should we shut down this mailing list?

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 11:31 AM, Nicolas Sebrecht
<nicolas.s-dev at laposte.net> wrote:

>> [1] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2018/01/msg00003.html>
>
> Hence, my question: should we shut down this mailing list?

 no!

> I think that the mailing list is good to have.

 absolutely it is.  there is an assumption that it's perfectly ok for
the main developer to become a "Self-Glorified Social-Mediesque God"
by closing all and any communication and interaction EXCEPT through
social media (more self-glorification) and github (THE absolute WORST
possible way to interact in a collaborative fashion with developers).

 a mailing list allows anyone to interact in highly-technical
discussions, propose ideas, get feedback from both the developers
*and* other users, and much much more.... oh, and does not FORCE
people to have to make a stark mutually-exclusive choice between
completely and utterly abandoning their principles to uphold personal
privacy and other ethical considerations.... or to make even the
simplest of bugreports.

 even without the use of personal data for purposes with which i will
never consent, github's total lack of *group* collaborative focus
(which is an inherent and absolutely critical part of savannah,
sourceforge and other gforge-style sites) and its resultant focus on
"gloriying the developer" i find so disgusting and distasteful that i
am amazed i even registered an account many years ago.

 not to mention the fact that github prevents and prohibits people
from taking over an abandoned project, because it's a *personal*
repository.  not to mention the fact that github causes *MASSIVE*
project fragmentation... because the only way to "collaborate" is to
FORK A PROJECT... look up "RepRapFirmware" for a pathological example
of github's effect at its worst.

 mailing lists are *the* collaborative communications tool that binds
people together, *even* when github is utilised as the primary code
repository.  why?  because the archives result in a *significant*
page-rank for search terms related to a project, well over-and-above
github.  people don't go "um err i can't find anyone to talk to
therefore i'm FORCED to fork the project", they go to the MAILING LIST
and directly ask questions.

 in short: closing the mailing list would be the equivalent of
abandoning the entire project.  if that's what you intend to do -
abandon the project - then do go ahead.  if on the other hand you
intend to continue to develop and maintain the project, and would like
people to be able to easily find you and offer assistance in that,
then maintaining the mailing list is a simple and logical way to
ensure that happens.

l.