4 ms·

That one's a good example, though I'd still argue that such cases are rare. I'm pretty sure that, at least as a consumer (if not as a volunteer) you could commu

That one's a good example, though I'd still argue that such cases are rare. I'm pretty sure that, at least as a consumer (if not as a volunteer) you could communicate with such a local group through email. Last time I've been asked to join a facebook group, I've said I didn't have an account and everyone switched to a mailing list administered via google in no time. (Though I was not the only one.) Pretty sure a bunch of other alternatives would have been possible if google didn't work nicely. Over the last half-year of online academic events, I've seen at least half a dozen different online services used (Zoom, Zulip, Gather.town, google hangouts, Cisco Webex and probably a bunch I don't remember). Most of us users don't particularly like to, but can (without serious tears) learn a new tool when it comes up and turns out to be more suited. As it comes to reach, don't forget that email has probably the greatest reach of any service around.

jlokier 6y ago
> Last time I've been asked to join a facebook group, I've said I didn't have an account and everyone switched to a mailing list administered via google in no time. That's amazing. I've seen similar things the other way around. Someone didn't use Facebook. People didn't switch; they got left out and forgotten. Another one was Google Groups (a type of mailing list). Someone didn't want to use a Google account. They couldn't figure out how to subscribe. Was the group willing to switch to another provider? No of course not. In the end an admin manually subscribed the person with their non-Google address, but if that hadn't been possible, the group would have let them go rather than switch service. I think it depends on how much the group wants to accommodate everyone who wants to be in it, and what the mix of people is. Also whether it depends on additional tools such as Facebook Events. If it's a fun social group that you're interested in joining, where the people don't particularly care who is in it, they're probably not going to change what they do. That's fairly obvious when the group aren't your friends (yet). Less obviously, I've seen it happens among friends too, where someone not on Facebook gradually gets left out and forgotten from things like party invitations. > Over the last half-year of online academic events, I've seen at least half a dozen different online services used (Zoom, Zulip, Gather.town, google hangouts, Cisco Webex and probably a bunch I don't remember). Most of us users don't particularly like to, but can (without serious tears) learn a new tool when it comes up and turns out to be more suited. I've seen the same thing this summer. (Some of those tools have awful data protection issues and permissions to do things they shouldn't on your computer, yet I've installed and used them anyway. When it's a job interview you don't really have a choice.) The above list shows us Facebook doesn't have a monopoly. But I don't count them as great examples of freely leaving behind walled gardens either. It's more like, there are more walled gardens. You don't get a choice which tool to use. You must use whatever tool the group has chosen before you join it, and they are very unlikely to change tool for a new joiner. > As it comes to reach, don't forget that email has probably the greatest reach of any service around. Yes and no. Everyone uses email, but many only use it inside Gmail, which is a bit of a mess if you're subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists, and trying to keep track of events you've been invited to.
- spurgu 6y ago
  > Some of those tools have awful data protection issues and permissions to do things they shouldn't on your computer, yet I've installed and used them anyway. It's not like you can say anything different about the big corporate providers... Sure they might protect your data better (against external threats) but the data they do have they are surely abusing as much as they can.
- generationP 6y ago
  > That's amazing. I've seen similar things the other way around. Someone didn't use Facebook. People didn't switch; they got left out and forgotten. I probably should have said it was a tech-savvy academic community, and a somewhat small one (ca. 50 people). > Another one was Google Groups (a type of mailing list). Someone didn't want to use a Google account. They couldn't figure out how to subscribe. Was the group willing to switch to another provider? No of course not. In the end an admin manually subscribed the person with their non-Google address, but if that hadn't been possible, the group would have let them go rather than switch service. Google groups was what we ended up with, after facebook caused resistance. The thing with google groups is, it's not really a walled garden -- it's just a mailing list; you have all your data archived in your email unless you choose to delete it yourself, and if it fails for whatever reason, you can just manually send an email with a huge Bcc instead. Google in generally is pretty good at "export all your data"; while partly due to antitrust pressure, I think that this is mainly a way to keep the techie audience semi-loyal. I am more worried about github/lab, ironically, due to the "superstructure" they add on top of the repositories (issue trackers mostly). In theory there are tools that can export all of it "back" into the repository, but in practice people are loath to use them. > Yes and no. Everyone uses email, but many only use it inside Gmail, which is a bit of a mess if you're subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists, and trying to keep track of events you've been invited to. Anything is a mess if you need to keep track of lots of events. Has Facebook figured out how to make calendars non-confusing?
  - jlokier 6y ago
    > The thing with google groups is, it's not really a walled garden -- it's just a mailing lis Yes and no. It's not much of a mailing list for the people without Google accounts who couldn't figure out how to subscribe after Google made the documentation for doing that hard to find (they used to have a decent page about it that was removed). That's quite different from other mailing lists. Thus the anecdote about someone who asked how to subscribe, which was solved by a group admin manually subscribing them. I'm certain we lost a number of other people who didn't want to bother an admin enough to ask for help, and just gave up. What we found over time is, eventually, a lot of the people reading the group thought it was a forum, and either posted via the Google Groups web interface (never using email), or didn't post (and therefore interact) because clicking the Post button took them to the Google login/signup page, and that put some of them off. > Anything is a mess if you need to keep track of lots of events. Has Facebook figured out how to make calendars non-confusing? I find Meetup ok for this, because I can see in chronological order what I found interesting today and in the next week or so. It tells me what's the next event I signed up to. And I can see a good selection in chronological order that I might like to take an interest in, because I signed up to a bunch of groups. Facebook events also seems to be ok if you are only ever invited to very few events on it, as I am. I still miss them because I only login about once every 2 months these days :-)
ghaff 6y ago
It really depends on the details. I was having a conversation about this this afternoon. If you're trying to grow a community of (even) an open source project and your purist take is email and IRC or the highway that's probably going to limit your participation. Not 100%. Some will be committed enough to deal with not using Slack or whatever. But many potential participants will be F This.
- jlokier 6y ago
  Do you mean that email and IRC are both poorly suited now? If so, what do you use instead of email for an open source project these days? If your answer is Slack, someone like me is not going to get involved, because I find Slack disastrously clunky and I can't archive and search it the way that happens automatically with email, nor can I get sensible notifications from it about specific things I'm interested in when someone brings them up. I am subscribed to a bunch of Slack channels (e.g. for Rust & Go), and it's just so much of a pain I found I ended up not bothering to open it most days, so I just drop in occasionally to have a look. That's fine as long as the community doesn't care about me of course, but presumably open source project growth is affected by that sort of thing.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    You're describing the fragmentation problem--which is what we were discussing this afternoon--exactly. Some people won't use proprietary products. Some can't be bothered with IRC. Some of those will use certain proprietary products but not others because it means they have to use a client for one particular purpose. A lot of people find email lists "old school." So you end up with fragmented communication channels. Everyone is "happy" but you end up with a number of different sub-communities not talking to each other. It's worse than it's ever been IMO.
    - asdff 6y ago
      Even the people who thinks email lists are 'old school' have an email address. That's the power of it.

jlokier 6y ago

> Last time I've been asked to join a facebook group, I've said I didn't have an account and everyone switched to a mailing list administered via google in no time. That's amazing. I've seen similar things the other way around. Someone didn't use Facebook. People didn't switch; they got left out and forgotten. Another one was Google Groups (a type of mailing list). Someone didn't want to use a Google account. They couldn't figure out how to subscribe. Was the group willing to switch to another provider? No of course not. In the end an admin manually subscribed the person with their non-Google address, but if that hadn't been possible, the group would have let them go rather than switch service. I think it depends on how much the group wants to accommodate everyone who wants to be in it, and what the mix of people is. Also whether it depends on additional tools such as Facebook Events. If it's a fun social group that you're interested in joining, where the people don't particularly care who is in it, they're probably not going to change what they do. That's fairly obvious when the group aren't your friends (yet). Less obviously, I've seen it happens among friends too, where someone not on Facebook gradually gets left out and forgotten from things like party invitations. > Over the last half-year of online academic events, I've seen at least half a dozen different online services used (Zoom, Zulip, Gather.town, google hangouts, Cisco Webex and probably a bunch I don't remember). Most of us users don't particularly like to, but can (without serious tears) learn a new tool when it comes up and turns out to be more suited. I've seen the same thing this summer. (Some of those tools have awful data protection issues and permissions to do things they shouldn't on your computer, yet I've installed and used them anyway. When it's a job interview you don't really have a choice.) The above list shows us Facebook doesn't have a monopoly. But I don't count them as great examples of freely leaving behind walled gardens either. It's more like, there are more walled gardens. You don't get a choice which tool to use. You must use whatever tool the group has chosen before you join it, and they are very unlikely to change tool for a new joiner. > As it comes to reach, don't forget that email has probably the greatest reach of any service around. Yes and no. Everyone uses email, but many only use it inside Gmail, which is a bit of a mess if you're subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists, and trying to keep track of events you've been invited to.

spurgu 6y ago
> Some of those tools have awful data protection issues and permissions to do things they shouldn't on your computer, yet I've installed and used them anyway. It's not like you can say anything different about the big corporate providers... Sure they might protect your data better (against external threats) but the data they do have they are surely abusing as much as they can.
generationP 6y ago
> That's amazing. I've seen similar things the other way around. Someone didn't use Facebook. People didn't switch; they got left out and forgotten. I probably should have said it was a tech-savvy academic community, and a somewhat small one (ca. 50 people). > Another one was Google Groups (a type of mailing list). Someone didn't want to use a Google account. They couldn't figure out how to subscribe. Was the group willing to switch to another provider? No of course not. In the end an admin manually subscribed the person with their non-Google address, but if that hadn't been possible, the group would have let them go rather than switch service. Google groups was what we ended up with, after facebook caused resistance. The thing with google groups is, it's not really a walled garden -- it's just a mailing list; you have all your data archived in your email unless you choose to delete it yourself, and if it fails for whatever reason, you can just manually send an email with a huge Bcc instead. Google in generally is pretty good at "export all your data"; while partly due to antitrust pressure, I think that this is mainly a way to keep the techie audience semi-loyal. I am more worried about github/lab, ironically, due to the "superstructure" they add on top of the repositories (issue trackers mostly). In theory there are tools that can export all of it "back" into the repository, but in practice people are loath to use them. > Yes and no. Everyone uses email, but many only use it inside Gmail, which is a bit of a mess if you're subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists, and trying to keep track of events you've been invited to. Anything is a mess if you need to keep track of lots of events. Has Facebook figured out how to make calendars non-confusing?
- jlokier 6y ago
  > The thing with google groups is, it's not really a walled garden -- it's just a mailing lis Yes and no. It's not much of a mailing list for the people without Google accounts who couldn't figure out how to subscribe after Google made the documentation for doing that hard to find (they used to have a decent page about it that was removed). That's quite different from other mailing lists. Thus the anecdote about someone who asked how to subscribe, which was solved by a group admin manually subscribing them. I'm certain we lost a number of other people who didn't want to bother an admin enough to ask for help, and just gave up. What we found over time is, eventually, a lot of the people reading the group thought it was a forum, and either posted via the Google Groups web interface (never using email), or didn't post (and therefore interact) because clicking the Post button took them to the Google login/signup page, and that put some of them off. > Anything is a mess if you need to keep track of lots of events. Has Facebook figured out how to make calendars non-confusing? I find Meetup ok for this, because I can see in chronological order what I found interesting today and in the next week or so. It tells me what's the next event I signed up to. And I can see a good selection in chronological order that I might like to take an interest in, because I signed up to a bunch of groups. Facebook events also seems to be ok if you are only ever invited to very few events on it, as I am. I still miss them because I only login about once every 2 months these days :-)

ghaff 6y ago

It really depends on the details. I was having a conversation about this this afternoon. If you're trying to grow a community of (even) an open source project and your purist take is email and IRC or the highway that's probably going to limit your participation. Not 100%. Some will be committed enough to deal with not using Slack or whatever. But many potential participants will be F This.

jlokier 6y ago
Do you mean that email and IRC are both poorly suited now? If so, what do you use instead of email for an open source project these days? If your answer is Slack, someone like me is not going to get involved, because I find Slack disastrously clunky and I can't archive and search it the way that happens automatically with email, nor can I get sensible notifications from it about specific things I'm interested in when someone brings them up. I am subscribed to a bunch of Slack channels (e.g. for Rust & Go), and it's just so much of a pain I found I ended up not bothering to open it most days, so I just drop in occasionally to have a look. That's fine as long as the community doesn't care about me of course, but presumably open source project growth is affected by that sort of thing.
- ghaff 6y ago
  You're describing the fragmentation problem--which is what we were discussing this afternoon--exactly. Some people won't use proprietary products. Some can't be bothered with IRC. Some of those will use certain proprietary products but not others because it means they have to use a client for one particular purpose. A lot of people find email lists "old school." So you end up with fragmented communication channels. Everyone is "happy" but you end up with a number of different sub-communities not talking to each other. It's worse than it's ever been IMO.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Even the people who thinks email lists are 'old school' have an email address. That's the power of it.