[ProgSoc] Observation: mailing lists vs. social media / chat / etc.

Roland Turner roland at rolandturner.com
Tue May 28 10:06:15 AEST 2019


All,

An amateur radio group that I'm part of has just migrated from Yahoo! 
Groups to Groups.io because Yahoo! is essentially dying. A member asked:

> Wouldn't Facebook groups be easier and a little more user friendly?
Various group members mentioned disdain for (or not having an account 
on) Facebook, however the group owner replied:

> They are really for different uses. groups.io <http://groups.io> works 
> better for a persistent history of information and FB is great for 
> sharing events and pics etc..
> I will set up a FB page.
It occurs to me that something similar is relevant for ProgSoc. In 
digging up material for my 30th anniversary talk I made extensive use of 
the list archive. Setting aside that Facebook wasn't around in the '90s, 
even accessing and searching 5-year-old posts on Facebook is difficult. 
Discord is a great tool, but I do wonder whether moving the centre of 
communication onto it isn't setting up a giant memory hole.

(I acknowledge that list activity is on a long-term decline anyway and 
that this is not just a ProgSoc problem; it just strikes me as an 
interesting problem.)

- Raz

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