[Bitcoin-development] off-topic: bitcoin-forum...

[Daniel F]

on 02/19/2012 07:13 PM grarpamp said the following:
>> Some time ago i started a googlegroup mailing list, bitcoin-discussion.
>> It's been pretty low-volume... but it's something. :)
>> http://groups.google.com/group/bitcoin-discussion
> 
> Unfortunately it appears to be just as dead as the one
> on sourceforge.

That's exactly what i said above, in a more euphemistic fashion :D

> Well there's a couple things I see...
> 
> 1) Yes, IMO, a real mailing list for users needs to exist.
> Among the prior reasons... lists tend to house a more
> technical crowd than forums which are magnets for
> initiates.

indeed.

> 2) There was originally one client. Now there are many,
> all adherant to the same bitcoin spec. So while:
>  bitcoin-development at lists.sourceforge.net
> represents the dev community for the original client,
> it may not, or won't be, for any other client.
> And as:
>  bitcoin-list at lists.sourceforge.net
> was for, and is administratively tied to, the original client...
> it may not be the place, or a welcome one, to hold talk of all
> the adherant clients.

i'm sure that with the list being unused, we could change the charter
and do whatever with it, and the people who matter probably won't object.

> 3) The sourceforge list browsing interface is ridiculously
> lame and overweight, and it doesn't appear to be setting
> a '^Reply-to: ' header which is bad. Googlegroups would
> be an ok site I suppose. And a pure MailMan interface would
> be even better and more customarily accepted.

Indeed, good points on all counts.

> So for the user list, I'd suggest:
> 1) Search a bit to make sure there's not already a busy list
> out there somewhere. Check the list aggregator sites
> like markmail, gmane, etc too.
> 2) Charter it as bitcoin protocol, client agnostic.
> 3) Find an impartial administrative and robust home for the list
> with browsable, searchable and hopefully downloadable archives.
> 4) Make the announcement to other known client lists/forums.
> 5) Close any relevant old lists.
> 6) Promote via similar announcement from time to time.

good points. re 1), i'm pretty sure that -dev is the most active
bitcoin-related public mailing list. things may have changed in the past
half-year, but it seems unlikely.

> http://groups.google.com/group/bitcoin-discussion/about
> Description: A place for discussion related to bitcoin.
> 
> Is this sufficient charter to go with? Is the creator/maintainer
> known impartial? What happens to ongoing list operations when
> said people vanish? It is presumed googlegroups itself is robust.

charter can be changed if needed. creator/maintainer, that being me, is
generally known to be a pretty decent guy :). i'm not attached to this
particular list though, but whatever happens, i'd hope that there will
be more people willing to share administrative duties. not sure if
googlegroups is the best interface, if we can find some good free host
with mailman, downloadable archives, the works, that may be preferable.
i started that group on gg simply because it was free and easily
available and easy to set up.