What about adding some kind of easy searching to the mailing list
archives? That seems to be only commonly brought up minus to keeping
this format.

I am able to access them (the archives) with my login, but the
standard listings by month and downloadable gzip'ed archives makes
searching nontrivial. Improving that would be a big +

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 11:24 PM, m33crob <admin@m33c...> wrote:
> I too would prefer to keep the mailing list. If a forum materializes out of
> this conversation, I would be interested in becoming a moderator. I'm
> already super active in the Steam Forums and you guys may or may not have
> noticed that I update the Steam Forums server sections almost everyday.
>
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 9:15 PM, Jesse Molina <jesse@open...> wrote:
>
>>
>> I prefer mailing lists, which is why I am here.  Discussion and replies are
>> below:
>>
>> I prefer mailing lists because there is a small technical barrier to entry.
>>  Chances are that you had to use a search engine to find it, which means you
>> probably already tried to find what you were looking for via that search
>> engine and failed.  Many noobs don't even know what a mailman list is, and
>> that's good.  I want to talk to other people who can actually help me.  This
>> mailing list is not primarily for a social experience.  For most forums, a
>> significant amount of code is dedicated to smileys, avatars, signatures,
>> friends/foes, etc, because they need the social experience, because they are
>> ad-revenue driven.  The amount of whitespace on web forums, compared to
>> email, is terrible.
>>
>> Here's a thought:  The quality of the discussion is primarily impacted by
>> how those with authoritative knowledge (Valve employees and pros) engage in
>> the discussion.  If Valve employees were more inclined to participate in
>> discussion on a web forum, I'd go web forum.  I would not cry too hard if
>> this one mailing list went away.  It's just games.
>>
>> About the archives:  Why are they password protected, and why has my
>> password never ever worked?  From day one, the password that came in my
>> welcome email didn't work and I never tried again.  I have never ever
>> searched the archives because I can't.
>>
>> It is nice to have a single point of discussion for issues, as opposed to
>> many different sites and applications.  As an example, I am an aquarium
>> hobbyist, and I often visit five different web forums because each has some
>> specialty, or the community is fractured up.  This is annoying.  This is
>> also why I don't check forums.srcds.com but once in a great while.
>>
>> I've never seen a duel-pane message board reader that worked well.  I see
>> browsing message boards as messy business.  I use mutt and Seamonkey as my
>> mail clients, depending on where I'm at.
>>
>> I use my android phone to check email.  Checking a web forum would be
>> significantly more difficult.  I would not do it, at all.  I check email,
>> rss, and podcasts with my phone.  Web forums are iPhone/Android unfriendly.
>>  My Android client is k9mail.
>>
>> Some people brought up the issue of email spam because they fear giving out
>> the mail address.  Use a spam filter.  I don't get spam because I have my
>> own server with Spamassassin running.  If you are using a free mail
>> provider, you get what you pay for (adverts).  Business and professionals
>> use email.  I wish I had more pleasant advice to give out, but that's the
>> truth.
>>
>> What about a forum that sends out email update announcements?  I don't use
>> those myself, with a very few exceptions of where I really must. This is
>> mostly because most of those forums have a very low signal to noise ratio.
>>  I only click on a very few threads.  In other words, my participation level
>> is lower with web forums.
>>
>>
>>
>> Replies:
>>
>>
>> Kigen wrote:
>> > Honestly, I don't like getting my inbox spammed with these messages.
>>
>> That is what mail rules/filters are for.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> DarthNinja wrote:
>> >
>> > I don't like the idea of forums, because it's a passive stream of data.
>> > People have to visit to check up on topics.
>> > People are just a lot less likely to reply to things in a forum
>> environment.
>>
>> I agree.
>>
>>
>>
>> msleeper wrote:
>> > Valve, I'm sorry, but your forum population is about as dumb as
>>
>> > facepunch, and I hope you realize it.
>>
>> Harsh, but true.
>>
>> This is why I signed up for the mailing list.  I am pro network
>> engineer/unix sysadmin, but I didn't know anything about srcds servers a
>> year ago.  I needed a place where I could come to for technical help on
>> server administration related tasks.  I did not come to discuss in-game
>> content issues at all -- such issues are good for the main forums.
>>
>> That being said, let's face it:  More than half of the people on this
>> (linux) mailing list doesn't know what a pipe, |, does on the bash command
>> line.  Their preferred editor is the pico clone nano.  Just gotta put up
>> with it... or maybe even help a noob once in awhile.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Steffen Schmolinske wrote:
>> > I'd like to have a forum just for the sake of proper archives & search
>> > functions.
>>
>> Valve is, right now, actively stopping you from having this.  Ask them why
>> they are doing that.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ryan Stecker wrote:
>> > I would love a forum. I don't think the mailing list provides any decent
>> > method of searching,
>>
>> Again, Valve is stopping you from having this.  Ask them why they are doing
>> that.  Why are they taking away from you something that you would otherwise
>> have?  They have deliberately password protected the archives and prevent
>> search engines from searching them.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> msleeper wrote:
>> > the main reason the list fails
>> > (and moving SPUF would only make it worse) is that most people post
>> > crap nobody needs to hear or wants to read and isn't useful.
>> > ...
>>
>> > And guess what - we don't care about or need to hear about you telling
>> > us that. Shut up, keep your stupid opinions to yourselves, and maybe
>> > there wouldn't be a "problem" in the first place.
>>
>> Jesse Porter wrote:
>> > The
>> > farther away from server maintenance and updates the discussion get, the
>> > less interest I have (recent discussion on classes, etc).
>>
>> This is just the classic pros vs noobs thing.  Reference ESR's Asking Smart
>> Questions, which most have not read, or even heard of.
>>
>> Because this mailing list involves video games, it has a youth and
>> stupid-noob factor -- not to be mistaken as the same issue.  I don't think
>> that can be helped.  A FAQ to throw at them every time they failed to google
>> it might help.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> # Jesse Molina
>> # Mail = jesse@open...
>> # Page = page-jesse@open...
>> # Cell = 1.602.323.7608
>> # Web  = http://www.opendreams.net/**jesse/<http://www.opendreams.net/jesse/>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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