As we proceed with the migration, I am making notes of some of the issues people are having when interfacing with email-only. The following issues I have noticed and I found these reports about them. I will continue to monitor these issues and see if we I can do anything to help mitigate any hassle or confusion these issues cause.
Also, as I research email issues, I’m finding that a lot of them are being worked upon, like this one:
Any further fixes should hit this forum pretty quickly after merging, because we’re running a beta version of the latest development release. I will be adding our voice to outstanding issues for the Discourse team to fix that affects how we use HTM Forum as a mailing list. Luckily, a lot of other legacy mailing list users are migrating to Discourse as well, so there are many users requesting features like this.
Please post any issues you are having with email usage of HTM Forum on this thread, thanks.
Personally, I would prefer to continue to use email exclusively. In so doing, I find it difficult to understand the context of a given message, partly because a message is truncated, and partly, it seems, because my mail client can’t reconcile replies and organize them into threads properly — at least not after switching to Discourse.
Furthermore, as a user lacking in confidence or experience with Discourse, I fear I will have to log in to the site just to make sure it ended up in the right spot.
I agree Austin. I don’t know if I want to stay exclusively in email, but
the quoting seems to be presented very poorly in email and there’s no
reason it can’t be better.
Maybe the Discourse developers have a reason for doing it like this. To my
eye it would be much nicer if they would just indent the "In Reply To"
sections.
I’m not even sure from the few replies I’ve made if it is possible to edit
these endless "In Reply To"s out when replying. I’ve made attempts to write
inline replies, but when I take out the distracting photos the quoting gets
mixed up, and a clutter of "In Reply To"s dominate down the bottom as usual.
Just a quick note on the photos. I guess photos are nice. Identities make
for nice communities. A bit of identity might work here too. But in this
sort of forum I would rather emphasize the ideas first. Discourse now feels
like it is pulling me to think more about the community than the ideas,
pasting my photo everywhere and seducing me to get “liked” and earn status.
Just a philosophical note for the Discourse developers.
Constructive comment: Discourse guys, can we indent email threads, and give
the option to remove bottom quoting, and especially endless series of "In
Reply To"s with large photos in flat, linear presentation which introduce a
3 second processing overhead every time I try to figure out what to read.
Discourse folks, please listen.
We’d love to keep working with you as our main channel.
As you see, though, we are becoming “incredibly flexible.” We need, and
will have, partners who are willing to respond to sincere requests.
Best wishes, whatever you choose. – Terry
I think the platform will fall into the background after the novelty wears off and people adjust to the change. But yes, it does expose the identity of community members much more than a mailing list. That is part of the appeal to me, seeing how a community is a collection of people with an interest in some common goal. Knowing each other better is a Good Thing.
Something else about email Matt while we’re reporting quirks. At least in Gmail, the identities of new posters are hidden. Means you have to open each thread to see who has replied to it. It is always under the name of the original poster. I think Gmail used to mark the most recent poster.
In my own experience having spent the last 2 or 3 days learning how to use
the Flora, (or forums is it?), I love the discourse platform. It’s worth it
to me to log onto a machine where I can get to the forums – and the slight
delay tends to prevent messes, when I’m working late at night after,
working late at night several days in a row.
This is somewhat a test, trying to see what happens if I reply directly on
an android phone in gmail.