We also have Airflow Slack : https://apache-airflow-slack.herokuapp.com/
The reason why we also having mailing list is slack messages are not indexed by Google or other search engines. On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 2:11 PM Anton Zayniev <anton.zayn...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm fairly new to Airflow community and I'd like to share my main struggle. > Mailing lists is very hard to onboard: there is no easy available > discussion archives (clicking for every new message seems weird); it is > hard to respond to particular mail; you can not easily unfollow > non-relevant discussions; you can't edit your previous message. Also > mailing lists feels outdated. > I think we could be much friendlier to newcomers if we move our main > discussions to more modern service like slack. It's free tier a little > clunky, but maybe there are non-commercial tiers. If not there are > alternatives like gitter, etc. Probably anything would be friendly then > mail list. > Anton. > > On Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 18:37 Jarek Potiuk <jarek.pot...@polidea.com> wrote: > > > Hello everyone, > > > > TL; DR; I wanted to start a non-technical discussion about being (even > > more) welcoming community. > > > > It's a long read - following some deep discussions I had recently and you > > might not be interested in it, so feel free to skip the entirety of it. > > > > I also believe this might become quickly a controversial topic and > > mis-communication over email can easily happen - so I would like to ask > > everyone to be considerate and open-minded when responding. > > > > *Some context - how welcoming are we now ?* > > > > First of all I think we are doing a lot as community to be really > welcoming > > and friendly. A lot that we do is really opening up in various ways to > new > > community members, users, existing contributors etc. We are responsive, > > helpful, we try to actively reach-out to get users opinions (the survey). > > We are open to invite non-code-committers to get "committer status" > (that's > > highly encouraged by the Apache Software Foundation!) or even PMC members > > (yeah!). We organise events (Meetups and upcoming Airflow Summits), > > workshops for users and new contributors. We are making it easier for new > > contributors to start contributing - by environment and documentation > > improvements. > > > > At the same time we have certain expectations/barrier of entry. It's not > > super easy to join the community and you must really earn your status to > > become a committer/PMC member. I think we are fairly good as a community > in > > enforcing that in deliberate and firm ways - and all this without being > > rude or aggressive. I remember one of the first emails when I joined the > > community where I was firmly but friendly reminded that in this community > > decisions are made by the community and not a bunch of people talking at > > slack and agreeing to something between them. That was a very important > > lesson to me - and first trigger to learn what ApacheWay is. And it was > > super cool even though I felt I have to apologize for my lack of > > understanding how this all works (which I did). > > > > We have certain expectations for PRs/code - some enforced automatically, > > some by comments/discussions/review process. And we have expectations for > > engagement of people submitting the code. They are supposed to follow-up > > their PRs - being responsible to get the PRs to submission and engage > > committers when they need it. We also encourage people not only to > > finger-point things to fix but also engage and help with fixing things > they > > find or even improve the processes. > > > > I think it's rather good mixture of openness/barrier of entry. When > someone > > new joins any community - has to first adapt and show how they can be > > valuable for the community before he or she can influence the way > community > > works. So it's great that there are firm boundaries and expectations and > > that we clearly explain them to anyone that tries to join and we expect > > those people to follow the expectations before we invite them further > after > > they "earned" the status. This is best described in the "meritocracy" > rule > > defined here: > > https://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#meritocracy . We are > > following it really well I think. > > > > I believe in many ways we are much better than a number of other > > open-source communities and we are following ApacheWay fairly well. And > > I've heard personally a member of the board of the Apache Software > > Foundation praising how welcoming Apache Airflow community is. > > > > *So why the discussion at all if we are in such good shape ?* > > > > I just wanted to see if we can do better than that - and whether we need > to > > do better currently at all. > > > > I think it's fairly easy to overlook the moment when we should do > something > > more. Maybe we can change something to be even more welcoming. Maybe we > can > > get people engaged who currently do not engage because it is too > difficult? > > Maybe we miss another point of view because of that? Maybe some of the > > rules we have should be updated? Maybe people who feel excluded do not > > speak here because they feel the barrier of entry is too big and they are > > afraid they will not be heard or will be ignored or will be shouted at. I > > think it's better to discuss such things when everything looks great and > > when there is a good "vibe" in the community rather than being triggered > by > > people complaining after it becomes a problem and when the "vibe" > > deteriorates. > > > > The trigger for my thoughts was a looong discussion I had with one of the > > attendees of PyDataWarsaw conference a few weeks ago at the after-party. > We > > talked for several hours I think, and we were the last ones to leave the > > party grounds (yes it was 3 am or so :D ). The person I spoke to raised a > > few important topics - like "not everyone has enough courage to openly > > speak at the discussion list first" or "unconsciously people are valuing > > less contributions by women" (there is a study confirming that > > > > > https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/12/women-considered-better-coders-hide-gender-github > > ) > > and "some people need a kind of mentorship when they enter new community > > and after the introduction they become great contributors" - and he had > > some really good examples for all those statements from his own > experience. > > After the discussion he read about Apache Way (as I advised him), looked > at > > our discussions and he wrote to me a few days ago that he sees how > > welcoming we are and that we are addressing a lot of the concerns he has > in > > really good way - but nevertheless it stuck with me a bit and I thought - > > maybe he is right that we should discuss it. > > > > For example - while we have two women on the PMC member list, almost all > > the people committing the code are male (I believe). This - of course - > > reflects the state of our industry and is nothing new, but maybe we are > > (unconsciously) doing something in our discussions in devlistt or slack > or > > reviews that puts off people who otherwise would be valuable to our > > community? The friend of mine who triggered my thinking had a great point > > that not everyone new has the courage to speak openly at the devlist or > > slack initially. Maybe we should reach out in a different way to those > > people? Or maybe we should think about some kind of mentorship for new > > people so that we can guide people through the first stages of becoming > > contributors and navigate the way our community works? > > > > It looks like we already have people from all over the world - US, > Europe, > > India, Japan, Australia, China. We have meetups in almost all of those > > places. But maybe we could do more to get more people contributing/users > > invited from some places (for example we have no meetups in China yet and > > not a lot of people from South America I think). Again - maybe we can do > > something about it ?. I know there was an event in Mexico where we had > > Airflow workshop - maybe we can reach out to people there somehow :) ? > > There was also a great presentation about Chinese user community at the > > ApacheCon Europe few months ago > > > > > https://aceu19.apachecon.com/session/inviting-apache-flinks-chinese-user-community > > on > > how difficult it is to get people in China contributing because of the > > language barrier. Maybe we should get more workshops for new contributors > > in Chinese/Mandarin in China initially and get some contributors from > there > > (writing description of a PR might be easier even for someone who has > > difficulties speaking english or you can have someone who will be your > > local mentor for that). > > > > I do not have concrete proposals yet, or I do not ask you to have them > > immediately. I don't even know yet if we should do something or not. But > I > > wanted to open up discussion to hear what others think about it - both > > active members of our community and those who are just listening and > rarely > > discuss. > > > > Maybe we are really in a good state and we should just continue? Or maybe > > there are some easy things we can do as a community to get better at > being > > more welcoming ? Also maybe we should forward the discussion elsewhere > > (users@?/Slack?/Meetups?) so that others who are not reading the devlist > > can chime in ? > > > > I'd really love to hear what others think about it! > > > > Again - please be considerate and open-minded - this might quickly > become a > > controversial subject and miscommunication is almost certain, so let's > all > > be careful with words and statements. > > > > J. > > > > -- > > > > Jarek Potiuk > > Polidea <https://www.polidea.com/> | Principal Software Engineer > > > > M: +48 660 796 129 <+48660796129> > > [image: Polidea] <https://www.polidea.com/> > > >
