Replace tagging mailling list with Loomio?

What about pricing? Will Loomio be free of charge for OSM?

Looks like it will be free. According to their help:

Money will never be a barrier for people using Loomio to do great stuff in their communities. If your group doesn't have the budget to pay for software, you don't need to pay a subscription. However, we may occasionally ask your group members for a donation.

I do see one trouble here, in comparison to other tools (mailing list, forum, StackExchange): I don't think it is possible to comment on an answer. I can link to it (e.g. this is a link to the comment by Jan). I can also mention a specific person (like @janvanbekkum). But I cannot build a tree structure. Mailing list gives too much freedom. SE limits it to just 2 levels (question and answers and the coments). Here there seems to be just one level—question and "discussion").

Hmm, I think its very decision based, not a lot of scope for the wandering treads we are used to. Probably means members need to show some discipline with either keeping to the topic or starting a new one. At present, we do not work like that !

and each post limited to 250 character ! Maybe a good thing in that it makes us express concisely but some matters will need more !
(Edited a message previously posted.) No, see post below.

dbannon@davos-LT:~$ cat | wc -c
I do see one trouble here....
487

Hmm, Kotya's post had 487 character. Looks like the 250 limit applies only while taking a position. That makes sense, unlimited while arguing a point but you need to summarise when taking a position.
Like that.

Beyond wondering about being free of charge for OSM, I feel very uneasy about using an external service that cannot be intalled on OSM servers, cannot get the data out, etc.

Also : no threading ? :( Tssss Kids these days...

moltonel, thats true. But maybe just something we need get over ? Outsourcing such services is pretty common now.
Of more concern IMHO is the life span of Loomio ? If it dies, or introduces fees next month, what do we do ?
Officially, its still in Beta.

moltonel, as far as I can see, loomio is open-source, so it can be hosted in OSM servers if people like it. I believe we could even ditch all these log-in options and implement an option to login with an OSM account. (though we would need to take a deeper look to comment about details)

I also dislike the lack of tree structure in the comments, but appreciate the "like" button, since theorically there are always dozens (or hundreds?) of users that never comment anyway, but would probably hit a "like" button.

One benefit of the mailing list (and most forums) is that entries are more WYSIWYG. Loomio has yet another editing standard to create bullet points, numbered lists etc. The same holds for the wiki by the way.

Interesting, if I change my position or its comment both the old and the new one remain visible.

The web-version is very usable on an Android smartphone. Actually more usable than StackExchange IMO.

@davidbannon: I needed people to comment, and that's easier to do if you are looking for problems :)

I think one of the big problems is the lack of reputation (as in StackExchange) here. It is a good tool in decision making. Do you agree?

Reputation might be easy to measure on SE where specific questions are asked and the asker (and others) get to rate the answer. Usually the answer solves a problem and its easy to test.
But with OSM tagging, you need to evaluate someone's knowledge of tagging and probably another field altogether. eg, some recent questions about Historic; I can tell answers were good from a tagging point of view but was the history correct, I'd have no idea.
Another example, I probably drive on unsealed roads more than most members of the list. I think they are are important and should be (eg) rendered on the slippery map. Other disagree. They think I'm a pain in the place where you sit.
So, my answer, reputation would be too subjective for what we do here.
David

@davidbannon: In each case your reputation will change depending on how the community considers your contribution. I am pretty sure that even without any knowledge on your specific topic, I can upvote an answer based on its quality: references, logic, style and language. And downvote an answer that is pure noise.

Replying via email as a test.

Kotya, my point is much of what we say is opinions, arguments rather
than verifiable facts. So, ratings will be more about who agrees with
you rather than who knows their stuff.

David

I agree with David that reputation is a risky concept when it comes to opinions rather than facts. I guess I already expresed that by pressing the "Like" button on his comment...

Oh, I had not noticed that "like" link. Thought it was a serious omission. Interesting ....

Clicking the eg "25 minutes ago" link seems to just trigger another reply.

David

@davidbannon : The time link is actually a link to the post: try this (comment by jgpacker)

I think the tool should be nice if:
- user account is OSM account
- the tool is hosted on OSM infrastructure
- comments are threaded

@cyrille37:
- I am pretty certain we could have made it accept OSM credentials.
- Hosting on OSM infrastructure is more a question of providing resources rather than the tool functionality itself.
- What do you mean by "comment threading"? They are as you see them here. If you mean something like building a tree, this tool is probably not what you want.

I think the tool should be nice if: -
user account is OSM account
Agree, i've stopped playing as i'm away and cannot look up pw.

• the tool is hosted on OSM infrastructure
  Useful but not essential. But we'd need to know we could host it if necessary.

• comments are threaded
  Well, at one level they are. But no sub threads. Our discussions wander around, maybe a clear distinction on an new topic would be good ?

David
.

The mailing lists aren't going anywhere; they don't require any special knowledge, credentials or tools to use.

@paulbaloojohnson Loomio's interface is not very different from modern forums and social networks, so I don't think special knowledge would be a big issue. I disagree with mailing lists not requiring any special knowledge.

Also, does Loomio needs a tool to use it?

I don't think credentials would be a big issue. We can add OSM's OAuth (which means you could log here like you do in Level0 and iD) if we create a Loomio instance in our servers. Even a simple email needs credentials so you can send it, and a mailing lists's subscription and configuration are a bit cumbersome.

Yeah, tried both, email still wins. Loomio is a nonstarter if what we already have works intuitively and experienced users take 15 minutes to figure out how to send a message on Loomio. By any reasonable, non-fanboy standard, that makes Loomio suck.

I can see we have very different opinions. While I'm not claiming we will be able to replace a mailing list with Loomio, I do think the interface is much more intuitive than a mailing list, and I do think this is the case to anyone that is not already comfortable with a mailing list.

I don't think there can be a fare objective comparison between user friendliness of Loomio and the email. First, each of us has years of experience in using email. Even if it was extremely user unfriendly, we had time to get used to it, the same way people got used to Microsoft products, including modern computers. Second, email is only a protocol, allowing a lot of freedom in what each of us actually calls an "email" (Thunderbird vs. Outlook vs. Gmail). Loomio is very limiting. And the question is whether if offers drastic advantages. Similar to how StackExchange is better than email in almost every single aspect if you want to get an answer to a question. So far Loomio disappoints me.

And I agree Kotya, if we were staring a fresh, all with no skills in
either model, it would be a fair comparison. But everyone on this list
does already manage OK with a mailing list. Loomio is something new and
unless it offers a real advantage, why change ?

What is its "killer feature" ?

David