understand how others don't care for that.

 Andrei


 The "basic" view mode has that.


No. The basic view mode lists threads, not posts.

Andrei
Mar 14 2014
parent reply "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:19:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:16 AM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these 
 days. I find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all 
 have our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts 
 since
 last time I've read them all (something trivial with NNTP). I 
 don't
 understand how others don't care for that.

 Andrei


 The "basic" view mode has that.


 No. The basic view mode lists threads, not posts.

 Andrei


Yes, and if you look to the right, you can click the "N new" link 
to take you to the oldest post in the thread that you haven't 
read. Since in the basic view, posts are listed chronologically, 
this is essentially exactly the feature you are asking for, 
AFAICS.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/14/14, 1:21 AM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:19:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:16 AM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. I
 find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all have our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts since
 last time I've read them all (something trivial with NNTP). I don't
 understand how others don't care for that.

 Andrei


 The "basic" view mode has that.


 No. The basic view mode lists threads, not posts.

 Andrei


 Yes, and if you look to the right, you can click the "N new" link to
 take you to the oldest post in the thread that you haven't read. Since
 in the basic view, posts are listed chronologically, this is essentially
 exactly the feature you are asking for, AFAICS.


No. It's a poor workaround.

Andrei
Mar 14 2014
parent "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 09:05:13 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 No. It's a poor workaround.

 Andrei


 From your previous post I now understand what you want. Thank you.

My work flow was the same as yours when I was using a native NNTP 
client (Opera Mail in my case). It's definitely an appealing work 
flow during periods of closely following the newsgroup.

I just wanted to corroborate; I suspect it's pretty common.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. 
 I find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all have 
 our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts 
 since last time I've read them all (something trivial with 
 NNTP).


You read all the posts posted here?

Can you elaborate on the problem? My current understanding of 
your request was that it was just a layout preference, as opposed 
to something enabling a specific workflow.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/14/14, 1:19 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 1:09 AM, w0rp wrote:

 I actually use the D forums for all of my posting these days. I find it
 easier to comprehend the order of threads. I think we all have our own
 ways of getting at the threads.


 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts since
 last time I've read them all (something trivial with NNTP).


 You read all the posts posted here?


Yes.


 Can you elaborate on the problem? My current understanding of your
 request was that it was just a layout preference, as opposed to
 something enabling a specific workflow.


As of this very moment, my NNTP client (Thunderbird) shows there are 5 
messages unread in the left treeview (http://imgur.com/KHnjcnU), and 
displays in a simple list all 223871 messages ever posted in 
digitalmars.D with the most recent 5 messages at the top and in bold 
text (http://imgur.com/uJ2UdzA). As I select each of those unread 
messages, their bold disappears (they become read). If I get bored and 
want to mark all news as read, there's a button that does that (or I 
could select some and mark as read etc).

I use threaded views for e.g. github discussions because once a pull is 
merged, I archive them all in one shot. But a flat view is a very simple 
and effective way of staying abreast of what's going on in the forum. 
Again, I feel I'm missing something given that I'm the only one asking 
for such.


Andrei
Mar 14 2014
next sibling parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 09:03:02 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 As of this very moment, my NNTP client (Thunderbird) shows 
 there are 5 messages unread in the left treeview 
 (http://imgur.com/KHnjcnU), and displays in a simple list all 
 223871 messages ever posted in digitalmars.D with the most 
 recent 5 messages at the top and in bold text 
 (http://imgur.com/uJ2UdzA). As I select each of those unread 
 messages, their bold disappears (they become read). If I get 
 bored and want to mark all news as read, there's a button that 
 does that (or I could select some and mark as read etc).

 I use threaded views for e.g. github discussions because once a 
 pull is merged, I archive them all in one shot. But a flat view 
 is a very simple and effective way of staying abreast of what's 
 going on in the forum. Again, I feel I'm missing something 
 given that I'm the only one asking for such.


In the horizontal-split mode, you can press the space bar to jump 
to the next unread message. Does that help? Or is it imperative 
that messages are displayed chronologically, without threading?

Unfortunately there's currently no way to mark all messages in a 
group as read (a technical restriction due to how read messages 
are stored).
Mar 14 2014
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/14/14, 2:12 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 09:03:02 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 As of this very moment, my NNTP client (Thunderbird) shows there are 5
 messages unread in the left treeview (http://imgur.com/KHnjcnU), and
 displays in a simple list all 223871 messages ever posted in
 digitalmars.D with the most recent 5 messages at the top and in bold
 text (http://imgur.com/uJ2UdzA). As I select each of those unread
 messages, their bold disappears (they become read). If I get bored and
 want to mark all news as read, there's a button that does that (or I
 could select some and mark as read etc).

 I use threaded views for e.g. github discussions because once a pull
 is merged, I archive them all in one shot. But a flat view is a very
 simple and effective way of staying abreast of what's going on in the
 forum. Again, I feel I'm missing something given that I'm the only one
 asking for such.


 In the horizontal-split mode, you can press the space bar to jump to the
 next unread message. Does that help? Or is it imperative that messages
 are displayed chronologically, without threading?


Nothing is really imperative; I'm not asking for features here as much 
as pointing out what my patterns are. The horizontal split view is 
pretty nice, I'll use it whenever I don't have my mail client with me. I 
could probably get used to it but I prefer a flat view.


 Unfortunately there's currently no way to mark all messages in a group
 as read (a technical restriction due to how read messages are stored).


I seldom use that feature anyway so it doesn't matter.


Andrei
Mar 14 2014
parent "Thomas Mader" <thomas.mader gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 09:38:59 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 3/14/14, 2:12 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 09:03:02 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 wrote:

 As of this very moment, my NNTP client (Thunderbird) shows 
 there are 5
 messages unread in the left treeview 
 (http://imgur.com/KHnjcnU), and
 displays in a simple list all 223871 messages ever posted in
 digitalmars.D with the most recent 5 messages at the top and 
 in bold
 text (http://imgur.com/uJ2UdzA). As I select each of those 
 unread
 messages, their bold disappears (they become read). If I get 
 bored and
 want to mark all news as read, there's a button that does 
 that (or I
 could select some and mark as read etc).

 I use threaded views for e.g. github discussions because once 
 a pull
 is merged, I archive them all in one shot. But a flat view is 
 a very
 simple and effective way of staying abreast of what's going 
 on in the
 forum. Again, I feel I'm missing something given that I'm the 
 only one
 asking for such.


 In the horizontal-split mode, you can press the space bar to 
 jump to the
 next unread message. Does that help? Or is it imperative that 
 messages
 are displayed chronologically, without threading?


 Nothing is really imperative; I'm not asking for features here 
 as much as pointing out what my patterns are. The horizontal 
 split view is pretty nice, I'll use it whenever I don't have my 
 mail client with me. I could probably get used to it but I 
 prefer a flat view.


I use the Webforum in basic mode and it fits my needs as a silent 
reader very well, but there is one disturbing thing.
Every time a context (subtree) switch takes place in a discussion 
in the same thread, one needs to read text which was already read 
just to get the right context.
This is in my opinion very time consuming and exhausting even if 
you just need to read a few words of the parent post. It's also 
very much dependent on the authors choice of quoting text.

So I have thought a bit about an improvement.
Wouldn't it be nice if there is a mixed mode view which is quite 
similar to the horizontal-split view but adds the time sorted 
linear basic thread list view above the thread tree view on the 
left side.
If no thread is selected in the basic view, the tree view will be 
empty because it displays just the selected thread from the basic 
view.
If one clicks on the 'N new' link in the basic view, the first 
(in time) unread message will be selected in the tree view (now 
displaying the entire conversation thread tree) and on the right 
side of the split the message is displayed.
The switch to the other unread messages in the thread works in a 
context first manner instead of a time based one. This way one 
has much fewer context switches which boosts up reading 
performance and it's less stressful for the mind. (Let's call it 
Zen-View because of this :-))
If one subtree of unread messages is finished the next unread 
subtree is selected by time again.

One has also the possibility to skip entire threads via the basic 
view. With a nice user interface and additional keyboard 
shortcuts this could probably be a nice addition/change to the 
existing workflows.

The problem that one post might include answers to different 
contexts exists, but IIRC this is quite uncommon and shouldn't be 
done anyway. Maybe this new view leads to even nicer quoting 
hierarchies.

Thomas
Mar 15 2014
prev sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 09:03:02 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 Again, I feel I'm missing something given that I'm the only one 
 asking for such.


I do it all by chronological order too via the mailing list, at 
least glancing at every message that comes through, often within 
seconds of the author's original post!

My guess is most the people who like it this way already have 
their own news/mail clients set up and don't worry much about the 
web view. If I had my way, *all* webforums would offer email 
interfaces! Email rox, disqus sux.

(I use the web thing only for replies, since the mailing list has 
historically been buggy about keeping the threads intact. I think 
Vladimir fixed that (or worked around it) on his end but my habit 
is in place now.)
Mar 14 2014
parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 12:41:05 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 (I use the web thing only for replies, since the mailing list 
 has historically been buggy about keeping the threads intact. I 
 think Vladimir fixed that (or worked around it) on his end but 
 my habit is in place now.)


I've resolved the problem with email providers cutting off the 
"References" header. I still need to pair Mailman-generated 
Message-IDs with their original ones.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling parent "Dicebot" <public dicebot.lv> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:13:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 I don't. There's no way on the http forum of seeing new posts 
 since last time I've read them all (something trivial with 
 NNTP). I don't understand how others don't care for that.

 Andrei


I miss that too but choosing between better navigation (NNTP) and 
synced state (web forum) favor the latter because I read 
newsgroup from variety of different devices and there does not 
seem to be a way to track read posts on NNTP server.

When I want to skip the topic, I quickly click through it in the 
plain web view :) Can't say I like it though.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling parent "Dicebot" <public dicebot.lv> writes:
On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 18:36:26 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 3/13/2014 11:04 AM, bossfong wrote:

 Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I 
 would really like to
 have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion without having 
 to go through the
 (to me tedious) process of writing a reply.
 I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I 
 find to be annoying.
 Another reason why I think a 
 Like/Thanks/Upvote/whateveryouwanttocallit feature
 would be helpfully is the following:


 I would also like a voting system, much like what reddit has. 
 The downside is such a system can easily be gamed. I know 
 reddit has stuff in place to blunt gaming, and such may be 
 beyond our resources to do (it requires constant attention).


I'd like to have a _separate_ voting system, based on GitHub 
authentication. It would help with processing Phobos inclusion 
votes and any similar stuff. Voting on random comments has 
negative communication impact as far as my online experience 
shows.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling parent reply "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 18:04:09 UTC, bossfong wrote:

 On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:15:33 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
 wrote:

 Which Disqus features would you like to see in the forum 
 interface?


 Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I 
 would really like to have a way to agree to a post/someones 
 opinion without having to go through the (to me tedious) 
 process of writing a reply.
 I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find 
 to be annoying.


It's probably the most requested webforum-like feature.

I think if we do want to implement it, it has to be done in a way 
that doesn't deprive NNTP users of information. Maybe something 
like the following would work nicely:

Every time a reply uses +1 on its own line somewhere in the post 
(fuzzy match), add the replier's email address to a list of 
"likes" (or whatever) to the parent post. In the web interface, 
we could have an expandable drop-down box showing all the email 
addresses (and/or their display names?) who "liked" the post, 
probably in chronological order. Duplicate "likes" are not 
recorded. At a glance you would be able to see how many "likes" a 
post has, and if you want to see exactly who "liked" it, you 
could expand the list. Meanwhile, NNTP users are not deprived of 
this information (because it's gleaned from NNTP reply bodies) 
although it's harder for them to see the tally at a glance. The 
number of "likes" is limited to the number of replies a post has, 
so it's extremely unlikely to grow out of hand, and it's not 
subject to falsified information without overtly spamming the 
NNTP server.

This still doesn't let you vote without replying, but I don't see 
how that would work without effectively leaving NNTP users in the 
dark.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 07:54:47 UTC, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 Every time a reply uses +1 on its own line somewhere in the 
 post (fuzzy match), add the replier's email address to a list 
 of "likes" (or whatever) to the parent post. In the web 
 interface, we could have an expandable drop-down box showing 
 all the email addresses (and/or their display names?) who 
 "liked" the post, probably in chronological order. Duplicate 
 "likes" are not recorded. At a glance you would be able to see 
 how many "likes" a post has, and if you want to see exactly who 
 "liked" it, you could expand the list. Meanwhile, NNTP users 
 are not deprived of this information (because it's gleaned from 
 NNTP reply bodies) although it's harder for them to see the 
 tally at a glance. The number of "likes" is limited to the 
 number of replies a post has, so it's extremely unlikely to 
 grow out of hand, and it's not subject to falsified information 
 without overtly spamming the NNTP server.

 This still doesn't let you vote without replying, but I don't 
 see how that would work without effectively leaving NNTP users 
 in the dark.


This approach would mean that mailing list users would get an 
email every time someone upvotes something.

I don't think this will work very well in practice.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:23:39 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
wrote:

 This approach would mean that mailing list users would get an 
 email every time someone upvotes something.

 I don't think this will work very well in practice.


I'm not suggesting an upvote button. Hopefully it would work just 
like now, where people usually leave explanatory comments with 
their +1's.
Mar 14 2014
parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:27:11 UTC, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:23:39 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
 wrote:

 This approach would mean that mailing list users would get an 
 email every time someone upvotes something.

 I don't think this will work very well in practice.


 I'm not suggesting an upvote button. Hopefully it would work 
 just like now, where people usually leave explanatory comments 
 with their +1's.


Oh, sorry - somehow missed that part of your post.

Well, this suggestion carries the problem of turning "+1" into 
actual syntax recognized by some software and thus encouraging 
using them :) anyway, I thought the point of voting was to avoid 
+1 posts in the first place.
Mar 14 2014
parent "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 19:04:17 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:27:11 UTC, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 08:23:39 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
 wrote:

 This approach would mean that mailing list users would get an 
 email every time someone upvotes something.

 I don't think this will work very well in practice.


 I'm not suggesting an upvote button. Hopefully it would work 
 just like now, where people usually leave explanatory comments 
 with their +1's.


 Oh, sorry - somehow missed that part of your post.

 Well, this suggestion carries the problem of turning "+1" into 
 actual syntax recognized by some software and thus encouraging 
 using them :) anyway, I thought the point of voting was to 
 avoid +1 posts in the first place.


If the point is to avoid +1's, I don't think that's possible in a 
way that isn't either equally intrusive or leaves NNTP users in 
the dark.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "Dicebot" <public dicebot.lv> writes:
In 2014 e-mail is pretty much still only good communication 
technology.
Mar 12 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Justin Whear <justin economicmodeling.com> writes:
On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:


 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum
 software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like
 disqus[1].
 
 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I
 value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
 
 Is there anything specific holding us back?
 
 [1] http://disqus.com


I think most of us use email or newsreader software to participate, while 
the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.  I'm 
curious why you think that mailing-lists are a counterproductive way of 
handling this type of discussion, particularly when much of the OSS 
developed in the last twenty years has been managed and coordinated using 
mailing-lists.

Justin
Mar 12 2014
next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 06:20:05PM +0000, Justin Whear wrote:

 On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:
 

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.  I strongly believe that
 mailing-lists are not suited for heated discussions on very specific
 issues. I even belive it's counter-productive when comparing the
 discussion flow with modern forum software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like
 disqus[1].
 
 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even
 though I value really much, that the current webforum is implemented
 in D).
 
 Is there anything specific holding us back?
 
 [1] http://disqus.com


 
 I think most of us use email or newsreader software to participate,
 while the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.
 I'm curious why you think that mailing-lists are a counterproductive
 way of handling this type of discussion, particularly when much of the
 OSS developed in the last twenty years has been managed and
 coordinated using mailing-lists.


[...]

I use the mailing list interface, because I personally can't stand any
of the new-fangled "discussion" or "forum" interfaces. The most glaring
lack in those new interfaces is a sane way to handle threading. Yes, I
know that they *do* handle threading... but only barely. There is no
way, for example, to mark an entire subthread as "ignore", or delete all
messages in a thread *except* a given subthread, collapse a subthread,
or have a sane way to navigate them without using the mouse. (I hate the
mouse. Mouse-driven UIs are horribly inefficient, and are the equivalent
of point-and-grunt in a day and age where literacy is supposed to be the
norm. Talk about poor human-computer communication.) Support for quoting
important elements from previous posts is iffy at best, totally unusable
at worst (copy-n-paste then manually insert quote tags -- what a waste
of time!).  No way to locally archive selected messages / subthreads
without unreasonable amounts of manual copy-n-pasting.  There's no way
to filter out uninteresting threads with a killfile, etc.. No sane way
to search for a regex in a subthread. No way to select some quoted code
and pipe it to a script that compiles and runs it (needs manual
copy-n-paste, blecch). No way to load some code from a local file and
indent it with an extra tab (or 4 spaces :P) so that it can be used as a
snippet in a reply (again, requires manual copy-n-paste + manual fixup
afterwards). No way to apply a diff by piping the message to `patch` in
the appropriate working directory (more copy-n-paste, which also mangles
the formatting and makes `patch` reject the diff). Need I go on?

tl;dr, I find these so-called "modern" forum interfaces nigh unusable,
and only barely tolerable. They barely scratch the surface of
functionality that I currently have at my fingertips, and yet they
require a browser with all of its bloat and memory / CPU consumption,
all just to display some text and pictures on the screen and present a
crippled UI.  Frankly, if the discussion were to take place on a web
forum, I simply wouldn't participate.  Give me back my plain text
interface, thank you very much.

(Caveat: I know I'm a minority in these views, so don't get offended. I
do feel very strongly about these things. :))


T

-- 
The peace of mind---from knowing that viruses which exploit Microsoft system
vulnerabilities cannot touch Linux---is priceless. -- Frustrated system
administrator.
Mar 12 2014
next sibling parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/12/2014 07:51 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Caveat: I know I'm a minority in these views,


Not around here, I hope.
Mar 12 2014
prev sibling parent "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:53:19 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 tl;dr, I find these so-called "modern" forum interfaces nigh 
 unusable,
 and only barely tolerable. They barely scratch the surface of
 functionality that I currently have at my fingertips, and yet 
 they
 require a browser with all of its bloat and memory / CPU 
 consumption,
 all just to display some text and pictures on the screen and 
 present a
 crippled UI.  Frankly, if the discussion were to take place on 
 a web
 forum, I simply wouldn't participate.  Give me back my plain 
 text
 interface, thank you very much.

 (Caveat: I know I'm a minority in these views, so don't get 
 offended. I
 do feel very strongly about these things. :))


 T


You still have to accept, that not everybody is a 
"mailing-list-poweruser" like you. To get new people, I think the 
community needs to be more open to new people.
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:20:05 UTC, Justin Whear wrote:

 On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:


 ...
 I even belive it's
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum
 software.
 ...


 I think most of us use email or newsreader software to 
 participate, while
 the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.


I understand that. But since the newsgroup seems to me to be the 
only way to stay up-to-date with D's development, I think it 
should be more open to casual developers.
I mean, there seem to be so many saying, there are too little 
people willing to do the work, we must start opening up for new 
developers to join in. They won't just magically start 
developing. Being able to take part in duscussions is essential 
for that.
(And I unerstand everyone is technically able to take part in the 
discussions, but for someone who is not used to mailing lists it 
is quite a burden getting used to it, at least thats my 
feeling/experience).


 I'm
 curious why you think that mailing-lists are a 
 counterproductive way of
 handling this type of discussion,


This shows a probblem that annoys me a lot. I never said that, 
you just cut out the "when comparing to..." part and that twists 
the meaning of what I said. That's (to me) a no-go.


 particularly when much of the OSS
 developed in the last twenty years has been managed and 
 coordinated using
 mailing-lists.

 Justin


Only because things have been a particular way for years or even 
decades, doesn't mean there might be better alternatives. 
Technology evolves and the people creating it should too.
Mar 13 2014
parent Justin Whear <justin economicmodeling.com> writes:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:12:16 +0000, bossfong wrote:


 On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:20:05 UTC, Justin Whear wrote:

 On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:


 ...
 I even belive it's counter-productive when comparing the discussion
 flow with modern forum software.
 ...


 I think most of us use email or newsreader software to participate,
 while the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.


 
 I understand that. But since the newsgroup seems to me to be the only
 way to stay up-to-date with D's development, I think it should be more
 open to casual developers.
 I mean, there seem to be so many saying, there are too little people
 willing to do the work, we must start opening up for new developers to
 join in. They won't just magically start developing. Being able to take
 part in duscussions is essential for that.
 (And I unerstand everyone is technically able to take part in the
 discussions, but for someone who is not used to mailing lists it is
 quite a burden getting used to it, at least thats my
 feeling/experience).


Regarding barrier to entry: because newsgroups have been around so long, 
there are many polished readers available for every platform.  I consider 
myself a newsgroup newb, so I use Pan on Linux--it's dead simple.  The 
minimal effort of installing and using a reader might turn away the most 
casual of posters, but shouldn't be a deterrent to anyone who is serious 
about participating.  Heck, we get the occasional troll, so it can't be 
too hard.


 

 I'm curious why you think that mailing-lists are a counterproductive
 way of handling this type of discussion,


 
 This shows a probblem that annoys me a lot. I never said that, you just
 cut out the "when comparing to..." part and that twists the meaning of
 what I said. That's (to me) a no-go.
 


Right, you said "when comparing the discussion flow with modern 
forum software."  But discussion flow is what the newsgroup approach does 
really *well*, having had threading and quoting support that modern 
forums are just starting to get serious about.  So I'm looking for you to 
unpack this assertion with examples of where forum software excels 
newsgroups in managing discussion flow.


 particularly when much of the OSS developed in the last twenty years
 has been managed and coordinated using mailing-lists.


 
 Only because things have been a particular way for years or even
 decades, doesn't mean there might be better alternatives. Technology
 evolves and the people creating it should too.


I'm not adverse to change, but I am against change for change's sake.  
Why should we discard this wonderfully simple, flexible, powerful, and 
distributed solution?  In exchange for what?

Cheers,
Justin
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling parent reply "John Stahara" <john.stahara+dlang gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:20:05 UTC, Justin Whear wrote:

 On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:


 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion 
 in the
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum
 software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like
 disqus[1].
 
 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software 
 (even though I
 value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in 
 D).
 
 Is there anything specific holding us back?
 
 [1] http://disqus.com


 I think most of us use email or newsreader software to 
 participate, while
 the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.  
 I'm
 curious why you think that mailing-lists are a 
 counterproductive way of
 handling this type of discussion, particularly when much of the 
 OSS
 developed in the last twenty years has been managed and 
 coordinated using
 mailing-lists.

 Justin


Funny thing: I, another somewhat "new kid," didn't actually 
realize that the web forum was the "second-class" citizen here.  
I could see some vestiges of NNTP heritage from e.g. the message 
URLs, but I'd subconsciously ignored that as simply a historical 
carry-over.  I'd have used a proper reader from the beginning had 
I known there was an actual newsgroup behind it.  The existence 
(and quality) of the web forum actually prevented me from knowing 
about the superior interfaces available!

(Yes, it's embarrassingly obvious in hindsight, of course.)


--jjs
Mar 13 2014
parent Justin Whear <justin economicmodeling.com> writes:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 21:16:43 +0000, John Stahara wrote:


 
 Funny thing: I, another somewhat "new kid," didn't actually realize that
 the web forum was the "second-class" citizen here. I could see some
 vestiges of NNTP heritage from e.g. the message URLs, but I'd
 subconsciously ignored that as simply a historical carry-over.  I'd have
 used a proper reader from the beginning had I known there was an actual
 newsgroup behind it.  The existence (and quality) of the web forum
 actually prevented me from knowing about the superior interfaces
 available!
 
 (Yes, it's embarrassingly obvious in hindsight, of course.)
 
 
 --jjs


Yeah, we should probably advertise the NNTP server better.
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Jesse Phillips" <Jesse.K.Phillips+D gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:11:52 UTC, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in 
 the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated 
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's 
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like disqus[1].

 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even 
 though I value really much, that the current webforum is 
 implemented in D).

 Is there anything specific holding us back?

 [1] http://disqus.com


I don't see anything from that which would make it better for 
heated discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies. 
Votes are probably the only thing missing because they eliminate 
the need for "+1" posts.
Mar 12 2014
next sibling parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/12/2014 07:30 PM, Jesse Phillips wrote:

 I don't see anything from that which would make it better for heated
 discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies. Votes are probably
 the only thing missing because they eliminate the need for "+1" posts.


They also reduce the incentive for substantiation.
Mar 12 2014
prev sibling parent reply "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:30:37 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote:

 I don't see anything from that which would make it better for 
 heated discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies.


"A discussion is just a thread of replies" is wrong I believe. 
Discussions often evolve and diverge, whilst threads have a 
static title and topic.
I see sometimes people split discussions by starting a new 
thread, which is a really good step, but it happens too seldomly.
The forums threaded view works quite well though, so that 
wouldn't be something I would complain about. The threaded view 
took some time getting used to though.


 Votes are probably the only thing missing because they 
 eliminate the need for "+1" posts.


I agree. (see, how again some button would have been nice)
Mar 13 2014
parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 06:17:27PM +0000, bossfong wrote:

 On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:30:37 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote:

I don't see anything from that which would make it better for
heated discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies.


 
 "A discussion is just a thread of replies" is wrong I believe.
 Discussions often evolve and diverge, whilst threads have a static
 title and topic.


That's not true. That's only the limitation of the web interface. NNTP
threads can have a new subject in every reply, should the need arise.
AND it keeps track of the parent post, so that if you want to, you can
actually trace the thread back to the parent thread! Show me a web-based
forum that can do that, and I might reconsider.



 I see sometimes people split discussions by starting a new thread,
 which is a really good step, but it happens too seldomly.


Proper threading support requires only a change of subject line. Any
software that can't handle that properly is fundamentally broken and
unfit for such use.


[...]

Votes are probably the only thing missing because they eliminate
the need for "+1" posts.


 
 I agree. (see, how again some button would have been nice)


Frankly, I rather see voting as a waste of time. Either you say
something substantial, or don't say it. Getting rid voting *and* +1
posts will be a good thing (though I'm guilty of +1 posts myself :P).

If voting is needed, say to build a consensus, one of the various online
voting services should be used instead. A random +1 here and a random +1
there to the odd forum post carries no meaning to me -- it doesn't add
substance to the discussion.


T

-- 
This is a tpyo.
Mar 13 2014
parent "Jesse Phillips" <Jesse.K.Phillips+D gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 19:38:21 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 06:17:27PM +0000, bossfong wrote:

 On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:30:37 UTC, Jesse Phillips 
 wrote:

I don't see anything from that which would make it better for
heated discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies.


 
 "A discussion is just a thread of replies" is wrong I believe.
 Discussions often evolve and diverge, whilst threads have a 
 static title and topic.




What Teoh says below, a divergent thread is a new discussion, 
which may or may not relate to its parent. The only way to 
separate it is for someone to decide it should be separate.


 That's not true. That's only the limitation of the web 
 interface. NNTP
 threads can have a new subject in every reply, should the need 
 arise.
 AND it keeps track of the parent post, so that if you want to, 
 you can
 actually trace the thread back to the parent thread! Show me a 
 web-based
 forum that can do that, and I might reconsider.


Yeah, the web interface could handle new titles better (currently 
keeps them nested in the same thread).


Votes are probably the only thing missing because they 
eliminate
the need for "+1" posts.


 
 I agree. (see, how again some button would have been nice)


 Frankly, I rather see voting as a waste of time. Either you say
 something substantial, or don't say it. Getting rid voting 
 *and* +1
 posts will be a good thing (though I'm guilty of +1 posts 
 myself :P).


Sometimes the only thing you need to communicate is that there is 
more than one person who holds this opinion. Not really for 
deciding what to do, but to encourage the poster to peruse this 
point. Unlike Reddit or politics, votes shouldn't be used for 
moving thread priority or deciding what action to take.

They are mostly meaningless, but can be a moral boost for the 
poster.
Mar 14 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/12/2014 07:11 PM, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
 discussions on very specific issues.


I happen to know that they are suited quite well, so please substantiate.


 I even belive it's
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum
 software.


I don't understand. A comparison of paces will not change the direction 
of progress.


 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like disqus[1].
 ...


Note that at this point I don't know what 'discussion centric' means, 
except that it sounds 'modern'.


 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software


Well, all content is available from the server.


 (even though I
 value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
 ...


This is the only actual (if weak) argument presented, and it goes 
against your suggestion. Are there others?


 Is there anything specific holding us back?

 [1] http://disqus.com


I've read more of that than I wanted, and I am not smarter now. The 
entire page appears to be a sales pitch devoid of content relevant to 
our case.
Mar 12 2014
next sibling parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/12/2014 09:27 PM, Timon Gehr wrote:

 On 03/12/2014 07:11 PM, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
 discussions on very specific issues.


 I happen to know that they are suited quite well, so please substantiate.


(Assuming 'mailing list' includes this newsgroup.)
Mar 12 2014
prev sibling parent "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 20:27:42 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:

 On 03/12/2014 07:11 PM, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion 
 in the
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
 discussions on very specific issues.


 I happen to know that they are suited quite well, so please 
 substantiate.


Having used more "modern" software extensively, mailing-lists 
just don't feel right to me personally, but thats just me and no 
argument.
For actual arguments see my earlier reply.
Newcomer-friendliness is a big one.


 I even belive it's
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum
 software.


 I don't understand. A comparison of paces will not change the 
 direction of progress.


In heated discussions people sometimes get "enraged", which leads 
to misquouting for example.


 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like disqus[1].
 ...


 Note that at this point I don't know what 'discussion centric' 
 means, except that it sounds 'modern'.


It does sound modern to me too and I don't actually know if that 
is somehow defined. Here is what I mean by it:
Discussions often evolve and change topics, still they stay in 
something called a "thread". Having replies coupled more loosely 
and maybe being able to "redefine" the current topic would be 
nice or otherwise split discussions, which (as appears to me) 
happens not often enough.


 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software


 Well, all content is available from the server.


I'm not sure what that means.


 (even though I
 value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in 
 D).
 ...


 This is the only actual (if weak) argument presented, and it 
 goes against your suggestion. Are there others?


see above.


 Is there anything specific holding us back?

 [1] http://disqus.com


 I've read more of that than I wanted, and I am not smarter now. 
 The entire page appears to be a sales pitch devoid of content 
 relevant to our case.


I apologize, since the last time I have taken a proper look at 
their website it seems to have turned into a mess.
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "Joakim" <joakim airpost.net> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:11:52 UTC, bossfong wrote:

 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in 
 the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated 
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's 
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with 
 modern forum software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like disqus[1].

 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even 
 though I value really much, that the current webforum is 
 implemented in D).

 Is there anything specific holding us back?

 [1] http://disqus.com


I too primarily use the web forum to follow this newsgroup and 
find the widespread use of mailing lists to this day baffling.  I 
understand that there are those like Walter or H.S. Teoh who have 
a long-standing workflow with newsgroup readers and email 
clients, so it's great that we can each access the discussion in 
the form that suits us best.  However, I'm not a fan of disqus.

You need to be more specific about what you want that the current 
web forum, DFeed, doesn't provide.  It is open source and you can 
contribute to it here:

https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:11:50 -0400, bossfong <bossfong posteo.de> wrote:


 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the  
 developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated  
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's  
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum  
 software.


You can use NNTP and a competent newsreader, I suggest opera mail.

I can instantly search all posts from all years in Opera. I can read posts  
offline if I don't have access.


 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like  
 disqus[1].


The only thing extra it provides is voting. We could potentially add  
voting to the forum software, but I won't use it, since I use NNTP.

I will mention that I love disqus for web sites I visit casually. But I  
don't think it's a good fit here, as most users have their own way of  
accessing the data.

-Steve
Mar 13 2014
parent reply "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de> writes:
On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 12:34:10 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer 
wrote:

 You can use NNTP and a competent newsreader, I suggest opera 
 mail.


Having to install a new program on my computer just to read D 
news is not really an option to me and possibly many newcomers.


 I can instantly search all posts from all years in Opera. I can 
 read posts offline if I don't have access.


 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software 
 like disqus[1].


 The only thing extra it provides is voting. We could 
 potentially add voting to the forum software, but I won't use 
 it, since I use NNTP.


That would be great, but as you said, people like you won't be 
able to see it, which somewhat defeats its purpose.


 I will mention that I love disqus for web sites I visit 
 casually. But I don't think it's a good fit here, as most users 
 have their own way of accessing the data.

 -Steve
Mar 13 2014
parent "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:31:44 -0400, bossfong <bossfong posteo.de> wrote:


 On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 12:34:10 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 You can use NNTP and a competent newsreader, I suggest opera mail.


 Having to install a new program on my computer just to read D news is  
 not really an option to me and possibly many newcomers.


I'm not suggesting you do, what I'm saying is, the mailing-list interface  
is not the only non-web one, and it's a very good interface. What my quote  
was in reply to was when you said "I'm really baffled by by [sic] how much  
discussion in the developers scene is done in mailing lists." NNTP is most  
definitely not a mailing list (and in fact, it was NNTP before it was a  
ML).

In any case, I don't have a problem with D forums providing web access,  
just as long as it doesn't remove my NNTP interface.


 The only thing extra it provides is voting. We could potentially add  
 voting to the forum software, but I won't use it, since I use NNTP.


 That would be great, but as you said, people like you won't be able to  
 see it, which somewhat defeats its purpose.


Why? If I don't care who votes for what, why should that make any  
difference to someone who does care and uses the web interface?

Note that I use the web interface from time to time for posting links to  
old discussions and for reading old discussions others have posted.

-Steve
Mar 13 2014
prev sibling parent Marco Leise <Marco.Leise gmx.de> writes:
Am Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000
schrieb "bossfong" <bossfong posteo.de>:


 As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in 
 the developers scene is done in mailing lists.
 I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated 
 discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's 
 counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern 
 forum software.
 By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like 
 disqus[1].
 
 My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even 
 though I value really much, that the current webforum is 
 implemented in D).
 
 Is there anything specific holding us back?
 
 [1] http://disqus.com


I think the perfect discussion and planning forum is yet to be
written. From the discussions here we can learn what could be
streamlined. For example we don't need repeated threads on the
same topic. Also one article per person should be enough,
with the possibility to later add more statements.

If you want to argue with someone you would do that by writing
a statement and refer to their statement. The same way you
could support (read up vote) someone's statement.

This way nothing would get lost in tons of replies and
we don't have to repeat ourselves because someone didn't read
all of the thread.

The whole thing should be focused on resolving issues or
maturing ideas and it could well be that one topic will have
several sub-topics as different options to solve it. They
could also refer to entirely different topics to create a
dependency. E.g. a satisfactory containers module could rely
on the "allocators" topic and that could have a the precise GC
as a sub-topic (even if precise GC would be a top level topic
on its own).

So that forum would include what we know as DIPs, the list of
language issues and the gist of the discussions on this NG.

:-)

-- 
Marco
Mar 18 2014