Running our own mailing lists?

Yeah, forums would be great. I have tons of spare web space at my hosting account, so I am willing to donate whichever portion of it to Diaspora forums. Also, I have a spare Linode box where I can host mailing lists if we choose that route.

no, no, no, no, no... :P
forum has been discussed, and 'we' don't want one. it would be another login somewhere that needs to be handled and once they reach a certain size, it just gets messy. Also we'd need people for moderating topics and keep up the regular discussion, nothing worse than a foum where you can hear the crickets chirp. If a mailing list is idle, nobody cares.
Also, all those "features" you get with a forum are really high-degree unnecessary for a normal conversation. I really don't want formatting, avatars or attachments, and if you need threaded display for messages, all the email programs are capable of that.
I also really like the "push" nature of email, as opposed to the "pull" variant of a forum (except when you subscribe to everything that happens in the forum via email, but what's the forum for, then?) I also have email everywhere - on my phone or behind the nasty proxy at work, and I really like when I can respond without a flashy html website or even without the need for a separate app for my phone.
Sure, it's a higher entry barrier for newcomers, but in software-related communities mailing lists are very common and new users might as well get used to that. Also, since our webinterface is google groups, we get the excellent google serach for all the messages - and those people who would post-without-searching are always there, regardless of whether you have a forum or a mailing list.

We could install something lightweight, such as PunBB. You don't have private messaging, you don't have polls (though we could use that, there's a plugin anyway), you don't have avatars, just plan simple forum. As for the login, you need to login here on Loomio either, so that's not really an issue.

A strong no from me as well for eliminating mailing lists in favour of a forum. We already have a forum type of area - here on Loomio. A forum for users to talk is different of course and anyone can set one up as they see fit - but officially I wouldn't want one.

I like https://onlinegroups.net/ as a google groups replacement as they have nice web interface for archives (this is something I really miss in mailman, spoiled by gmail's conversations feature) and allows posting from web interface etc. But they became a paid service, but it is Free Software, so we could setup in our own server, if we go that route. I would also like us not to rely on google (they already know so much about me). Also 'no' to forum replacing a mailing list.

Just out of interest, what is the argument that Google knows already enough concerning these mailing lists since they are (and need to be) public so all the posts will be public and indexed by Google? :)

I understand people do not trust Google with their data - but in this case it's not your or anyones data - these messages are public messages and frankly the higher Google ranks the messages from the lists the better for Diaspora* :)

@Jason You are totally right, but there's a small problem: I cannot use the mailing lists that are hosted on Google without a Google account. I have an ordinary email address and my own email server, and they changed their Groups so that they can be used only with a Google account and Google - associated email address, either Gmail or Google Apps email.

That's kind of limiting in many ways, and I am sure there are a lot of people with ordinary, non - Google email addresses who would like to participate. That's why I am for a lightweight forum, you can view and participate the messages regardless of what email you're using.

@Petar is that really so? I'm doing a little test, I created an account [email protected] and subscribed by sending an email to: [email protected] (according to these instructions: http://koansys.com/tech/subscribe-to-google-groups-with-non-google-address)

Unfortunately it seems that new member first email is moderated for this list at least - can we remove this or is spam really a big problem? It seems only the original founders of Diaspora inc are owners, so at least the ownership base should be increased.

Anyway, once Maxwell approves the email we will see if it comes through and then I will test the unsubscribe.

If this works we could add these instructions to the wiki for non-Google account users and hopefully that would make things a bit better?

I've mod rights to the lists and yes, spam is really such a big problem.

So message arrived as anyone who is subscribed to diaspora-discuss noticed and now I just sent a message to "[email protected]" and instantly got a successfully unsubscribed confirmation. So I do not see any problems with using non-Google emails on our lists. But need to add this information to the wiki, I can take an action point for this.

Btw, I think we should also create a wiki page under community listing who owns and has rights to official Diaspora* resources. I can also take an action point for this.