A new post titled "Results of the coreboot "Mailing List vs Blog" poll" has been published on the coreboot blog. Find the full post at http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2017/03/04/results-of-the-coreboot-mailing-list-vs-blog-poll/

<p>A little while back, there were a few requests to switch from the mailing list format to a web-based forum for our official communication channel.  The coreboot leadership wanted to see what the actual preferences of the coreboot community was, so I posted a poll.  The poll was publicized in IRC and on the mailing list itself, so should have been communicated to the people who would be most directly affected by any change.</p>
<h2>Poll results</h2>
<p><strong>Here are the overall results from all responses:</strong></p>
<figure id="attachment_4425" style="width: 836px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/All_results.png"><img class="wp-image-4425 size-full" src="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/All_results.png?fit=660%2C417" alt="Hate Mailing List:1, Prefer Forum: 6, Don't care: 2, Prefer Mailing list: 21, Hate Forum: 26" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/All_results.png?w=836 836w, https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/All_results.png?resize=300%2C189 300w, https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/All_results.png?resize=768%2C485 768w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" data-recalc-dims="1" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">All_responses</figcaption></figure>
<p>We had a total of 60 valid responses, and I think the overall results pretty clearly indicate that the coreboot project should NOT move away from the mailing list.</p>
<p>One suggestion was to split the communication into the mailing list for Developers, and a forum for non-developers. To see what the various groups thought, I made a few more charts:</p>
<p><strong>Developer preferences:</strong></p>
<figure id="attachment_4426" style="width: 769px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Developer_results.png"><img class="wp-image-4426 size-full" src="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Developer_results.png?fit=660%2C408" alt="Prefer Forum: 1, Prefer Mailing list: 16, Hate Forum: 15, Other: 3" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Developer_results.png?w=769 769w, https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Developer_results.png?resize=300%2C185 300w, https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Developer_results.png?resize=768%2C474 768w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" data-recalc-dims="1" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Developer Responses</figcaption></figure>
<p>So not unexpectedly, the coreboot developers even more overwhelmingly prefer the mailing list to the general results</p>
<p><strong>Non-developer preferences:</strong></p>
<figure id="attachment_4427" style="width: 770px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://i1.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Non-developer_results.png"><img class="wp-image-4427 size-full" src="https://i1.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Non-developer_results.png?fit=660%2C408" alt="Hate Mailing list: 1, Prefer Forum: 5, Don't care: 2, Prefer Mailing list: 5, Hate Forum: 11, Other: 1" srcset="https://i1.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Non-developer_results.png?w=770 770w, https://i1.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Non-developer_results.png?resize=300%2C185 300w, https://i1.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/Non-developer_results.png?resize=768%2C475 768w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" data-recalc-dims="1" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Non-developer Responses</figcaption></figure>
<p>So even within the non-developer group, there was a definite preference for the mailing list format.</p>
<p>Finally, I broke the Non-developer group down into the group that said they were coreboot users, as opposed to those that mainly read the mailing list.</p>
<p><strong>coreboot users (non-developers):</strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<figure id="attachment_4428" style="width: 716px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/User_Non-Developer_results.png"><img class="wp-image-4428 size-full" src="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/User_Non-Developer_results.png?fit=660%2C407" alt="Hate Mailing list: 1, Prefer Forum: 4, Prefer Mailing list: 4, Hate Forum: 5" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/User_Non-Developer_results.png?w=716 716w, https://i2.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2017/03/User_Non-Developer_results.png?resize=300%2C185 300w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" data-recalc-dims="1" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">coreboot Users (Non-Developers)</figcaption></figure>
<p>That group had the highest percentage of people who preferred the forum, but it was still well under 40%.</p>
<h2>Suggestions</h2>
<p>We also asked people what we should do to improve the mailing list.  Here&#8217;s a summary of the suggestions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Show people how to set up their (or a different) email client to make reading the mailing list easier.</li>
<li>Have people be more polite.</li>
<li>Add a FAQ showing previously asked question and answers.</li>
<li>A netiquette should be established like on the Linux kernel mailing list.</li>
<li>Several suggestions to improve the coreboot mailing list archive at https://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/
<ul>
<li>Fix the archive so that long threads aren&#8217;t spread into different sections by months.</li>
<li>Add a search function to the archive</li>
<li>Create monthly archives that can be downloaded (This exists.)</li>
<li>Update from Pipermail to a more modern archiver like Hyperkitty &#8211; https://pypi.python.org/pypi/HyperKitty</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Since it doesn&#8217;t look like we&#8217;re going to switch to a forum, I&#8217;m not going to list the suggestions that people had for that.</p>
<h2>Follow-up</h2>
<p>Over the upcoming weeks, we&#8217;ll look at our options, and discuss our options and plans in the bi-weekly coreboot community meetings.</p>