Leslie,Understood. To answer a few things, the repository I was referring to was the one we've all been getting emails from: https://github.com/cf-convention/cf-conventions. I'm not sure what other repositories the CF group expects others to want to use.
My numbered list was not meant to be as short as it may have come off. I was trying to point out that the differences between having a conversation on github can be handled/accessed/viewed very similar to a mailing list. You sign up for an account (or subscribe) and you receive emails. If you want to participate you can reply to one of the emails and it will send it to everyone involved in the conversation. As for the bulleted list, this was meant to point out the benefits of using github over a text-only mailing list (not sure if this is). These are benefits that the people who want to be actively contributing to the conversation may care about and I thought they should know about. If you only want to listen then you don't have to worry about these features. I do not have any stake in github so if CF doesn't want to use it then no problem. I just write software that creates NetCDF files and try to stick to CF conventions in my software design when possible.
That said, I am a big supporter of open source software and people sharing their work and helping each other...and version controlling *all* software. In my software development experience, github has been a big help in handling this collaboration. People working with software, including those working with NetCDF/CF conventions, end up having to use github (or similar service) when collaborating with others so having a similar situation for CF documents wouldn't be too strange to these people. I'm not saying their opinion matters more than people who prefer the mailing list approach either.
So I guess the main decision for this would be what is the mailing list for? Is it only for discussion/additions to the CF convention docs? Would something like a moderator posting announcements to the mailing list be good enough for those readers who don't want to join github (new standard_name proposal, new standard_name acceptance, new draft of CF conventions docs, etc)? The mailing list github account could also unfollow the github repository and only be mentioned in issues/PRs that matter (@cf-metadata) to get feedback from the mailing list semi-directly. Could have a github bot account that forwards messages to the mailing list when it is mentioned (not sure if anything like this exists). If the CF conventions are an open project then having discussion linked to the changes (commits) that result from that discussion might be good.
Just some ideas. I'm OK with whatever is decided. DaveP.S. I forgot one pro to using github for issues/PRs is that you can link to specific lines of code or git commits. Not that you couldn't do that in a mailing list, but it is a little easier/prettier in github.
On 11/7/18 6:08 PM, Leslie Hartten (NOAA Affiliate) wrote:
Jeff and Dave, thanks for your recent contributions to this thread.I will chime in as "one of those people who would not want to deal with the additional complexities of Github".I'm a scientist who in the last few years has needed to create data sets for broad release, and wanted them to be CF-compliant. That meant learning more about CF naming conventions, and how they were applied, and how they were expanded. That led me here, where I mostly lurk but do learn things about how CF naming conventions are developed and are applied.GitHub is "a development platform .... [where] you can host and review code, manage projects, and build software alongside 31 million developers." (source: https://github.com/) GitHub is "a web-based hosting service for version control using Git. It is mostly used for computer code. It offers all of the distributed version control and source code management (SCM) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features. It provides access control and several collaboration features such as bug tracking, feature requests, task management, and wikis for every project." (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub)I don't want to do the things GitHub is built for; I just want to listen in to the conversation about CF naming conventions and occasionally chime in. There are probably many others like me, people for whom understanding and applying CF naming conventions is one small part of our job, occasionally. Maybe David's steps 1-4 are as simple as he makes them sound (whats a CF repository? how does one find them? how do they differ?). But all the other things he lists are not things that intrigue me.On 11/7/18 3:49 PM, David Hoese wrote:1. You create an account.2. You go to the CF repositories you want to keep updated on and click on "Watch" in the top right corner.3. You receive emails.4. You either reply to those emails (github will automatically write the comment on the site for you) or you click on the link in the email and go to github and type your message their directly.Some basic pros:- With github, you can link to other issues and pull requests by using a # symbol followed by the number of the issue/PR. - You can mention other users and anyone who doesn't explicitly say they don't want to get notifications, will get an email/notification that they were mentioned (ex. @djhoese). - You can use github markdown syntax to add URLs, format code/literal blocks, shorten chunks of text/code (<detail> tag), add images, create sections headers, bulleted lists, etc.Dave On 11/7/18 4:44 PM, Painter, Jeff wrote:Someone (I forget who) told me that many of the people discussing standard_names would not want to deal with the additional complexities of Github.*From: *Brian Eaton <[email protected]> *Date: *Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 2:41 PM *To: *"Painter, Jeff" <[email protected]>*Cc: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>*Subject: *Re: Please stop sending Github messages to the ML Erik,> I don't have a view of the whole setup, so I may be missing some aspects> that complicate this. But even then, it may be worth the effort.The piece you're missing is that I'm trying to get Mailman support off ofmy plate; not make it a more integral part of the system. The CFconventions activities are supported at LLNL, not at NCAR. The original CFwebsite which I created at NCAR was moved to LLNL quite a few years ago,but for reasons I've never understood it wasn't possible, at least at thattime, to support a Mailman server there. So it stayed at NCAR, and has been stuck here ever since.Again, I don't really see why moving all discussion to github wouldn't bepreferable to having discussions on both github and a Mailman list (wherever that list might reside). But I'm not a github expert so don't know whether there are drawbacks to having all the discussions there. BrianOn Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 3:14 PM Painter, Jeff <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:It certainly is a hack! When we set up this two-list system long ago, LLNL's lists were managed by Majordomo. No they are run by LISTSERV. I don't know whether LISTSERV supports flexible topics within the list. On 11/7/18, 1:58 PM, "Erik Quaeghebeur" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dear Brian, > I don't believe that [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> is a mailman list. The > cf-metadata mailman list (which I administer at NCAR) is> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>. The LLNL server is the one that gets the github> notifications and sends them to *mostly* the same people who are members of > the mailman list. I say mostly because the membership in these lists is > synchronized by hand. When people sign up or remove themselves from the > mailman list, I send this information to Jeff Painter who then makes the > changes at LLNL. We originally set things up like this so that people > didn't need to sign up in two places to follow the discussions that were > happening on the mailman list and on the trac server at LLNL. As github > has replaced trac the current system was set up. I understand the logic, but this sounds like a hack. It seems this can be dealt with as follows: * You as cf-metadata admin creates topics as needed * LLNL list traffic is sent to the cf-metadata list using one or more specific topic that people can (un)subscribe (from) to. It seems to me such an approach would have multiple advantages: * No need to (manually) sync users * Users are in control of selecting topics* Reverse traffic is likely possible by users sending mail to theappropriate topic (how exactly this works, I don't know, but it would surprise me if this were not possible) I don't have a view of the whole setup, so I may be missing some aspectsthat complicate this. But even then, it may be worth the effort.Best, Erik
