I hate mailing lists!
What’s up with open source projects always using mailing lists as a means to communicate? Here’s why mailing lists suck:
- You get massive amounts of e-mail that are of no interest to you.
- E-mail clients always mess up threading which leads to discussions often forking into separate threads.
- You have to access the archives via some website somewhere.
- Searching sucks.
- You still have to register.
I hate mailing lists!
8 comments
Filter it into a dedicated folder, or create a webmail/gmail account just for them.
Not had that problem with gmail, ever.
As opposed to, for example, a forum, where you have to access the archive via their search engines, that’s unless they delete all old threads regularly and everything is lost?
You could archive them yourself anyway, then it’s all searchable however you want it.
So, um, what do you propose you do to find old stuff? LAbel it and store it in folders on your own PC so you don’t need to search as you know where it is?
And?
Sorry, drive by comment, you’re the homepage for an extension I like, it appears, but I don’t know which one know, whatever, I just recommended it to someone, so we’re good.
Personally, I much prefer mailing lists to forums and usenet, I can archive conversations how I like that way, and have been known to create gmail clients just for the sake of it. YMMV I guess.
Sure, you can filter it and whatnot, but that doesn’t change anything. You’re still getting lots of e-mail that are of no interest to you. More e-mail == not good.
Yeah right. You’ve never had one of these?
http://dojotoolkit.org/pipermail/dojo-interest/2006-November/021449.html
A reply to some post that for some reason gets orphaned. Happens all the time on the mailing lists I am forced to use.
Of course you have to access the archives via the search engine? The same applies to mailing lists. Unless you’re on the list from the start, you’re stuck with the shitty web interface for the list.
Who deletes old threads anymore by the way?
Yes, how very convenient.
I didn’t mean searching sucks per se. What I meant was that the searching capabilities in mailing list archives often are very limited.
** You still have to register.
* And?
People often complain that you have to register in forums in order to post. I was just pointing out that mailing lists are no different.
YMMV indeed. I get too much e-mail already. I don’t want more.
I agree. What the fuck is with using this archaic method? Don’t we have forums nowadays?
I agree with Rickard.
Mailing lists are even more annoying when you only want to post to a list once. In this case, if one wants to receive replies to his or her post, one must remain subscribed to the list. This means receiving piles of mail one does not care about, just in case someone else replies to one’s post. This is as opposed to a Web forum, where one can register, post once and check a box to request reply notifications, then receive a notification via e-mail *if* and when someone replies. Consider what happens if no one replies to one’s post until a year or more later. With a Web forum, it does not matter even if I forget that I ever registered and posted, because the forum will e-mail me when someone replies. By contrast, with a mailing list, I am unlikely to forget because I will continue to receive piles of mail from the list that I do not care about and consequently do not read. If one eventually gets tired of receiving all this noise and unsubscribes from the list or tells the list to stop sending list posts, one is never notified when someone else finally does reply to one’s post.
PS: This post is the first result of a Google Web search for “i hate mailing lists” (with the quotes). :)
You’re absolutely right, Brolin. Nice to know we’re not alone in the fight against mailing lists :)
I forgot another disadvantage of mailing lists: one cannot reply to or watch threads from before one subscribed to the list. Sure, one can use Gmane, but why is such a service necessary just to match the base functionality of a Web forum?
I HATE Mailing Lists… its fricking 2008 now!!! Damn!!! I just wanted to post a ‘yes, I am having a similar problem as you mentioned in your messeage, here is some helpful advice’ post and now have to sign up for EVERY single post/topic to come to my email box.
So, instead of posting to that thread, I searched for ‘mailing lists suck use forums’, found this, and am posting here to vent.
also,
+1 openid on forums
I can only totally agree! Darcy, I was also looking for companions with the phrase “i hate mailing lists”. Good to know I’m not on my own.