On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 6:50 PM Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: snip
There's a good reason for that ;-).
Let's face it. Email discussion lists are legacy. They're cumbersome and fighting a never-ending battle with spammers and phishers. The main server software choices in current use are listserv (36 years old and proprietary) or mailman (23 years old and FOSS), and you gotta find a host and suitable admins. Plus we still need to maintain an SMTP server, along with anti-spam tools such as RBL hooks which only add more complexity. As a result, most third-party providers of list-based email services these days are one-directional and campaign-based (ie Mailchimp), sources of spam rather than fighters of it. I know very few people younger than 40 for whom email is a preferred means to engage in discussion.
GTALUG has been experimenting with other tools such as a presence on Discord, but email remains the preferred tool of people here for reasons I can best ascribe to inertia. That's OK, but the effort to tame this email beast, in its current form, is too much to bear for our limited resources. (If I had my way we'd be a series of group chats on Signal). Google offers a path for continuing to use email lists that we can live with.
Speaking only for myself - - - - well there is a good reason for that inertia! I am finding that I limit my checking communication time to hopefully only 2x per day. (I try not to get too frustrated with 3X but do that if I'm not getting any work done - - - I'm already tired so then its not like I'm using valuable work time!) Adding another communication technique to the list of 1. cell phone texts (I can't do this as I live rural and am in a reception hole but most people would put that first!) 2. phone calls 3. emails (multiple accounts) 4. texts using a secure service (telegram/signal et al) 5. snail mail 6. other well that would just takes more 'usable time' from my work day. I do not get paid to amble around my communications so o o - - - I ask that entities that I 'treat' with respect my need to get work done. Have read of companies that have studied this in their employees and found that limiting communication time to only 2 separate times per day results in a greater amount of work product (assuming that the object isn't closely tied to communication!!!). And this idea is driving my communication practices. Viewing anything business related from the desires of the 'under 40' crowd. Well - - - imo the common malaise is that too many people today go to work for a paycheck. They do NOT go to work to get the job or work done. Have run into a few exceptions to that but they literally are 'exceptions'!!!!!! That difference needs to be understood. Moving to multiple methods of communication would likely fragment communication even further and would, imo, further reduce the amount. IMO an even bigger problem is convincing people that they actually 'need' to communicate! Regards