I just can't seem to figure out on how to use either of them to communicate. IRCs don't save older messages, but instead logs them. And I guess for the same reason, it is impossible to discuss anything in depth.

Mailing list is really hard to read, as it is nowhere similar to forum or tree-style comments. I can't figure out what mailing list to message to.

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[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

In order to receive messages from a mailing list you must subscribe to it. Additionally, many lists either require that you be subscribed in order to send messages to the list, or that your message must be approved by a moderator if you are not subscribed. See listinfo for a catalog of the various mailing lists. Each list in the catalog has a link to a page where you can subscribe to it.
https://lists.gnu.org/

I imagine these could be good starters for you:
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-system-discuss
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/social-discuss

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

In order to receive messages from a mailing list you must subscribe to it

It would have been really nice for this to be documented in the docs for the openstack mailing list, so I could know before I sent an email. I read their 3 different pages on the mailing lists, wrote up a email with all correct formatting and etiquette, and read through the archives to ensure I was sending my question to the correct mailing list, only to receive a "Your message needs to be approved by a moderator."

Almost a year later, still in quarantine. It doesn't matter though, I figured my issue out.

Despite all the effort put into documenting mailing lists, and all the effort I put into reading that documentation, there are still de-facto standards people are just expected to know on top of that and it's bullshit. Software forges (github, forgejo, etc) don't have this problem, people can just contribute or ask for help using the integrated tooling (issues, PR's, etc). There is a problem with centralization, but hopefully activitypub federation between software forges fixes that.

[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

It's a problem if a projects wiki doesn't have complete information, but I'd say that's true whether it's about their mailing list or something else.
My text was a simple quote from GNUs mailing lists page, so they definitely have it documented.

I'm not a user of mailing lists, but I can see the use of having all correspondence neatly delivered to your inbox where it can be subjected to whatever mail client rules you want. Especially if you are active in dozens of lists.