From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jean Louis Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Proposal for an emacs-humanities mailing list Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 14:40:16 +0300 Message-ID: References: <10e79eeb32b5d8f49453fe62f145172d@skeletons.cc> <87pn3vr605.fsf@red-bean.com> <837dq3ldvh.fsf@gnu.org> <87y2ijo3tr.fsf@red-bean.com> <87eekao7qq.fsf@red-bean.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="32315"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Mutt/2.0 (3d08634) (2020-11-07) Cc: pwr@skeletons.cc, Eli Zaretskii , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Karl Fogel Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 01 12:46:58 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kk47W-0008In-AK for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 01 Dec 2020 12:46:58 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51648 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kk47V-0007ho-C9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 01 Dec 2020 06:46:57 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:60720) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kk46D-00060t-Cs for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Dec 2020 06:45:39 -0500 Original-Received: from static.rcdrun.com ([95.85.24.50]:35993) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kk466-0003MC-05; Tue, 01 Dec 2020 06:45:37 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([::ffff:41.202.241.16]) (AUTH: PLAIN admin, TLS: TLS1.2,256bits,ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384) by static.rcdrun.com with ESMTPSA id 00000000002C0007.000000005FC62CB5.000029B4; Tue, 01 Dec 2020 11:44:52 +0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87eekao7qq.fsf@red-bean.com> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=95.85.24.50; envelope-from=bugs@gnu.support; helo=static.rcdrun.com X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:260116 Archived-At: * Karl Fogel [2020-12-01 00:28]: > First, plenty of free software (and even non-free software) > applications have domain-specific users groups that don't involve a > lot of participation from active maintainers. It's normal for there > to be expert users who, although they are not maintainers, still > have collectively a large body of knowledge to share. For example, > on this proposed list, I would expect a lot of people who have > expertise in using TeX / LaTeX modes in Emacs to answer questions -- > and there is probably only slight correlation between having that > expertise and being an Emacs maintainer. Then if for TeX / LaTex than it is more useful to work with known mailing list such as gnu-emacs-help@gnu.org in separate threads. But if it is for general help to help people write books than such could fall into humanities. I was just expecting such mailing list to be for those who are in sciences, but not directly computer sciences. LaTeX is typesetting, I use it since decades, but is not necessarily generic. There is TeXmacs software and LyX for LaTeX that do maybe better job than Emacs. Things like how to structure books, how to find references, making collective knowledge for people in relation to various sciences such as literature and having such accessible from Emacs would be something falling into category of humanities, so for me. For me the term humanities would mean something like level of discussions on how to help general people though intelligent social approaches. Some people could program and some could plan on helping others. humanities * Overview of noun humanities The noun humanities has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts) 1. humanistic discipline, humanities, liberal arts, arts -- (studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills); "the college of arts and sciences") I do not think that LaTeX exports fall into general knowledge. But I think that LyX would be first tool if offered as general knowledge tool. Emacs is in my opinion not due to its advanced nature and lack of good integrations specifically to LaTeX as implemented by LyX and Emacs. User of LyX need not know much about LaTeX to write high quality books and articles with it. Examples of approaches that I would think of are following: - helping people learn how to read and write, planning a program, executing such in those areas of the world where needed - helping minority languages and so those minorities of people to get broader record or educational facilities, - implementing GNU Health access through Emacs and programs for hospitals to adopt them, counting how many have adopted it - helping people read books, and write books by using Emacs. - establishing offline access to Wikipedia and Wiktionary by using Emacs. - scripts for theaters, programs for actors and for music, and similar. If it is again only specifically Emacs-modes related than why make a special list when issues of LaTeX in Emacs can be posted into the anyway under-trafficed gnu-emacs-help mailing list. > Second, in the particular case of Emacs, the software's extensible > architecture makes it especially probable that non-maintainer users > would have deep expertise in certain areas. There are so many > specialized modes available, and so many domain-specific usage tips > and configuration tricks, that whether a person is or is not an > active *maintainer* of Emacs might not correlate very strongly with > that person participating usefully in a discussion. (Also, don't > code contributions regularly come in from people who are not > maintainers?) > The cost if the experiment fails is a dead list sitting on a server. > That cost doesn't seem very high to me in any case, and given the > enthusiasm we've heard so far for it, I think the chances that the > experiment would fail -- or at least that it would fail quickly -- > are probably at worst 50%. There are many dead lists. If you need help, just ask and invite others. If one mailing list would be overflown of questions related to TeX/LaTeX than fine. I do not mind being subscribed to several mailing lists. I just see that people would be without reason excluded from areas where they could help. Isn't it not enough to separate by threads? > I understood the 'emacs-tangents' list to be basically a default > place to get certain discussions off of 'emacs-devel'. But this > proposed new list is different. It's not defined by a negative > space, it's defined by a positive space: a semi-cohesive group that > is likely to have various usage needs in common, and whose needs may > eventually make their way back to Emacs Devel in the form of > beneficial suggestions for Emacs. I could be wrong about this, of > course; I'm just saying the chances look good enough that IMHO > creating the list and seeing if it works is worth it. If somebody would be making good advertising for many people to participate that would be useful. If there is no power, engine, money or method to bring people into discussions actually related to humanities, then gnu-emacs-help sounds good place to discuss, especially as it needs more people to promote Emacs. Jean