There are some thoughts which are repeating in my head for years, and I’ve just decided its time that I write them down.
When it comes to non-instantly many-to-many communication, there are to big systems currently in use: forums and mailing lists. What annoys me that much about those is that both systems are actually exactly the same, except for the frontend they use.
Mailing lists send the messages to all users by mail, and allow them to answer again by mail. Additionally, they have a website (archive) where all messages can be checked, but this website is usually pretty awful and doesn’t allow answering to the messages.
Comparably, forums show all messages -and allow to answer to them- in a website which is excellent for this purpose, but the mail subscription option isn’t useful at all (often requiring that you open the website to see the content) and doesn’t allow to answer to the messages directly.
But, let’s look again at what their key function actually is. Delivering messages. It’s just, one simple purpose that both systems share. So my point is, why isn’t there a single solution adjusting to both (mail and web) workflows. Why are there only two exclusive options, which only provide one good interface and a broken attempt at the other one?
I want a system where I can visit a website and see all messages (also being able to answer to them), and then after five months decide that I don’t want to visit the website any more and subscribe to it by mail, still getting to read and answer the discussions in the same way but now from my mail client? (And while we are at it, having an option to link several email addresses to the same account, so that I can answer using any of those – like with Launchpad’s mailing lists).
In all the years I’ve been using the Internet, I haven’t seen a single solution like the one I’m describing. Sure, there are third-party websites which show discussions from mailing lists in a more readable way, and some even allow answering to them, but it isn’t quite the same. There is Google Groups, which is quite close at providing both interfaces, but the website isn’t really like a forum either and it just doesn’t feel right (also, it’s proprietary/centralized and not appropriate for usage by, for example, the Debian project).
Am I really asking for that much? I’ve considered, several times, writing such a system myself, but I just can’t believe that nobody has thought of it before (or, in case it already exists, that it isn’t in much more widespread use).
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Google Wave?
Done. Google wave. sign up and help develop the future.
Yeah, I hope Google Wave will improve communications quite a bit (although from just seeing the video I don’t know how relevant it’ll be to this particular topic).
By the way, will all of Google Wave be released or only the protocol?
@RainCT
I think that they are going to open source everything.
It sounds like you want Google Groups. Any open source project using Google Groups wins instant extra points for me. I can read and search the online forums at my leisure, then subscribe directly to email when I’m ready to get more involved.
My only gripe is that they don’t seem to have a handle on Spam. The current level of Spam management is terrible, and I wish they could get the Gmail team to come in and solve this problem.
@Pete:
Well, I already mention Google Groups in my post. I don’t know why, but I don’t really like it, somehow it doesn’t feel right :P, but more important it’s not something projects like GNOME/Debian/Ubuntu can install on their servers so they’re not going to use it.
Others have said it: Google Wave.
There are two ways to do this:
1. Have a mailing list with a web archive that allows replying.
2. Have a forum with mailing list plugin.
Frankly I do thing that Google Wave is something that can obsolete both those things.
@Aigars:
The reason why I wrote this is not so much about “how this can be done” but more “why is no big project using this”. Agreed on the Wave point.
Thanks for commenting, all!
Google Wave come save us already! >_<
You forgot one thing. A third way to communicate with others is via Usenet. It is (was?) serving the exact same purpose as web forums. But news readers are generally better than the web interfaces. So the system definitely needs a NNTP interface.
I use Gmane for those lists I do not want to subscribe to, but occasionally would like to reply to.
Example: http://news.gmane.org/search.php?match=ubuntu
Back then in 1999 (yes, 10 yrs ago) Phorum.org did this beautifully.
Not sure if it now supports modern features (OpenID, social stuff, etc.), maybe take a look and give it a try.
I would also be very interested in answers to that request. (Answers that don’t contain the term Google though). It seems so natural to integrate those communication means, and yet there are hardly any solutions for that.
Happy greetings from germany! :-) We found this article in google, while searching for a good mailing provider. I think, my thoughts will fit to your discussion: In past, we sent the mailing to our customers from mailing list per email. But after a lot of problems in discussions in team, we changed to use the post mailing from wir-machen-druck or other printing companies- to prevent lost mailings, uninformed customers, spam and therefore angry customers. But this is just a test- I think we will turn back to e-mail-marketing and mailing lists because of much cheaper possibility to inform customers. We will see… Please don’t look to my bad english: I’m only a german girly student! :-)
Google Wave is the answer! Good post!
The Open Planning Project has an interesting platform that achieves this:
http://www.coactivate.org/
It’s built on Zope/Plone. Not sure about local installs.
The UI isn’t awesome, but the breakdown of information is nice.
It’s frustrating that Google groups have such a (IMHO) mediocre interface, with no thought to hierarchy or subdivision of information.
The ixda.org are ok, they’re based on Mailman + tricks.
I too have hopes for Wave, but it feels that multiple interfaces to a discussion should already be ubiquitous.