Hi all,

I wanted to split off the recent discussion by Peter and Travis suggesting we may consider moving away from mailing lists in favor of MUCs. I think this deserves its own thread so as not to dilute the ongoing conversation in the previous discussion.

Personally, I am not in favor of abandoning mailing lists for this type of discussion. Mailing lists have several important advantages:

• Time to respond thoughtfully: Mailing lists allow participants to carefully compose responses. Some people are naturally quick at finding the right words in real time, but others (also including many for whom English is not a native language) benefit from (or simply prefer) having more time to reflect. For example, composing this email took me 41 minutes (longer than I care to admit), a duration that would generally be impractical in a live chat room.
• Asynchronous participation and time zones: Mailing lists naturally allow people to contribute "later" which is much harder to do in chat rooms (where conversations 'moved on'). This is especially helpful for people in different time zones or those who cannot respond immediately.
• Offline processing and focus: Threads in a mailing list are ordered and easy to read offline. Chat rooms often mix multiple topics, making it harder to follow the discussion. In practice, I don't expect the majority of people to scroll back in history, which significantly reduces the potential reach.
• Engaging quieter participants: Mailing lists often generate responses from participants who do not otherwise join MUC discussions.
• Record keeping and referencing: Mailing list archives provide a single, persistent URL for referencing discussions. Chat logs are often fragmented and thus lack a canonical link.

I understand that, technically, XMPP technology could be used in ways beyond standard instant messaging to support discussions like these, and some clients could replicate many of the benefits of mailing lists. However, in practice, I don't expect the majority of users to take advantage of these features consistently. Even today, features such as message references or reactions are inconsistently supported, which can make following discussions difficult for people who cannot, or prefer not to, change their XMPP implementation.

So while MUCs are great for fast-paced, interactive discussions where ideas can bounce around quickly, I see mailing lists as far more practical for thoughtful, organized discussions that people can read, reflect on, and reference later.