Richard Cobbe <rcobbe@rcobbe.net> writes:

> On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 11:29:25PM +0100, Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor wrote:
>> Richard Cobbe wrote:
>>
>> > But when I start emacs and run M-x
>> > package-list-packages, I don't see it in the
>> > list of available packages. I'm assuming that
>> > I've got something misconfigured here, but
>> > I'm not familiar enough with the package
>> > system to know where to start looking.
>> >
>> > The relevant details from my .emacs file:
>> >
>> >     (require 'package)
>> >     (add-to-list 'package-archives
>> >                  '("melpa-stable" . "http://stable.melpa.org/packages/"))
>> >     (package-initialize)
>>
>> It is in MELPA, try this URL instead:
>>
>>     http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/
>
> That worked fine, thanks!
>
> I don't see that URL in any of the melpa docs or on the relevant page on
> the emacs wiki -- is that a long-term replacement for the other URL?  Or is
> it simply a stable-vs-bleeding-edge difference?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Richard

You were previously using MELPA Stable, which doesn't seem to contain
many of the packages available on regular MELPA, including the one you
were trying to install, w3m.  Following Emanuel's advice, in effect you
just switched from "melpa-stable" to "melpa".  It appears that
melpa.milkbox.net is an old alias for the current melpa.org address.

Lastly, I recommend using https rather than http if your Emacs was built
with GnuTLS support.  See https://melpa.org/#/getting-started for more
details and how to do that.