For what is worth - and at risk of adding fuel to the fire, but
I am just voicing my impressions and you guys will do what you want
with it:

I have subscribed to this list five days ago, hoping to see technical
discussions about how to design a distribution without systemd. I am
the author of an alternative system (s6), and am interested in learning,
among other things:
- what systemd provides in today's distributions and needs replacing
- what are the solutions chosen by devuan folks

So far, in 5 days I've received about 100 messages, of which:
- seven are of interest to me (the vdev part. I actually learned
something, as I often do when Jude writes.)
- more than one-third is the current meta discussion about the list
-more than half of the rest is circlejerking or idle chatter.

7% is too low for me. Please don't suggest reader-side filters:
- they are basically an admission of defeat in focusing the list's purpose
- they still require writer-side effort, and they put burden on people
who actually want to be cooperative.

Honestly, I have nothing against circlejerking. It feels good, and I
hate systemd as much as anyone here - probably more than most; so, seeing
likeminded people is heartwarming. But my belief is that one of the main
reasons systemd is winning is that its opponents spend too much energy
talking about it and not enough designing alternatives - and so I'm here
for action, not words.

Please direct me to the place where the technical discussions are
happening; if they're supposed to happen here, well, sorry but that's not
an efficient working environment, and I'll find information by other means.

--
Laurent