Evan Leibovitch via Talk said on Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:10:30 -0400
The email system is staggeringly hard to migrate and maintain and I am deeply grateful to Ron, Hugh and Kevin for their roles in this; but their talent is rare and not easily replaced should they move on.
NOWWWWW we agree. "The email system is staggeringly hard to migrate and maintain". Let's concentrate on that. A mailing list is a place where people can each add ideas, so that the whole becomes much greater than the sum of the parts. This is the purpose of a mailing list: Nothing more, and nothing less. History tells us this is not achieved with forums or walled gardens (what's happened to all those "facebook groups" dedicated to specific technologies. Also, for a group that still has in person meetings, the mailing list augments those meetings before and after the meeting. And the email system is staggeringly hard to migrate and maintain, so in the long run it's unsustainable. The question is what we replace it with and how soon. We had this exact conversation, but without the "nobody uses email anymore", on GoLUG. The thread is called "Mailing list, long term", and the first message of the thread is: https://golug.org/pipermail/golug_golug.org/2025-August/000558.html Just keep going down through the thread. This is 2025, so we don't need to use UUCP and all that X500 or whatever and other "one server might be off" workarounds needed in the 20th century, so our task is *greatly* simplified. Read the thread. You'll see the arguments for and against. But I agree with you: Email based mailing lists won't last much longer. I'd like this to be an opportunity for improvement, not a move to a workflow that's more of a hassle, and certainly not to a walled garden (just try migrating *that*). SteveT Steve Litt http://444domains.com