Howdy folks, Good discussion!
I believe the User ML is a good idea. Here are my two thoughts on why: First: *Personas:* In regards to Eric's comment about the difference between "users" and "dev"s, I like to think of Polaris serving 3 different personas: 1. *Service Providers / Vendors: *These are users who use Polaris as the basis for a separate service that is packaged and sold to other users. I believe that this is the majority of users engaged about 3ish months ago based on anecdotal evidence. 2. *Contributors:* These are the folks who build Polaris. I see that there is a lot of overlap between contributors and service providers. Given that overlap, I agree that Service Providers and Contributors will probably stay on the dev ML. 3. *End Users:* These are folks that use Polaris's binaries but never interact at a code-level. I believe that these are the folks that a User ML would be good for. They can be engaged in the community but do not have to understand all of the nitty-gritty of the code. Second: *Searchability:* I think that it's important for the "end user" persona to have searchability. We are at an early stage of Polaris and not everything is going to be a smooth user experience, so folks need to be able to search for their issues and see the answers. I agree that, right now, we do a lot of this on Slack. However, I believe our Slack configuration does not store conversations older than 90 days. This makes it more difficult for adoption in my opinion. For example, I have seen a lot of the same sorts of MinIO configuration questions in the past few weeks. Now, we could change our Slack configuration and that might alleviate some of this concern and that might not be such a big lift, but I think that a User ML is cheaper and, to Alex's point, it's more aligned with "if it didn't happen on the ML it never happened" philosophy. Cheers, Adam On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 9:55 AM Jean-Baptiste Onofré <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Alex, > > I have the same experience about Slack: it's great for quick > discussions and help, but it's not "stored", so it's not a reusable > resource (more one shot). > The purpose of the mailing list (dev or user or ...) is to be public, > archive, searchable. > > I think Apache Arrow is a good example of the user/dev mailing list > usage. As said before: > - dev mailing list is used by contributor/committer to discuss Arrow > internals/roadmap. Also "integrators" can ask questions here. > - user mailing list is used to get GitHub Discussion and Q&A > > That was also part of the proposal: also "bridge" the GitHub > Discussions with the user mailing list. > > As we have more and more users on Polaris, as part of our "smooth > onboarding" effort, I just wanted to start the discussion, at least to > have it in mind, and consider later. > > Regards > JB > > On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 2:27 PM Alexandre Dutra <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I'm a bit late to the party, sorry, but wanted to say that I support > > the proposal for a user mailing list. > > > > On the Slack vs ML topic: I know this is highly subjective, but I > > personally have way too many Slack workspaces and I find it difficult > > to keep track of what's happening in all of them, often missing > > important updates. Mailing lists, OTOH, allow me to consolidate all > > messages into a single inbox, facilitating triage and filtering. > > Combined with Gmail's "snooze" feature, this workflow is the best I've > > ever had. > > > > On the distinction between user and developer mailing lists: this > > distinction is common in other Apache communities. Generally, user > > lists focus on configuration and deployment questions, while developer > > lists delve into code-related discussions. While some overlap is > > inevitable, it's not a significant concern imho. > > > > Furthermore, the Apache philosophy of "if it didn't happen on the ML > > it never happened" highlights the importance of mailing lists for > > official communications, making Slack more suitable for informal > > discussions or one-on-one interactions. > > > > Anyways, just my 2 cents. > > > > Alex > > > > On Sat, Sep 27, 2025 at 6:12 AM Jean-Baptiste Onofré <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > Hi folks, > > > > > > I see your point. The idea is more to focus on discussions purposes. > > > Everything about "code" (including I create my own metastore, etc) can > > > go in dev. > > > The user should be more for questions/help on the polaris default > > > core. Concretely, it's the questions we have today on Slack (like, how > > > to use polaris cli, what's the purpose of this configuration, etc). > > > It would be a way to directly find questions and answers, as a "user > resources". > > > > > > But ok fair, we will see later about the user list. For now, it's up > > > to the contributor and user to create their own filters in their mail > > > client to "classify" the discussions (else, they will have a lot of > > > noise of with "our" pure dev discussions :)). > > > > > > Regards > > > JB > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 10:22 PM Eric Maynard < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > I share this concern — further, it’s not entirely clear to me what > the > > > > distinction between a user and a dev is. > > > > > > > > Namely, we’ve had many discussions in this mailing list about > extension > > > > points within Polaris. It could be said that in many cases, users > are not > > > > expected to use the service completely out of the box but rather to > do some > > > > “development” to suit their needs. > > > > > > > > If I’m implementing my own metastore or building an integration > with my > > > > IdP, am I a user or a dev? Which mailing list can best address my > question? > > > > > > > > If we do create a new mailing list, I think we’ll need to consider > what > > > > exactly the use of each list should be. > > > > > > > > —EM > > > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 1:13 PM Yufei Gu <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Hi JB, > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for bringing this up. It’s a good problem to have as the > community > > > > > grows :-)! > > > > > > > > > > My only concern is that the set of people who can answer most > questions are > > > > > mainly on the dev list today. Splitting into two lists might risk > some > > > > > fragmentation, duplicated answers, and less participation overall. > Right > > > > > now Slack already works well for quick user questions, and we also > have > > > > > GitHub Discussions as another channel. Maybe once the community > grows > > > > > larger, it would make sense to revisit the idea of a dedicated > user list. > > > > > Just my two cents. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yufei > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 12:15 PM Dmitri Bourlatchkov < > [email protected]> > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Hi JB, > > > > > > > > > > > > Adding a users mailing list would be good from my POV. I imagine > we could > > > > > > leave slack for more informal user-to-user discussions, while > treating > > > > > the > > > > > > users ML as a means for requesting information from Polaris > developers / > > > > > > maintainers. > > > > > > > > > > > > I imagine if something new or unusual but affecting many users > were to > > > > > come > > > > > > up in slack, it would not be unreasonable to move such a > conversation to > > > > > > the users ML so that responses and advice would be archived for > future > > > > > > reference. > > > > > > > > > > > > That said, I see some overlap with GH discussions, so I wonder > if we may > > > > > > want to make GH discussion read-only if we enable the new ML (in > order to > > > > > > direct all questions to one system). > > > > > > > > > > > > My personal preference is with users ML over GH discussions. > > > > > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Dmitri. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 2:55 PM Jean-Baptiste Onofré < > [email protected]> > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi everyone, > > > > > > > > > > > > > > It’s great to see more and more users asking questions on > Slack. > > > > > > > To give a voice to anyone and a way to ask questions, I wonder > if we > > > > > > should > > > > > > > not create a user mailing list. > > > > > > > Dev will be used to discuss technical details, changes, > proposals, > > > > > > > decisions (as we do today). User will be dedicated to users > about > > > > > > > questions, help requests, etc. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thoughts ? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Regards > > > > > > > JB > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
