<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">...while successfully keeping politics and personal morality out of it</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div>What you consider politics I consider a duty of care towards members of our community, many who are our friends or colleagues and people we are deeply fond of. Not only would it be tragic if one of them committed suicide, but I am sure many of us would be mortified knowing that, had we not included it, a small gesture of kindness like the explicit protection/mention of them in our terms may have prevented them from taking their life because they might not have felt so alone or that there was no other way. Acknowledging their struggles and supporting them by affording them tiny protections like this may seem like politics or a small thing to you, but it could make all the difference in the world to them. That's why we do it.<br class=""><br class="">We're not going to be able to please everyone all of the time Ben, there are always going to be things that are not going to be to the taste of one person or another - and so if this is 'just' politics to you then perhaps you can put it down to one such thing.<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Aston, you just cut out 75% of the meat of my (and others) objections and dismissed them as being without merit - apparently because you don't share that opinion.</div></div></blockquote><br class="">I have been managing online spaces for two decades and we use similar terms on most forums of this type - several of which have gone on to become the largest in their respective sectors. We also use Discourse on a number of forums including on Devtalk and the Elixir Forum, and even if you discount that Discourse has become the industry standard and is used by hundreds of thousands of people, I am sure we would have uncovered some serious UX issues by now being technically minded ourselves - so you'll have to forgive me for being sceptical and unconvinced.<br class=""><br class="">It is also quite telling that Loïc's opening post here omits the very nature of his complaint that he spent so long persisting and demanding we rectify, hence I feel this is terribly disingenuous and reeks of being nothing more than an attempt to create/spread FUD. Unfortunately some people unwittingly get dragged into things, which of course is usually the intention.<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Please be on notice. I will not be participating in your forum.</div></div></blockquote><br class="">While it is always sad to disappoint someone, that is totally fine Ben. I hope you'll appreciate that we have to do what we feel is the right thing to do for all members of our community. For us a large part of that means fostering a positive inclusive community, including looking out for those who may be the most vulnerable and supporting those who we feel need our support and help. As I said previously, for us, that's what community is all about. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Hopefully you'll continue to check the forum as a guest and perhaps in time, you'll agree that we made the right call and you'll join up - we'll certainly do our best to make you feel welcome just like we would anyone who wishes to be a genuine part of the community. Take care. Aston.</div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 18 Dec 2021, at 03:56, Benjamin Scherrey <<a href="mailto:scherrey@biggestfan.net" class="">scherrey@biggestfan.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">re: I am going to skip to this part of your post because other than accounting for personal taste I don't believe the UX is a problem...<br class=""></div><div dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Aston, you just cut out 75% of the meat of my (and others) objections and dismissed them as being without merit - apparently because you don't share that opinion.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">...I don't believe the Terms of Use are an issue either...</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And again. There have been several messages by others that raise explicit issues with the ToS. They're just wrong?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">...it is becoming increasingly apparent that the underlying grievance is over the CoC - due to what you've written here and because this is exactly what Loïc (the person who started this thread) complained about, and subsequently threatened he would post here about.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And now you've engaged in mind reading and assigned ill motives to thoughtful and considered objections to this move. The rest of your response continues to disparage and dismiss the morality of everyone that has raised concerns choosing not to address a single one of the substantive issues raised but, instead, to question the character of those who would raise concerns. The fact is that I was willing to personally overlook concerns of the ToS and CoC and just judge it based on it's feature merits. Your reply has caused me to reconsider my position about the ToS and CoC now and not in the manner you intended.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That is not how you keep the trust of a community that you are presumably supposed to be serving. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The Erlang/OTP community and this mailing list are one of the best examples of how to keep a technical group focused on technical issues while successfully keeping politics and personal morality out of it that I've encountered in my 30+ years of experience. It is NOT broken and does not need your help in fixing any such issues. Everyone here has commented (both pro and con) on the move with real skin in the game and a level of trust that everyone participating in the discussion shares the same priorities and only wants the best outcome for the technical community. No one raising objections has done so in a manner that suggests any other motive than that. None have deserved to be maligned in a manner in which your replies have consistently oriented themselves. All of them deserve responsive substantive consideration because they were offered in the same light.<br class=""><br class="">Please be on notice. I will not be participating in your forum.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Sincerely,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> -- Ben Scherrey</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 7:12 AM Contact | Erlang Forums <<a href="mailto:contact@erlangforums.com" class="">contact@erlangforums.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">...about the ToS and CoC which are, in fact, effectively being forced upon the community with no discussion or feedback. </div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I am going to skip to this part of your post because other than accounting for personal taste I don't believe the UX is a problem (Discourse is made by a world class team and it would be very surprising if they overlooked something major in this area) and I don't believe the Terms of Use are an issue either (they merely reflect user behaviour and don't include anything out of the ordinary for such a platform) but, and as I suspected, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the underlying grievance is over the CoC - due to what you've written here and because this is exactly what Loïc (the person who started this thread) complained about, and subsequently threatened he would post here about.<br class=""><br class="">While I personally find it very sad whenever I witness resistance to what is essentially an act of kindness and empathy, I do try to consider the person's background when engaging with them. This is why I spent a large amount of time trying to explain to Loïc why we specifically mention/protect these minority groups in our terms - because these people are affected most, suffer the most, are most likely to commit suicide, to be mistreated, shunned, attacked, or even killed. Just because they happened to be born a certain way.<br class=""><br class="">This is why we have a duty of care to help and protect the members of our community who are some of the most vulnerable in society - that's what community is all about - and as stated from the very beginning this is a primary goal of the forum: to help foster a positive inclusive community, one that is based on kindness and one that will honour Joe's memory in a fitting way.</div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">/Aston<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 17 Dec 2021, at 07:11, Benjamin Scherrey <<a href="mailto:scherrey@biggestfan.net" target="_blank" class="">scherrey@biggestfan.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Appreciate the response Aston. I did immediately give the forums a try when they were first announced. My response is based on my experience. Indeed, these forums are particularly bad, imho, for the reasons already stated. I will not be using them. It seems like there are a lot of other people who feel the same way. I think whoever is in charge is likely making a significant error in the reading of the community by pushing this. The motivations/benefits for the move are, at best, vague and questionable. There are a LOT of legitimate concerns about the ToS and CoC which are, in fact, effectively being forced upon the community with no discussion or feedback. At what point do the people calling the shots determine that perhaps there should be a rethink?<br class=""><br class=""> best regards,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> -- Ben Scherrey</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 9:32 AM Contact | Erlang Forums <<a href="mailto:contact@erlangforums.com" target="_blank" class="">contact@erlangforums.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">I understand the desire and intent but, frankly, the forum is an awful UX that feels like what we had in the 90s (and in which I never had nor would participate). I'm an old time Erlang dev having consulted to Ericsson in the early 90's and have recently caused my company to adopt Erlang with some core products. The quality of the Erlang email list has been outstanding. Having that history in my email has been an invaluable resource. Moving to the forum will greatly diminish this value for us - there's just no way of getting around that. I think there's a lot of people who feel the same way. I will, of course, try out the "forum as list" feature but we all know it's not designed for that and interactivity will not be as strong as the email list.</div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I'm sorry to hear you don't like UX Ben - but I reckon if you give it a chance you might be surprised. The forum is created by a renowned team (led by the same person who created Stack Overflow) and it has quickly become the industry standard. I would say with good reason too and while I could harp on all day about why I think it's so good, you really do need to experience it for yourself to fully appreciate it - which is why I would encourage anyone with doubts to give it a chance. If you do decide to give it a go and there's anything you are not sure about or get stuck with, just post a message in the Forum Help section and we'll do our best to help or offer advice/tips. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Frankly I don't get what value we're anticipating from the forum that is better than the current email list. If we wanted to move to something that captures discussion threads better then I would recommend gitter or discord. This forum software is horrible, imho. I'm sure everyone on this list wants to create the best experience for supporting Erlang/OTP. I don't doubt anyone's intentions here. But the forum solution just doesn't cut the mustard to me.</div></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div class="">Again this is something that I could harp on all day about but I won't bore you with the details, other than to say platforms like this offer significantly more long term value than ephemeral chat based platforms like Gitter or Discord - because what you post on a forum could go on to help thousands of people in future - it's not uncommon for forum threads to be viewed hundreds of thousands of times over the life of a thread. Thanks to a lot of experience in the space we can take this to the next level with things like SEO, which is something I personally do by what many would consider the extremely mundane task of reviewing every single thread posted on the forum to ensure its title acts as a short search engine friendly description and it is appropriately tagged. It's small things like this that can make a huge difference to things like discoverability, and can help make a language or a framework much more accessible. People often comment how whenever they search for something in Google they are almost always shown a link to the forum as the first result! It's what's led people to say things like they feel the forum is a 'game changer' for adoption (of course I'm speaking of the Elixir Forum here but there's no reason why the same couldn't be true for Erlang and this forum).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Again these are things that will become more apparent over time (and is in part why Kenneth and the team opted for this kind of forum managed in this particular way).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">thanks for listening</div></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div class="">Thanks for checking out the forum and if you do decide to give it a try, just let us know if you run into any issues and we'll do our best to help. Remember you can still use the forum as a pretty decent mailing list too and it could even be argued that it's a much more modern iteration that offers many more features over this one as well. For instance you can do things like go to the web ui and edit/fix mistakes later, @mention people (and if they have notifications switched on they will be notified), add code in proper formatting, embed images, etc. You can even do things like mute certain tags or sections. Overall this platform offers much much more... you just need to give it a chance to see for yourself :-)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">/Aston</div><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 16 Dec 2021, at 07:38, Benjamin Scherrey <<a href="mailto:scherrey@biggestfan.net" target="_blank" class="">scherrey@biggestfan.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">I understand the desire and intent but, frankly, the forum is an awful UX that feels like what we had in the 90s (and in which I never had nor would participate). I'm an old time Erlang dev having consulted to Ericsson in the early 90's and have recently caused my company to adopt Erlang with some core products. The quality of the Erlang email list has been outstanding. Having that history in my email has been an invaluable resource. Moving to the forum will greatly diminish this value for us - there's just no way of getting around that. I think there's a lot of people who feel the same way. I will, of course, try out the "forum as list" feature but we all know it's not designed for that and interactivity will not be as strong as the email list.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Frankly I don't get what value we're anticipating from the forum that is better than the current email list. If we wanted to move to something that captures discussion threads better then I would recommend gitter or discord. This forum software is horrible, imho. I'm sure everyone on this list wants to create the best experience for supporting Erlang/OTP. I don't doubt anyone's intentions here. But the forum solution just doesn't cut the mustard to me.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">thanks for listening,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> -- Ben Scherrey</div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 11:03 PM Kenneth Lundin <<a href="mailto:kenneth.lundin@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">kenneth.lundin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Thank you for your feedback about <a href="http://erlangforums.com/" target="_blank" class="">Erlangforums.com</a> everyone. See some clarifications below: <br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Erlangforums is setup by Aston with the Erlang/OTP team in full
cooperation. The intention is to stimulate interest and discussions
about Erlang and other languages running on the “beam”.</div>
<div class=""><br aria-hidden="true" class="">
</div>
<div class="">We are happy with the forum’s objective to foster a positive
inclusive community. We reviewed the terms before the forum went live
and feel they are fair and reasonable.</div>
<div class=""><br aria-hidden="true" class="">
</div>
<div class="">We are Admins on the forum and while we advise the forum team when
necessary, we prefer to leave daily operation and forum management to
the forum team. This was a major reason to why we chose this route
instead running a forum ourselves at <a href="http://erlang.org/" target="_blank" class="">erlang.org</a>:
we want an experienced team to manage the forum, marketing, growing the
community, policies, moderation, daily operation, and whatnot (Aston has
been managing the Elixir Forum in a similar capacity for over 5 years
and has 20 years' experience managing online
spaces).</div>
<div class=""><br aria-hidden="true" class="">
</div>
<div class="">With a forum like this we are better able to focus on Erlang/OTP.
We weighed up all the options before concluding this is the best option
for Erlang, the Erlang community, as well as the overall BEAM community.</div>
<div class=""><br aria-hidden="true" class="">
</div>
<div class="">As indicated in the various announcements the mailing list will be
deprecated soon and we hope you will join us on <a href="http://erlangforums.com/" target="_blank" class="">Erlangforums.com</a>. The
Erlang/OTP team will be focusing our efforts on the forum moving forward
because we believe it is an exciting platform
and has the potential to offer the most value.</div>
<div class=""><br aria-hidden="true" class="">
</div>
<div class="">For those who would like to use the forum as a mailing list please
see this thread:
<a href="https://erlangforums.com/t/how-to-use-this-forum-as-a-mailing-list/146" target="_blank" class="">https://erlangforums.com/t/how-to-use-this-forum-as-a-mailing-list/146</a>.
However, keep in mind that the forum was never meant to be 1:1 copy of
the mailing list (it is meant
to be much more). To attain an experience similar to that of the mailing
list you may want to subscribe to the following sections as a starting
point: Erlang News, Erlang Libraries, and Erlang Help/Questions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">/Kenneth, Erlang/OTP Ericsson<br class=""></div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Dec 13, 2021 at 6:23 PM Michael P. <<a href="mailto:empro2@web.de" target="_blank" class="">empro2@web.de</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">:-)<br class="">
<br class="">
On Sun, 5 Dec 2021 16:57:11 +0100<br class="">
Loïc Hoguin <<a href="mailto:essen@ninenines.eu" target="_blank" class="">essen@ninenines.eu</a>> wrote:<br class="">
<br class="">
> The Erlang forums have this monstrosity: <a href="https://erlangforums.com/tos" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" class="">https://erlangforums.com/tos</a><br class="">
<br class="">
Trying to understand the "monstrosity" I found it practical to keep in mind:<br class="">
<br class="">
The basic right of freedom after speech does not give one<br class="">
the right to speak one's mind in anyone's living room;<br class="">
even after an invitation one can be shown the door at any time,<br class="">
for any reason or none.<br class="">
<br class="">
And that it is not practical to go into detail, because:<br class="">
<br class="">
People who do not want to live together cannot --<br class="">
by no amount of rules or force --<br class="">
be made to live together.<br class="">
<br class="">
So ...<br class="">
<br class="">
> are not owned by the Erlang/OTP team but instead by a third party (and<br class="">
> possibly set up by their initiative, not the Erlang/OTP team's).<br class="">
<br class="">
... to be fair:<br class="">
<a href="http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2021-October/101583.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" class="">http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2021-October/101583.html</a><br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
> If the Erlang/OTP team wants to make the forums a more<br class="">
> official/permanent venue to reach them then they should also ensure that<br class="">
> the conditions to use the forums are the same as their other venues.<br class="">
<br class="">
Is the "monstrosity" not merely a paraphrasing of the conditions<br class="">
for staying in this old living room here?<br class="">
<br class="">
Without a Sugarmountain of money or a space-dildo for Captain Kirk,<br class="">
one cannot afford to get to know the legal situation, or differences,<br class="">
or consequences, or do anything about them.<br class="">
And: Two lawyers -- three opinions.<br class="">
<br class="">
So I will simply continue trying to do the Austin Powers ("Behave!").<br class="">
<br class="">
:-)<br class="">
<br class="">
~Michael<br class="">
<br class="">
--<br class="">
<br class="">
Normality is merely a question of quantity, not one of quality.<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
</blockquote></div>
</blockquote></div>
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