Re: Future of the lists

First of all, thanks for all the work having been put in to the mailing 
list. It has been a true treasure trove of inspiration!

I personally think the scsynth.org forum is the future and I have moved 
to using that pretty exclusively as the main platform for sc discussion 
for me. It is easy to search and sharing links and code is easy, and it 
is accessible to newbies and (I think?) quite searchable via google etc. 
And it has a great user interface generally.

My dream is to have the same intensity in exchange as has been here over 
the years. And also, if you set your preferences to it you can use it as 
a sort of mailing list.

That said, I think the mailing lists decentralized nature is impossible 
to replicate (and just look at the current horror going on with freenode 
for a terrible example of centralized communication gone awry) but I 
think that's just something that has to be accepted maybe, but I do 
truly like how the archive is distributed among it's participants.

Best!!

On 19/05/2021 18:09, [email protected] wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I’m afraid we need to have a discussion about the future of the 
> mailing lists. There are a number of issues, but the most immediate is 
> that the list archiving software is basically not up to modern 
> standards and is no longer maintained. It will need to be 
> decommissioned, and is unlikely to be immediately replaced as there’s 
> low usage for it.
>
> There is a broader question about the list software itself. That /is/ 
> likely to be replaced, and the replacement would offer an archiving 
> facility, though there is no clear timescale, and at the moment it’s 
> not a high priority.
>
> The existing archive can be easily converted to a static one, which 
> should be able to provide a better search facility than currently 
> (e.g. Google), so that should not be lost in any case.
>
> So I think the options are as follows:
>
> 1. Move the lists to another host. JISCmail may be a possibility.
> 2. Continue the lists and accept a gap in the archive, and hope that 
> the new hosting solution here will come sooner rather than later.
> 3. Wind up the lists after a quarter of a century, move all discussion 
> to other fora (e.g. scsynth.org <http://scsynth.org>), and finalise 
> the archive.
>
> I have my own views on this, partly for personal reasons, but I would 
> like to hear from others before I say anything. I know people have 
> strong feelings about lists vs. web fora, etc., and any choice will 
> definitely have plusses and minuses.
>
> Whatever happens, it’s been something of an honour looking after 
> sc-users and sc-dev for the last 13 years since we migrated them in 
> 2008. I’ve been really proud and happy that Birmingham has been able 
> to support so much amazing activity, and such a great community!
>
> Let me know what you think,
>
> Scott - list admin
>
>