mailing list down for at least 2 days now

[timkuijsten]

I've posted a couple of messages to the nodejs mailing list, but it seems like the list has been down for at least 2 days now. My messages don't come through and neither any messages from anyone else come in (last received message is more than 2 days old from 05-11-14 04:18).

Anyone knows what's going on?

[misterdjules]

I believe @othiym23 and @aredridel are the moderators of this group. @othiym23 and @aredridel, do you know what's going on?

[timkuijsten]

looks like it has just been fixed, great!

[othiym23]

Sorry about that! @aredridel and I were both apparently distracted by work. Ping one of us (me first) on Twitter if the list is being unresponsive!

[timkuijsten]

I find it often unresponsive (although I've subscribed only a few weeks ago). I keep thinking I've selected digest mode instead of sending each message immediately. But can you do anything about it, isn't it just Google Groups that is not performing well?

[othiym23]

The list is moderated, so a certain amount of lag is inevitable, especially because both Aria and I are in the US and so posts do pile up a little when we're asleep.

[timkuijsten]

hmm.. interesting.. I guess I've already posted something while you guys were asleep ;-)

For me in the Netherlands this is a bit unfortunate and hinders throughput and discussion worldwide. Maybe it's an idea to have more moderators, or at least in different time zones?

I can imagine the rules as posted on that page* mainly have to be enforced with newcomers and not so much with people that have been on the list for a while. Of coursef I don't know about any messages that didn't make it to the threads I've participated in :-)

Can you guys maybe give some insights in the rejected ratio vs. for how long someone has been subscribed? Personally I think it's a bit of a waste of your time if you have to moderate each message I write to the list and can imagine you guys have better things to do (and I don't have to wait for US sunrise to see it posted). (please don't take this personal).

* haven't seen the rules before, maybe it's a good idea to link it at http://nodejs.org/community/ where I've found out about the list, and put it in front of a subscription page or a first welcome e-mail maybe

[othiym23]

So far, the main purpose of moderation has been achieved, which is to eliminate spam, both of the regular kind, and of the jobs-posting kind, as well as reducing the flaminess of the list a little bit. It might be useful to to get an overnight moderator, but it has to be somebody who Aria and I trust (see the earlier bit about flaminess – the Google group is relatively calm these days, but it has gotten pretty fiery in the past). Also, given the number of forums people now have for discussing Node (the list, Stack Overflow, the various repositories of node-forward (as well as the associated Gitter channels), the mailing list being a little more asynchronous feels like less of a big deal to me.

I'm mostly trying to raise the signal-noise ratio of the group high, and that requires a certain amount of effort.

[timkuijsten]

Is it possible to only moderate the first couple of messages of new users? Wouldn't that eliminate most if not all spam?

[ravi]

I appreciate the reasoning behind the moderation policies and also the effort, and I accept the overhead it adds, but I do not think the "asynchronous"ness is just a little more, or that the mailing list is (or should be) no longer a big deal. StackOverflow is a poor substitute for a community when it comes to anything beyond finding reliable answers to specific questions.

Anyway, it is what it is, I guess.

[othiym23]

@ravi Noted, and your contributions to the group are extremely valuable. That spirit is the main thing that keeps the list in existence (there are a lot of people who would prefer to see it shut down as an attractive nuisance). That said, after the various flamewars and other issues the group has seen, especially towards the end of last year, I think it does need some special care and feeding.

I'm not trying to retain sole control over moderation (as I think / hope you know) – I welcome other people's input, and would love to see people trying to shape the group into being a more useful tool. And like I said, I'd be happy to add more moderators (it was a huge relief to get @aredridel helping out). But it's imperative that the people doing the moderating do so with a light hand and not have any particular axe to grind on the group, and thus far the number of people matching those criteria who have volunteered is small.

@timkuijsten No, because that removes the value of having a moderator in place to cool down flamewars. This isn't a thing I've had to do more than three or four times in the six months I've been moderating the list, but it is much, much easier to send somebody a note saying, "hey, do you think you could tone that down a bit and resubmit your message?" then trying to stop a major argument once it gets started.

[timkuijsten]

I see, I'm too new to this list to have experience with flame wars. My main concern is about the lag, especially the last couple of days when I was trying to get some valuable feedback for my main project. This was a bit unfortunate and frustrating (and I thought it was because of technical issues with Google Groups).

[timkuijsten]

It's just that considering the fact that every single message is currently under moderation, I think, wow, these flame wars must have been really bad and must have had a dreadful effect on the community.

[ravi]

@othiym23 Thank you and let me restate, I greatly appreciate the effort you and @aredridel are putting in moderating the list. I am with you 100% on the flamewars. I guess my comment was intended more as a helpless sigh :-) -- nothing much I (or most) do about fragmentation of the community. The list is pretty good as it is, but I am lost on ways to foster more active and lively discussions. I am curious: where does NodeJS core discussion and planning occur? Perhaps a summary of such discussions posted to the list might keep the rest of us engaged and informed.

[othiym23]

I am curious: where does NodeJS core discussion and planning occur? Perhaps a summary of such discussions posted to the list might keep the rest of us engaged and informed.

In no particular order:

• #libuv on Freenode
• node-forward/discussions
• various backchannels of which I have little knowledge
• joyent/node issues (you know, her)

This is an area in which we as a community could stand to improve – there's not really a globally shared roadmap for Node's development, even though I think the core team has a pretty good consensus around what they're working on and when it should land. The group used to be part of that discussion, but a lot of people got turned off and left at the end of the year, and I don't think many of the core people watch it very closely anymore.