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Comment by davidalayachew | Hacker News Reader

I know we don't have the ability to follow/get notifications about a ticket, but we do have the ability to submit issues and comments by proxy!

If you lack an account, go to the Java Bug Database -- https://bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/, and about halfway down, you will find options for submitting a bug or a Request-for-Enhancement (RFE). You check some boxes, fill out a form, and press submit. Then, a member from the Java team or Java's bug reporting team (usually ANUPAM) will get your ticket submitted to the JIRA. They will also email you, notifying you that your ticket was approved to be added.

When they notify you, they also provide you a point of contact email. You can can send comments on your ticket by emailing this point of contact email.

And finally, if you want to comment on tickets that do not belong to you, you can reach out to ANUPAM and request them to forward your comment. But they might be hesitant if it is not your ticket.

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I know this and I hope you realize how horrible this is for community engagement.

I'm surprised there isn't an option to send your request via post mail.

Also other community-hostile behaviors of Java/OpenJDK project:

- mailing lists have no search function and block search engines/crawlers by returning 403 (apparently robots.txt is not enough!)

- can't post to mailing list without subscribing despite information that such messages will just need to be approved by moderator (they never are)

I will certainly concede that it is a lot of friction.

The mailing list is also very clunky, I will further concede that.

And no matter how you slice it, this is all still community-hostile behaviour, I will also concede that too.

I think part of the reason for all of this friction is precisely because they don't want to keep the barrier of entry that low. It's no secret that the Java community is *ENORMOUS*. Having a little bit of friction goes a long way in quelling the influx of repetitive discussion topics. I'm not saying that's a good excuse -- more so saying that there probably isn't enough incentive to take the effort to fix these friction points.

And leaning into that further -- I'm not sure how much they are missing out on by keeping these friction points *on official Java discussion platforms, like the mailing lists*.

The fact is, there are an influx of Java opinions being given on the internet with no help from the Java Team, and if they want to get the public opinion, these social media sites will have it within hours. So if they already have that, why take on the massive burden of opening the flood gates on their official community discussion platforms?

Still, that's no excuse for things like no search function or the lack of moderator activity. It's probably something they have just de-prioritized in the name of getting features out faster.

Going extra mile to ensure Google can't index doesn't sound like mere deprioritization.

I will admit the system works if its goal is to prevent wasting OpenJDK devs time on repetitive topics.

I was going to ask one such potentially repetitive question (can't tell without search) but waiting for non-existent moderator to approve my message successfully drained any energy I had for this :)

Yeah, the mailing lists are built with subscription in mind. You can't really interact with them easily otherwise.

But to be fair, you can subscribe, but change the settings to decide what gets sent to you.

For example, you can turn off mail delivery so that you will only get included in conversations that you start yourself. People do that when they are in a mailing list just to ask a few questions, and don't want to opt-in to the flood of other discussions. Sounds like that might be for you.

And fair point on the indexing. I am actually working on a workaround myself. I'll let you know when it's finished up, in case you rediscover the motivation to try your comment again.

Alternatively, if you want, let me know your email address and send me your question. I would be happy to forward your message along, and then CC you in the thread. Get you past the door, so to speak.

Good to know you can disable delivery completely once signed up, I haven't used mailman in ages! I will sign up in this case. The signup page only lets you switch to digest, which can mislead new users.

BTW mailing lists can work great for guest visitors who don't want to subscribe. They can also work great for teams who don't want guests.

The problem is openjdk mailman allows guest posting and lies about guests posts awaiting moderation. Had they simply disabled guest posting and said up-front that you must subscribe and send rejection notice to guests I would be perfectly fine with that.

Mailman sucks worse than even Google Groups and in this case it's also poorly configured.

PS. To add to frustration, LastPass (I know it's shit but don't have time to migrate) somehow can't deal with Mailman signups - it will generate but won't save passwords.

Very fair. I know there's at least a couple of mailing lists that actually keep up with the mod queue, but it is as you say -- you can be stuck there for a long time, if not indefinitely. It does not feel like it is actively monitored. I've had messages approved/rejected after weeks of waiting.

But happy to have you join the discussion! I look forward to see your email!

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