Communications

[DGDanforth]

With the announced closing of the BlackBox mailing list

Dear BlackBox Developers,

it has been a year since we published BlackBox Component Builder 1.6. Back then we also announced that we are no longer able to work on BlackBox. Nevertheless, we still provided this mailing list as a service to the community.

Unfortunately, we now have to retire the server that is hosting the mailing list. We therefore would like to encourage the remaining users of this list to find a new mailing list within the next 30 days. On November 30, 2014, we will shut down this discussion list.

Thank you very much and with best regards,
Your Oberon microsystems crew

I think we need to take up the slack. I have always liked the simple email structure used by Oberon microsystems.
I find our current mixture of email notifications (but not replay) plus Center web access to be cumbersome.
What would it take to implement the Omic email model where everyone (not just center members) can post and reply?

Comments by Ivan and Josef desired.

-Doug

[DGDanforth]

Another possibility is we just use
oberon@lists.inf.ethz.ch

[cfbsoftware]

What would it take to implement the Omic email model where everyone (not just center members) can post and reply?

Everyone potentially can post and reply in these forums - it just depends on the permissions set up by the administrator. The blackbox community forum was setup many months ago which is available to non-centre members:

http://community.blackboxframework.org/

Note that not everyone can post and reply in the BlackBox and ETH mailing list. Non-members cannot even see the contents of the BB mailing list and no history was made available by Oberon microsystems. Both require you to subscribe first just as you have to do on these forums. I use several email addresses and always have to double check before posting on the BlackBox and ETH mailing list. Somehow I manage to have two email addresses for BlackBox so I get two copies of every email which is irritating, but I was never game to cancel one in case I was shut out altogether. I far prefer the forum model of group communication rather than the mailing list.

Chris

[DGDanforth]

I far prefer the forum model of group communication rather than the mailing list.

Ah well there we have it.
I prefer a passive roll where I am informed of new discussions AND can see the text in the email sent me rather than having to actively go to the forum and scan through the different topics.

I do not like the emails that simply indicate that a new positing has been made but do not include the text of what the post was.

Perhaps there is a way to have both?

-Doug

[DGDanforth]

Doug:

fantastic. I think that the discussion and mailing list has its merits.
It would be good to have one.

I wonder if Ominc even realized that they gained international recognition
of a very special kind. Pascal Without Borders, in which people exchange
goodwill across borders, political systems, and continents. The movement
which they helped create is very important in this divided world. A bit
sad that they decided to retire the list server that worked so very well.

Cheers!

Wojtek

[Ivan Denisov]

I prefer forum.
* All messages stored in web-server
* They are accessible in structured form when you want to read them
* People can write on forum without thinking that they are abusing somebody mailbox

[cfbsoftware]

I prefer forum.
* All messages stored in web-server
* They are accessible in structured form when you want to read them
* People can write on forum without thinking that they are abusing somebody mailbox

Plus...
* Code snippets (using the 'Code' button when entering your message) are nicely formatted.
* Images (e.g. screenshots) can be embedded inline as well as being added as attachments.
* You can view the messages when convenient instead of being interrupted randomly by email
* You can choose to be notified immediately by email for selected topics / sub-forums that you are really interested in
* You can ignore whole topics / sub-forums that have no interest to you

[DGDanforth]

I prefer forum.
* All messages stored in web-server
* They are accessible in structured form when you want to read them
* People can write on forum without thinking that they are abusing somebody mailbox

Plus...
* Code snippets (using the 'Code' button when entering your message) are nicely formatted.
* Images (e.g. screenshots) can be embedded inline as well as being added as attachments.
* You can view the messages when convenient instead of being interrupted randomly by email
* You can choose to be notified immediately by email for selected topics / sub-forums that you are really interested in
* You can ignore whole topics / sub-forums that have no interest to you

o Code snippets are nice but (for me) not very important. I can format the code.
o Images I can easily embed in an email directly (copy and paste).
o Immediate notification happens automatically with email broadcasts.
o Ignore topics/sub-forums: there I agree with you BUT one looses the sense of community by not seeing the volume of back and forth discussions (which you can easily delete). That assumes that the volume is not overwhelming which it has never been with BlackBox.
-Doug

[Josef Templ]

We can of course recommend to use the community forum.
That is exactly what it has been invented for, isn't it?

The only alternative that is much more convenient than the forum is a newsgroup,
as I mentioned before several times. However, it was considered old-fashioned by some.
It is much more convenient than the forum, even if it is old-fashioned.

The existing newsgroup named comp.lang.oberon could be used for exactly that purpose
because there is no traffic on it anyway.

- Josef

[DGDanforth]

We can of course recommend to use the community forum.
That is exactly what it has been invented for, isn't it?

The only alternative that is much more convenient than the forum is a newsgroup,
as I mentioned before several times. However, it was considered old-fashioned by some.
It is much more convenient than the forum, even if it is old-fashioned.

The existing newsgroup named comp.lang.oberon could be used for exactly that purpose
because there is no traffic on it anyway.

- Josef

I definitely agree that a news group is more convenient than a forum.
I just subscribed (follow) the Google reader of comp.lang.oberon.
That seems available but more complex than I remember news groups used to be
back in the '80s. Didn't they directly access Usenet? Why are there now news readers
of various ilk between the postings and the readers?

I think it may be possible to modify our forum software such that

o Posting a discussion generates an email with the text of the post to all those who have requested notification.
o Sending an email to [BBA] posts to all community members (and enters the text into the forum topic email subject).
o Sending an email to [BBC] posts to Center members (and enters the text into the forum topic email subject).

By providing those features to our website we get the best of both worlds.