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Why use mailing lists?

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Re: Why use mailing lists?

#111

Post by dminuoso »

dfabulich wrote: post #83
teddyh wrote: post #2

Like I recently wrote in response to someone here who was fascinated that mailing lists were “still a thing in 2025”: Please, inform us of an alternative which is: • Non-proprietary • Federated • Archivable • Accessible • Not dependent on a specific company — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43972038 >

Mailing lists aren't federated. Everyone has to email one particular address at one particular domain; whoever controls that email address + domain can censor/block emails. (That's a good thing when you're blocking spam!) If you're OK with the fact that mailing lists are somewhat centralized, there are actually got a ton of great alternatives to pure mailing lists. All popular open-source web forums support email not…

You can run your own mail server and name server on top. The network of mail is very much federated.

In mail we have so many freedoms. We have become so locked into technology that we have to introduce a term like “federation” to signify the interoperability and freedom of a single component. Mail is federation layered upon federation.

The fact that you can just use a mailings list address as a member of another mailing list gives you even more federation possibilities. All with the simplest of all message exchange protocols.

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#112

Post by arp242 »

pabs3 wrote: post #107
arp242 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're not subscribed? I don't usually care about the day to day of Linux kernel dev, but that one thread might be of interest to me. Actually, I might have something to contribute, but since I'm not subscribed the UX on that sucks too. "Just use mutt" as a reply to "I want to read this one email thread" is rather missing the point. Plus the reality is most people neither use nor want mutt. Many people think…

There are tools to import mails into whichever email client you prefer, especially if the list is archived on a public-inbox instance, which is the best mailing list archiving system so far. https://lwn.net/Articles/875239/ https://blog.gnoack.org/post/lei/ https://people.kernel.org/monsieuricon/lore-lei-part-1-getti... https://b4.docs.kernel.org/ https://github.com/mikwielgus/forum-dl

You can't seriously claim that this is good UX. And that's what this is about: not that it's impossible but that the UX is not good, especially for the casual user only interested in the occasional thread.

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#113

Post by maxloh »

teddyh wrote: post #2

Like I recently wrote in response to someone here who was fascinated that mailing lists were “still a thing in 2025”: Please, inform us of an alternative which is: • Non-proprietary • Federated • Archivable • Accessible • Not dependent on a specific company — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43972038 >

Maybe Matrix?

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#114

Post by imiric »

perching_aix wrote: post #65
imiric wrote: post #50

The value of the federated/decentralized nature of email is hard to overstate. So many of the problems of modern technology are caused by centralization. It concentrates power and wealth into a handful of companies that now control the internet. It introduces extraordinary problems from managing data and services at global scales, which is the biggest technical challenge these companies face. It makes government surv…

> federated/decentralized I'd be really quite hesitant to blur these concepts so casually.

I'm not blurring them. Email is both.

Besides, this distinction has been discussed ad nauseam, and is not interesting. Especially since when contrasted with centralization, which was my main point, both concepts avoid its issues.

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#115

Post by xigoi »

charcircuit wrote: post #47

>Despite that, they're still heavily used This person is in a serious bubble. Mailing lists are not used by billions of people. >Mailing lists require no special software Even ignoring that most social media are accessible via a web browser instead of their dedicated app, this is just adding more complexity than having a single app for people to use. Everyday people want a single way to do things. >Mailing lists are…

> I trust the privacy of social media than some mailing list where the admin could secretly grep the contents of it with no over site.

This will only allow them to find the text of the messages, which is public anyway, so what exactly are you worried about?

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#116

Post by IshKebab »

teeray wrote: post #19

I set one up for our HOA as a unified conversation and notification platform. Everyone now has exactly one email address to remember to notify everyone of, say, a graduation party where there might be some extra cars. Nobody needs Facebook, or a Google account for Groups, etc. When people move, their addresses just get updated in the list. The only trouble I had moderating it is people just love searching for whateve…

Almost like the UX of mailing lists isn't actually that good...

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#117

Post by [deleted] »

pluto_modadic wrote: post #103
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #48

I hate mailing lists, even if I recognize some of their benefits. A forum like Discourse is infinitely better in usability - to view, browse, search, follow specific threads or forums and mute the rest, do DMs, do real nested replies, embed rich media and code with proper formatting and just have a nice interface to work with. It looks like they even support ActivityPub federation recently. Although its GPL not MIT.…

the UI/UX of discord is definitely nice, but the /ethics/ of discord isn't.

[deleted]

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#118

Post by pasc1878 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #101
clircle wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News.gmane.io is up. I use it daily to track a few projects.

Ah, thanks. I knew there were issues, but somehow missed they'd resolved it. A great service, glad to see it alive and kicking!

They have not resolved the big issue.

news.gmane.io has always worked.

The issue is that the owner of that domain made a mistake and gave the control of the web frontend to someone else who just shut it down.

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#119

Post by pasc1878 »

renegat0x0 wrote: post #106
teddyh wrote: post #2

Like I recently wrote in response to someone here who was fascinated that mailing lists were “still a thing in 2025”: Please, inform us of an alternative which is: • Non-proprietary • Federated • Archivable • Accessible • Not dependent on a specific company — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43972038 >

Yesterday I seen someone claiming on Reddit that they stopped using mailing list in favour of using rss

Yes that works to read them - and I do use that.

But if you want to write a message in reply or start a new conversation - RSS does not allow that. (In the cases that I use RSS - I will just copy to my mail app - it is more cumbersome than just replying in mail (or usenet via gmane) but this is not something I do often for those lists.

Re: Why use mailing lists?

#120

Post by Erwyn »

dminuoso wrote: post #111
dfabulich wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mailing lists aren't federated. Everyone has to email one particular address at one particular domain; whoever controls that email address + domain can censor/block emails. (That's a good thing when you're blocking spam!) If you're OK with the fact that mailing lists are somewhat centralized, there are actually got a ton of great alternatives to pure mailing lists. All popular open-source web forums support email not…

You can run your own mail server and name server on top. The network of mail is very much federated. In mail we have so many freedoms. We have become so locked into technology that we have to introduce a term like “federation” to signify the interoperability and freedom of a single component. Mail is federation layered upon federation. The fact that you can just use a mailings list address as a member of another mail…

> You can run your own mail server and name server on top. The network of mail is very much federated.

While I do completely agree with that in theory (and I also love mail) I think it does not stand the reality test because of email deliveravility which tends to be a nightmare.

How do you solve this? Do you use a third party SMTP?

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