Re: [tor-talk] Until there's a REAL effing way to communicate, that evey1 can use, I'm DONE

[Cat S <catslovetor@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Low-Key^2


________________________________
 From: Low-Key² <cryptic303@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Until there's a REAL effing way to communicate, that evey1 can use, I'm DONE
 


----- Original Message -----
From: Cat S <catslovetor@xxxxxxxxx>

> In this case I think the "grandma test" is in order. That is, can a grandmother 
> easily use the tor-talk mailing-list to get help with Tor? 

Both my parents are grandparents and would qualify as technologically inept.  These are people who have called for help connecting to the net only to discover that, in order for that to happen, they needed to have their DSL modem powered on. ;)  Both have subscribed to lists for personal interests over the years.  In the 90s, I'd be more sympathetic to the Grandma Test.  But, with today's incarnation of the net, which is entirely point and click driven for common users, it's not an issue.  If someone figured out how to sign up to Facebook, they can figure out how to sign up to an e-mail list.

> I know there's (at least) to groups of users: techies who like mailing-lists and 
> newbs that don't. I see no reason why techies cannot stay with mailing-lists 
> while newbs can use the forum, where at least I would be there to help them.

I've just yet to see a very elegant way to merge them.  The closest I've seen is Sympa.  Perhaps take a look at that?  It's a mailing list service where the archives can be used and accessed like a forum. http://www.sympa.org/

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Hehe, ". . . DSL modem powered on." :D

The issue (in my mind and people I've assisted), it's not just the signing up aspect, but the _use_ of mailing-lists that's an issue. Correctly using mailing-lists are not nearly as intuitive a well designed and operated forum (e.g. with child-forums, FAQ, etc.).

Thanks a lot for the suggestion of Sympa. However, I think maybe trying to create a hybrid mailing-list/forum is the wrong approach. 

I think trying to make everyone happy will end up making no one happy. I think we should keep the mailing-lists and forum separate. If people want to use the forum they can use the forum (not via. e-mail, as I don't know of any good solution), and if people want to use the mailing-list they use the mailing-list (not via. the forum). That said, good forum software can send e-mails when threads of interest (that are 'tagged') are replied to, so a user don't have to check the forum to know if a topic s/he is interested in is under active discussion.
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