Mailing Lists

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RepRap hosts a number of mailing lists. For some people it's very convenient to get all answers by Email rarther than to step through lengthy forums and discussion boards daily.

Active Lists

There are currently three active lists, two of them for public consumption:

reprap-users

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The reprap-users mailing list is an open list. Users are welcomed to participate in helping each other in whatever way they can. This is a great source for pointers and hints.

Users are heavily encouraged to keep a friendly and good spirited attituede - don't tell people to "read the fucking manual", but rather point them politely to the relevant section of the somewhat daunting amount of literature new adopters face.

If you think you have found a bug in one of the RepRap components, it is good idea to check with others on this mailing list first before contacting reprap-dev, as it may be a problem unique to your machine, or it may simply be a misunderstood concept (not uncommon). Also, more seasoned users may have great input on how to formally form a bug report - good bug reports gets handled faster.

Last but not least, reprap-users is a great place to exchange design ideas and otherwise just hang out hand have great fun

reprap-dev

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If you're reading this, you're a RepRap developer.  :D

In which case, we'd be honored if you join us in reprap-dev the official friendly but technical mailing list for all you friendly but technical people out there!!!

Note: non-technical discussion will be gently but systematically nudged back into reprap-users.

If you're at the What Tooling Do You Have point, that is to say, just starting out, your queries should go into reprap-users.

And if you're a reprap-dev, and you see basic-level queries in reprap-dev, please respond to them, but into reprap-users. As part of our patent-pending gentle but systematic nudging process. You may do up a separate email to reprap dev "thread moved to reprap-users since this doesn't seem to be development yet", if you like.

Another kind of appreciated technical discussion is bug reports - especially good ones, and very very especially the ones which are explained very carefully both in terms of problem description and in method of reprodusability.

There are at the time of writing no clearly defined heiracical structure in the reprap development process, so there are no sublists as common in other projects - there are no, say, reprap-dev-extruder or reprap-dev-electronics lists available.

We do have a few Reprap-Dev-Guidelines.

reprap-admin

Archive (not publicly visible)

This is an internal mailing list which can be used by reprap's administrators. It is not open to public participation and it is not open to public viewing. Because of it's closed nature one can only speculate about what exactly is discussed there. As far as the users go, the administrators could be using this list to trade Pokemon cards. However, in practice such internal stewardship lists have traditionally been used in other Free Software/Open Source projects to settle minor disagreements among the core members, and to discuss outside forces doing or attempting harm to the project.

To share some insight as to what reprap-admin is used for, core team member secret cabal leader Sebastien Bailard spoke up:

"Eh. So far, a bit of chat that belonged in reprap-users, and was moved there, and ... that's about it really.
It's worth keeping around in case some silly bugger starts selling boxes of rocks as repraps in the marketplace.
In which case, inventing a shadowy cabal of people who can back me up when I say "naughty-naughty-naughty" is much better than having an internal debate or self-organizing lynch mob rip apart reprap-users or, providence forbid, reprap-dev. Oh. reprap-admin is handy for "blessing" reprap moderators in the forum and as a mechanism to keep entrepreneurs from twiddling the front page."
--Sebastien Bailard 06:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Temporary Lists

Some of the lists didn't last forever or were even meant upfront to serve only for a limited time. Responsible as we are, we kept the archives. Sometimes it's really interesting how and about what people discussed five years ago, and how popular opinions changed.

Library-gnomes

Archive

Time: August 2010 to June 2011

The library gnomes mailing list was where we discussed replacing RepRap's venerable wiki with something that supports CAD files.

Nyc-makerfaire

Archive

Time: August 2010 to June 2011

This list was for organizing and inviting to a Makerfaire. See also NYC Maker Faire.

reprap-dev-policy

Archive

Time: February 2011 to March 2012

When discussions about the general future of RepRap were really hot, some people on reprap-dev started to get upset, these discussions were moved to a dedicated list. Interesting reading in the archives, some really wanted Wealth Without Money, true Open Source Hardware and were disappointed to see commercial shops being accepted. Nowadays it should be safe again to do such discussions on reprap-dev.