I’m talking about GNU here.
I just can’t seem to figure out on how to use either of them to communicate. IRCs don’t save older messages, but instead logs them. And I guess for the same reason, it is impossible to discuss anything in depth.
Mailing list is really hard to read, as it is nowhere similar to forum or tree-style comments. I can’t figure out what mailing list to message to.
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IRC I think is more intended for live discussion in the moment. It connects you to chat rooms, and is not suitable as a persistent messaging app.
IRC is for chatting. Need help? Hop on and see who’s around. If no one answers, come back later
In order to receive messages from a mailing list you must subscribe to it. Additionally, many lists either require that you be subscribed in order to send messages to the list, or that your message must be approved by a moderator if you are not subscribed. See listinfo for a catalog of the various mailing lists. Each list in the catalog has a link to a page where you can subscribe to it.
https://lists.gnu.org/I imagine these could be good starters for you:
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-system-discuss
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/social-discussIn order to receive messages from a mailing list you must subscribe to it
It would have been really nice for this to be documented in the docs for the openstack mailing list, so I could know before I sent an email. I read their 3 different pages on the mailing lists, wrote up a email with all correct formatting and etiquette, and read through the archives to ensure I was sending my question to the correct mailing list, only to receive a “Your message needs to be approved by a moderator.”
Almost a year later, still in quarantine. It doesn’t matter though, I figured my issue out.
Despite all the effort put into documenting mailing lists, and all the effort I put into reading that documentation, there are still de-facto standards people are just expected to know on top of that and it’s bullshit. Software forges (github, forgejo, etc) don’t have this problem, people can just contribute or ask for help using the integrated tooling (issues, PR’s, etc). There is a problem with centralization, but hopefully activitypub federation between software forges fixes that.
It’s a problem if a projects wiki doesn’t have complete information, but I’d say that’s true whether it’s about their mailing list or something else.
My text was a simple quote from GNUs mailing lists page, so they definitely have it documented.I’m not a user of mailing lists, but I can see the use of having all correspondence neatly delivered to your inbox where it can be subjected to whatever mail client rules you want. Especially if you are active in dozens of lists.
In regards to irc I recommend setting up a bouncer:
https://wiki.znc.in/ZNCI use irssi. When you start it up, if you run:
/lastlog -hilightIt will list the log of messages you received while you were logged out.
No? This will search the logfiles (if irssi is configured to create those at all) for a pattern. This still requires that you had to have an irssi client running and connected to the server/channel in question, during the time the user is afk. Which is why others recommend e.g. setting up ZNC.
I also had irssi installed, but since I’m not used to CLI, I moved to srain.
For IRC you either need to setup your own client with bouncer functionality (meaning you need a server or a PC that is connected 24/7) or use one of the few modern IRC networks that have this built in. Sadly the big popular networks do not, meaning they are basically unusable without a bouncer. There is also IRCcloud and Source Hut that offer a bouncer as a service to their paying customers, if you prefer that.
Edit: You can also use XMPP or Matrix bridges, but those are a bit hit or miss and especially Libera.chat is quite hostile to them.
Most people use ZNC as a bouncer: https://wiki.znc.in/ZNC
Ask if they are open to move to something else /s
I have to be honest, and no offense to GNU folks, but I am really not enjoying this barrier to entry. This cognitive overload is something I’m not comfortable with.
Understandable. Unfortunately the people in power of those services have to change. There’s no other way.
Fun fact the guy behind awk sent in a patch via email cuz he thought git was too complicated or not worth the hassle.
git was designed to accept patches over email. How else would you do it?
man git-send-email
Cognitive overload? From IRC and mailing lists? It makes me doubt whether you’d be able to contribute anything, anyway.
WOW YOU ARE SUCH A NICE PERSON
He’s not wrong though. If IRC and mailing lists fall into the too-hard basket, id hate to think of where GNU-style C code falls. Bottom of the too-hard cliff?
Yes they are wrong. A contribution may consist of “merely” a bug report. Even just asking questions may indicate that the UX or documentation is lacking.
Get yourself an ssh account somewhere, maybe here : https://sdf.org/ or here https://tildeverse.org/ and use screen or tmux to keep your IRC client session alive, so you can scroll back to older messages. Make sure to adjust the screen scroll back buffer if needed : https://www.baeldung.com/linux/scrollback-buffer-screen-session
