Migrate to Mailing Lists to Modern Forum Software

[some-java-user-99206970363698485155 at vodafonemail.de]

In this complete discussion it is important to consider from which standpoint
you are discussing:
There are probably two extrema:
- OpenJDK contributors
- "Drive-by" visitors / contributors

I would assume most of the replies opposing mailing list alternatives come from
OpenJDK contributors:
- they are familiar with mailing lists
- have been subscribed for a long time
- are using their company e-mail address (which is public)
- use an e-mail client which supports e-mail threads; or have the respective
  add-ons adding support for that

Personally I would consider myself to come from the second category, the
"drive-by" visitor (or rather in general interested in the OpenJDK), and
I would assume some of the users here arguing for a mailing list alternative
come from the same or a similar category. The main characteristics are:
- they are not familiar with the concept of mailing lists
- they have not been subscriped to the mailing list yet
(- they do not have a company e-mail address, or they do not want to write
  from that)
- their e-mail client and/or e-mail provider does not support threads by
  default
- they do not have their e-mail client set up to write in plain text, and
  their client is not wrapping after X characters automatically

Keep in mind that most subscribers are likely OpenJDK contributors and therefore
whatever image you will get from this discussion is heavily biased. This might
be acceptable if you are not actively aiming for new contributors from outside,
but I hope that is not the case.

>From the list above some of the pain points might already be obvious, but I will
sumarize them anyways:
- https://mail.openjdk.java.net/mailman/listinfo provides no search interface;
  for someone unfamiliar with mailing lists, finding a previous message is
  pretty difficult
- Mailing lists make it difficult to respond to past discussions if you were
  not subscribed back then
- Viewing discussion threads is difficult if your client does not support it
  natively
  Keep in mind that the user might just want to ask a single question, telling
  them to install add-on X, which might then not work or require extra
  configuration, is rather discouraging.
- Without company e-mail address you might not want your private e-mail address
  to become public. One reason might be because mailing lists are for sure a
  great source for spam mail authors. Another might be that you want to hide
  your name from Open Source projects (further reading [0]).
  Creating a separate e-mail address is cumbersome, and the mailing list might
  even block your e-mail address or domain for whatever spam-related reasons.
- When you subscribe to a mailing list you receive all mails even though you
  might only be interested in one specific topic. Having to configure mail
  filters just to receive updates for one single message really does not justify
  this trouble.
- Responding to messages on mailing lists can be confusing. For my first message
  on the mailing lists by accident I only responded to the person answering me,
  but not to the mailing list.

It is also not surprising that a related general Stack Exchange question ([1])
exists; reading the comments under the question and answers is really worth it.

Threaded discussions (other than ones being limited to a single thread level)
can also have their disadvantages; [2] might be interesting to read.
For example here my response would fit to anyone arguing against a mailing
list change, it would not have mattered to whom I have responded.

As side notes: Since it has been mentioned before; Slack *does* support
threads, but only one level deep. (Though I am not advocating for using
Slack instead)
Similarly Discourse allows replying [3] and creating a new topic as reply [4].

If you still decide that you need a mailing list, then could you please
at least investigate switching to a more modern web interface for it,
e.g. HyperKitty ([5])?

And since this discussion has already drifted towards a GitHub critique:
I don't really understand why you have chosen GitHub over a self-hosted
GitLab instance (you likely have your reasons):
- You are complaining about missing threads, yet GitLab has a Threads feature [6]
- You are censoring any GitHub comment from someone who has not signed the OpenJDK
  Terms of Use. This is really discouraging.
  A self-hosted GitLab instance where you can control who can create an
  account would likely have been better suited. Then it would have been
  clearer that you do not accept comments from external users.

In general there are multiple things which are quite discouraging for
someone who wants to contribute to the OpenJDK. But that is a different
topic and would make this discussion drift off-topic.

Kind regards

[0] https://medium.com/@fommil/hide-your-real-name-in-open-source-3d67e74a8c56
[1] https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/71148/why-do-programmers-still-use-mailing-lists
[2] https://blog.codinghorror.com/web-discussions-flat-by-design/
[3] https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-new-user-guide/96331#replying
[4] https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-reply-as-topic/59891/8
[5] https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/hyperkitty/en/latest/
[6] https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/discussions/