Syncthing Newsletter (mailing list)

I noticed that the Syncthingverse © consists of many different users, from GO(ds), technology fans right down to the average user - and they all spend different amounts of time with Syncthing. So I want to put the idea of a newsletter out there, which could provide users with information about

  • new releases
  • new features
  • important forum discussion/polls

and from time to time

  • keep Syncthing updated (to major release)
  • help out in the forums/documentation
  • spread the word

bonus feature (if time)

  • :clapper: Syncthing video series “voice of the GOds” starring @calmh and other devs
3 Likes

Sounds awesome!

Yes, let’s add a way to subscribe in the home page and announce it on the forum.

I think it’s really useful, as I bet a lot of people have no clue what relays do, and that their old connection problems they had which caused then to leave are now sort of solved.

Nice idea.

Maybe just a blog or something? So people could put that into RSS feedreaders and everythings fine. :blush:

I agree that a blog would be the best option imo.

you can also put the videos of @calmh on the blog or in the newsletter… :smile:

So I can’t recall the last time I subscribed to a blog RSS feed (never), though I subscribed to a news letter yesterday.

Let’s keep it old fashioned, and go for emails.

I read my RSS feeds every night… Everyone’s different I guess.

Then we don’t get public archives, to which we can link to, do we?

We can make the archive mailing list subscribe to the news letter.

I guess I don’t care where its stored and how it happens as long as the result is me getting an email, by putting my email address in some form on some website.

hi all,

thanks for the feedback!

@bigbear2nd: Great idea, I added it to the list :smile:

@canton7: I know that most of you can hack together a few lines of code or parse/read RSS, etc. to get the same result - and although I like blogs, the intention behind my idea was to inform users (one-way) in a simple and easy way. Also I don’t want to create a second platform besides the great forum.

A solution would be an one-way mailing list where the moderators only allow posts from selected people. The rest of the subscribers are just readers. I found http://www.freelists.org which looks promising.

@rumpelsepp: it has public archives (see http://www.freelists.org/wiki/faq/archives_of_my_list)

@AudriusButkevicius: simple to setup (see http://www.freelists.org/lists/subscription.html)

Let me know what you think!

Doesn’t most blogging software support Email and RSS? That way, everyone should be happy (and people can check out the content before subscribing).

Duplicated

I may be wrong but, isn’t this site based on Discourse? If so, it seems to provide the features you are trying to meet:

  • Email Notifications When you aren’t active on the website, your notifications will be automatically sent to you via email.
  • Email Replies Reply to email notifications to post without visiting the website.
  • Mailing List Support Opt into a special mode where all messages are sent to you via email, exactly like a mailing list. Start new topics via email.

EDIT

I checked the RSS feed. It’s actually built-in:

[https://forum.syncthing.net/t/syncthing-newsletter-mailing-list/6038.rss]

[https://forum.syncthing.net/c/announce.rss]

It may be enough to just post in a new category (news?) where only some members have write permissions.

Aditional info at https://meta.discourse.org/t/rss-support-for-categories-topics/2075/42

2 Likes

I think there is even a blogging Plugin. Maintaining separate infrastructure is not worth the hassle, so I am pro a discourse category; we can even aggregate that category on an own website.

I am sry that I am that active currently, because I was moving to a New flat today and I have no internet yet; just the phone. :blush:

1 Like

I think the blog would be pretty nice, that would give people RSS and Emails. I like the way Gitlab does their blog. They post a new post for every new version listing the new features and fixes. I think it would be nice if syncthing had something like it.

@cfarence, Isn’t it equal to this or this?

I was thinking of sth. like this:

1 Like

On the downside - although technically great - the forum/blog solution requires the new user to go the forum, pick a free user name, create (and save) a password and make the appropriate settings to be notified by email. My idea was to aim at a much bigger audience and have a simple input box on first Syncthing start: “Would you like to subscribe to newsletter? please enter email here.” - all without leaving the GUI or learning to navigate a new forum.

I get an error from Discourse on the first link. It’s kinda like the second, though like @uok said I think a blog would be directed a larger audience. Requiring people to sign up for an account to get the announcements would probably deter a lot of people.

You could use the RSS feed of discourse and that would work for some people. But I haven’t seen or can’t find anything that would allow a simple input box on the main site or somewhere that would allow people to enter an email address and get a nice email with the announcement in it. We could create something like that, that polls the RSS feed of discourse for the announcement and then sends an email to everyone that is singed up.