7 ms·

Ask HN: Favorite mailing lists, IRC channels

81 points by MichaelAza 13y ago

I've recently come to appreciate true veterans of technology hang around mailing lists and IRC channels. What are some of your favorite programming/security/sysadmin mailing lists and IRC chaneels?

cjbprime 13y ago
The liberation-tech list is interesting sometimes: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech The rest of the mailing lists/IRC channels I read are all related to specific software projects, though. I feel like I should add something here about how spending a lot of time on IRC can be inversely correlated with being someone who's doing a lot of work, in some cases. The veterans you're seeing might be people who now spend more time talking about technology than creating it, unless they're using IRC to coordinate their contributions to a project with its other members.
- shiftpgdn 13y ago
  I would love to see some sort of service that logs an IRC channel and condenses down the most popular topics, keywords, users, etc.
  - VaucGiaps 13y ago
    +1
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
davidw 13y ago
Some of us are on #startups on Freenode.
- petercooper 13y ago
  There are a lot of good channels on Freenode generally, but it's a bit like saying one's circle of friends are good.. they're not so great until you know them, etc. #startups is probably one of the better ones for strangers, but it's certainly worth branching out into several at a time, particular technology specific ones where newcomers are expected and frequent (e.g. #redis, #rubinius, #ruby-lang). You can then get invited or drawn into the more cliquey but interesting channels that no-one talks about as much.
  - epochwolf 13y ago
    The best channels are the invisible ones no one talks about.
- jamesjguthrie 13y ago
  I'm there (Jabo)
LukeHoersten 13y ago
#haskell on Freenode. Great group of smart hand helpful people.
- lelf 13y ago
  + haskell café maillist
joren 13y ago
I really like the Ruby Rogues Parley http://rubyrogues.com/parley/ http://rubyrogues.com/parley/ and ruby weekly http://rubyweekly.com http://rubyweekly.com One is great just to get up to date and the other has really great discussions with all kind of people involved with Ruby in one or the other way.
ipmb 13y ago
Pycoder's Weekly: http://pycoders.com/ http://pycoders.com/ Python Weekly: http://www.pythonweekly.com/ http://www.pythonweekly.com/ ...and a shameless plug for my Django bi-weekly Django Round-up: http://eepurl.com/yZh21 http://eepurl.com/yZh21 (Archive: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/home/?u=24fce4628ba1d5814debef334&id=2d6dd01daf http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/home/?u=24fce4628ba1d5814de...)
uzqlbrm 13y ago
##c on Freenode. If there's one channel to visit, it's that one.
- Kelet 13y ago
  Last time that I tried being a regular in ##c, regulars over-zealously referred people away (That's GNU C, go away!) and most often responded by using a bot to deliver an automated message. People scolded me for answering questions sincerely. Maybe just a one off experience, but not a big fan.
octo_t 13y ago
I'm a fan of scala-lang/scala-internals both of which are very interesting.
suhair 13y ago
This is my list of favs. http://suhairhassan.com/2013/04/17/newsletters-for-hackers.html http://suhairhassan.com/2013/04/17/newsletters-for-hackers.h...
- fizzbar 13y ago
  Nice list, thanks for putting it together & sharing. Slightly OT, for people with email sending experience: I've noticed that some of these lists require you to confirm an email subscription ("double opt-in"), which afaik is standard operating practice for any email list these days. Yet a couple (Bootstrappist, Web Design Weekly to name a couple at random) don't, they just send a welcome email. Are those two able to avoid the double opt-in requirement by virtue of being larger/older/more established lists, or are they assuming their open rates will keep their deliverability % high, w/o needing the extra confirmation step? Has the double opt-in requirement become a relic?
davidbrent 13y ago
#slicehost on freenode. I know the company doesn't exist anymore, but I learned so much about setting up my first debain box from these guys/gals. It is still going strong 6 years later.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lowglow 13y ago
#Techendo (http://techendo.co http://techendo.co) on freenode -- a lot of good people there from the SF tech scene, but I'm biased because I started the channel.
beat 13y ago
My favorite mailing list is closed and private (no, I'm not inviting you), and has been running since the 1990s.
- emingo 13y ago
  tease!
- pi18n 13y ago
  This added nothing but arrogance to the conversation.
  - mrilhan 13y ago
    I thought it was funny, kudos to him. I thought it might even motivate someone else to start their own private list. Public things are rarely easy to regulate for quality.
    - beat 13y ago
      Yes, exactly. Public lists can suffer tragedy of the commons very easily. People SHOULD set up private lists. This one has been going since 1999 as a formal list, and was an informal cc chain for a couple of years before that. There's usually an inverse relationship between quality of discussion and welcoming environment for newbies. If you want to have deep discussion about, well, anything, and you have newbies (or worse, people who think they aren't newbies) asking basic questions and failing to RTFM beforehand, you'll lose. A few years ago, I was on a panel about intellectual property with Cory Doctorow at a science fiction convention. It COULD have been a really fun conversation - Cory and I agree on enough for common ground, and disagree enough to be interesting, and we both understood the topic really well. But the standing-room-only crowd just wanted to ask obvious question after obvious question, or go on rants that were demonstrably naive at best. It was really frustrating. Tragedy of the commons, man.
      - MetaCosm 13y ago
        Wow... in a few comments, you have gone down a spiral of embarrassment. First you post an arrogant self-serving "members only jacket" style post that literally does nothing for anyone. You didn't mention how to get into such groups, no tips for finding such groups or anything else remotely useful to anyone. After that you intentionally go down the nonsense pedantic path of 'The OP didn't say "open".' ... which means you either (1) thought the OP wanted absolutely useless feedback to his question or (2) you are an asshole. Not sure which is worse to be honest. Then, in a transparent trick to try to dig yourself out of the hole you had dug... you try to act like a victim of the commons. Just cause everyone hates you don't mean you are a victim in any sense, you might just be an jerk. In a final, desperate pathetic attempt, you drop "Cory Doctorow" into the conversation and try to peer link to borrow his reputation because you have NONE of your own. Another pathetic, transparent, embarrassing tactic. Realize that you might be the tragedy.
soapdog 13y ago
irc.mozilla.org and then #webdev #webapi #b2g #developer and others. Keeping the web free and open to all ;-)
joshbaptiste 13y ago
#python #bash #awk #go-nuts on Freenode...
justinlilly 13y ago
Shameless plug, I've written a small piece of software which will send you daily aggregates of github activity via email. There are also weekly / monthly options as well. http://gitstreams.com/ http://gitstreams.com/
- tlongren 13y ago
  Cool! I've been searching for something similar to this.
lvh 13y ago
#python on Freenode. If you can live with being asked questions when you're asking something funny long enough to convince regulars you usually know what you're doing, it's an excellent congregation of some hella smart people. (Disclaimer: I'm a regular of the channel myself. I also run the official Python channels on Freenode.)
- the_cat_kittles 13y ago
  thanks for the help getting started! you helped me out a ton 2 years ago!
  - lvh 13y ago
    Glad to hear it! What's your nickname?
    - the_cat_kittles 13y ago
      neataroni
- ishbits 13y ago
  Is #python not the official channel?
Sephr 13y ago
#oftn on freenode is a great open source programming channel.
GeneRoddenberry 13y ago
#ebooks on irchighway.net
usaopp 13y ago
IRC: Freenode: #security, ##freebsd, ##hardware, #debian - all good Rizon: #baot As for mailing lists, Full Disclosure for sure, Bugtraq, all the big name security ones have really interesting posts.
the_cat_kittles 13y ago
aside from all the obvious #<language>, #scikit-learn is really good for general ML and obviously good for more specific questions about scikits.learn machine learning libs
TamDenholm 13y ago
I run a small IRC channel for webby types, mainly UK based and theres not many of us but anyone's welcome. irc.chatwebdev.com #chatwebdev
Sealy 13y ago
I'm a fan of digital currencies so I frequently visit Freenode channels: #bitcoin #litecoin #bitcoin-dev #mtgox Its interesting to observe the growth of the channels during bitcoin's hype cycles.
hawk82 13y ago
NANOG, http://www.nanog.org/list http://www.nanog.org/list MailOP, http://chilli.nosignal.org/mailman/listinfo/mailop http://chilli.nosignal.org/mailman/listinfo/mailop VoiceOPS, http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops Full Disclosure, https://lists.grok.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/full-disclosure https://lists.grok.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/full-disclosure Outages, http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages DNS Operations, https://lists.dns-oarc.net/mailman/listinfo/dns-operations https://lists.dns-oarc.net/mailman/listinfo/dns-operations

81 points by MichaelAza 13y ago

I've recently come to appreciate true veterans of technology hang around mailing lists and IRC channels. What are some of your favorite programming/security/sysadmin mailing lists and IRC chaneels?

cjbprime 13y ago

The liberation-tech list is interesting sometimes: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech The rest of the mailing lists/IRC channels I read are all related to specific software projects, though. I feel like I should add something here about how spending a lot of time on IRC can be inversely correlated with being someone who's doing a lot of work, in some cases. The veterans you're seeing might be people who now spend more time talking about technology than creating it, unless they're using IRC to coordinate their contributions to a project with its other members.

shiftpgdn 13y ago
I would love to see some sort of service that logs an IRC channel and condenses down the most popular topics, keywords, users, etc.
- VaucGiaps 13y ago
  +1
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

davidw 13y ago

Some of us are on #startups on Freenode.

petercooper 13y ago
There are a lot of good channels on Freenode generally, but it's a bit like saying one's circle of friends are good.. they're not so great until you know them, etc. #startups is probably one of the better ones for strangers, but it's certainly worth branching out into several at a time, particular technology specific ones where newcomers are expected and frequent (e.g. #redis, #rubinius, #ruby-lang). You can then get invited or drawn into the more cliquey but interesting channels that no-one talks about as much.
- epochwolf 13y ago
  The best channels are the invisible ones no one talks about.
jamesjguthrie 13y ago
I'm there (Jabo)

LukeHoersten 13y ago

#haskell on Freenode. Great group of smart hand helpful people.

lelf 13y ago
+ haskell café maillist

joren 13y ago

I really like the Ruby Rogues Parley http://rubyrogues.com/parley/ http://rubyrogues.com/parley/ and ruby weekly http://rubyweekly.com http://rubyweekly.com One is great just to get up to date and the other has really great discussions with all kind of people involved with Ruby in one or the other way.

ipmb 13y ago

Pycoder's Weekly: http://pycoders.com/ http://pycoders.com/ Python Weekly: http://www.pythonweekly.com/ http://www.pythonweekly.com/ ...and a shameless plug for my Django bi-weekly Django Round-up: http://eepurl.com/yZh21 http://eepurl.com/yZh21 (Archive: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/home/?u=24fce4628ba1d5814debef334&id=2d6dd01daf http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/home/?u=24fce4628ba1d5814de...)

uzqlbrm 13y ago

##c on Freenode. If there's one channel to visit, it's that one.

Kelet 13y ago
Last time that I tried being a regular in ##c, regulars over-zealously referred people away (That's GNU C, go away!) and most often responded by using a bot to deliver an automated message. People scolded me for answering questions sincerely. Maybe just a one off experience, but not a big fan.

octo_t 13y ago

I'm a fan of scala-lang/scala-internals both of which are very interesting.

suhair 13y ago

This is my list of favs. http://suhairhassan.com/2013/04/17/newsletters-for-hackers.html http://suhairhassan.com/2013/04/17/newsletters-for-hackers.h...

fizzbar 13y ago
Nice list, thanks for putting it together & sharing. Slightly OT, for people with email sending experience: I've noticed that some of these lists require you to confirm an email subscription ("double opt-in"), which afaik is standard operating practice for any email list these days. Yet a couple (Bootstrappist, Web Design Weekly to name a couple at random) don't, they just send a welcome email. Are those two able to avoid the double opt-in requirement by virtue of being larger/older/more established lists, or are they assuming their open rates will keep their deliverability % high, w/o needing the extra confirmation step? Has the double opt-in requirement become a relic?

davidbrent 13y ago

#slicehost on freenode. I know the company doesn't exist anymore, but I learned so much about setting up my first debain box from these guys/gals. It is still going strong 6 years later.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lowglow 13y ago

#Techendo (http://techendo.co http://techendo.co) on freenode -- a lot of good people there from the SF tech scene, but I'm biased because I started the channel.

beat 13y ago

My favorite mailing list is closed and private (no, I'm not inviting you), and has been running since the 1990s.

emingo 13y ago
tease!
pi18n 13y ago
This added nothing but arrogance to the conversation.
- mrilhan 13y ago
  I thought it was funny, kudos to him. I thought it might even motivate someone else to start their own private list. Public things are rarely easy to regulate for quality.
  - beat 13y ago
    Yes, exactly. Public lists can suffer tragedy of the commons very easily. People SHOULD set up private lists. This one has been going since 1999 as a formal list, and was an informal cc chain for a couple of years before that. There's usually an inverse relationship between quality of discussion and welcoming environment for newbies. If you want to have deep discussion about, well, anything, and you have newbies (or worse, people who think they aren't newbies) asking basic questions and failing to RTFM beforehand, you'll lose. A few years ago, I was on a panel about intellectual property with Cory Doctorow at a science fiction convention. It COULD have been a really fun conversation - Cory and I agree on enough for common ground, and disagree enough to be interesting, and we both understood the topic really well. But the standing-room-only crowd just wanted to ask obvious question after obvious question, or go on rants that were demonstrably naive at best. It was really frustrating. Tragedy of the commons, man.
    - MetaCosm 13y ago
      Wow... in a few comments, you have gone down a spiral of embarrassment. First you post an arrogant self-serving "members only jacket" style post that literally does nothing for anyone. You didn't mention how to get into such groups, no tips for finding such groups or anything else remotely useful to anyone. After that you intentionally go down the nonsense pedantic path of 'The OP didn't say "open".' ... which means you either (1) thought the OP wanted absolutely useless feedback to his question or (2) you are an asshole. Not sure which is worse to be honest. Then, in a transparent trick to try to dig yourself out of the hole you had dug... you try to act like a victim of the commons. Just cause everyone hates you don't mean you are a victim in any sense, you might just be an jerk. In a final, desperate pathetic attempt, you drop "Cory Doctorow" into the conversation and try to peer link to borrow his reputation because you have NONE of your own. Another pathetic, transparent, embarrassing tactic. Realize that you might be the tragedy.

soapdog 13y ago

irc.mozilla.org and then #webdev #webapi #b2g #developer and others. Keeping the web free and open to all ;-)

joshbaptiste 13y ago

#python #bash #awk #go-nuts on Freenode...

justinlilly 13y ago

Shameless plug, I've written a small piece of software which will send you daily aggregates of github activity via email. There are also weekly / monthly options as well. http://gitstreams.com/ http://gitstreams.com/

tlongren 13y ago
Cool! I've been searching for something similar to this.

lvh 13y ago

#python on Freenode. If you can live with being asked questions when you're asking something funny long enough to convince regulars you usually know what you're doing, it's an excellent congregation of some hella smart people. (Disclaimer: I'm a regular of the channel myself. I also run the official Python channels on Freenode.)

the_cat_kittles 13y ago
thanks for the help getting started! you helped me out a ton 2 years ago!
- lvh 13y ago
  Glad to hear it! What's your nickname?
  - the_cat_kittles 13y ago
    neataroni
ishbits 13y ago
Is #python not the official channel?

Sephr 13y ago

#oftn on freenode is a great open source programming channel.

GeneRoddenberry 13y ago

#ebooks on irchighway.net

usaopp 13y ago

IRC: Freenode: #security, ##freebsd, ##hardware, #debian - all good Rizon: #baot As for mailing lists, Full Disclosure for sure, Bugtraq, all the big name security ones have really interesting posts.

the_cat_kittles 13y ago

aside from all the obvious #<language>, #scikit-learn is really good for general ML and obviously good for more specific questions about scikits.learn machine learning libs

TamDenholm 13y ago

I run a small IRC channel for webby types, mainly UK based and theres not many of us but anyone's welcome. irc.chatwebdev.com #chatwebdev

Sealy 13y ago

I'm a fan of digital currencies so I frequently visit Freenode channels: #bitcoin #litecoin #bitcoin-dev #mtgox Its interesting to observe the growth of the channels during bitcoin's hype cycles.

hawk82 13y ago

NANOG, http://www.nanog.org/list http://www.nanog.org/list MailOP, http://chilli.nosignal.org/mailman/listinfo/mailop http://chilli.nosignal.org/mailman/listinfo/mailop VoiceOPS, http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops Full Disclosure, https://lists.grok.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/full-disclosure https://lists.grok.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/full-disclosure Outages, http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages DNS Operations, https://lists.dns-oarc.net/mailman/listinfo/dns-operations https://lists.dns-oarc.net/mailman/listinfo/dns-operations