On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 2:42 PM, Greg Sutcliffe <g...@emeraldreverie.org> wrote: > Apparently my arguments aren't coming out coherently - I think we've > misunderstood each other on a couple of points... > >> I'm afraid the amount of time waiting doesn't have any influence on >> the feeling if something is big bang or not. > > Sure, that's not what I was trying to say, I was just trying to give > some insight into my thinking. > > I knew the likely reaction to a big change would be negative (in some > respects), and that partial solutions would be proposed. So I spent time > looking at softer alternatives and indeed some of the partial solutions > already proposed, and didn't really come up with any that I thought > would work. So, faced with doing something hard, I instead kept waiting > to bring this up, and pushing it back, and pushing it back. I knew I was > in for a tough discussion, and so I didn't do it. That's a personal > failure - I saw a need in the community, and I chose not to address it. > > However, I don't feel it can be pushed back any longer. So here we are. > >> Let's not try to harsh to a decision: keep in mind that there might >> be folks not repsponding just because there are other things to do >> as well. > > Agreed, we have a good debate going, and we need time to evaluate. I > will also post a summary of the discussion so far for those who are > super-busy. That will probably be tomorrow, since it'll be 1 week since > I opened up the Discourse instance for testing. Please do make sure I > represent things fairly (I know you will :P) > >> Sry, but I can't resist, as the fallacy I see here is the straw-man: >> you can make an argument for every change based on the fact that >> people in general hate change: it's irrelevant here. Please don't :) > > I've not made myself clear, I think, sorry for that. I'm not using this > argument to justify the move to Discourse itself, that would indeed be a > strawman. A change must be justified on its own merits, and hopefully my > arguments for that are clear. > > Here I'm *specifically* arguing against running Discourse alongside an > existing list, and for that I think it's not a strawman. The usual > criteria for something like this is looking at how many users migrate to > the new system, despite having the old one available. > > However, if you put a new system alongside an existing system, you are > pretty much guaranteed to have very few people move to the new one after > some time. That's human psychology at work, sadly, and not any comment > on the quality of either solution. People will largely choose no-effort > over doing-something even when there's clear benefits (look at how many > people don't switch to lower tariffs on their utility bills, even though > it will save them money). > > Therefore, I argue that a proposal to run Discourse alongside an > existing list is set up to fail from the beginning, and I would be > against that. > >>> Both of these will suffer the resistance-to-change problem above. >> >> Again, not a valid argument for me. > > Hopefully I've clarified that argument now. > >> There are other communities having both forum and mailling list >> (didn't have to go too far, my first attempt just hit >> https://about.gitlab.com/getting-help/#discussion) > > Interestingly they also use Discourse & Gougle Groups (nice styling on > that instance, I need to copy...), and I see that the mailing list gets > ~5 mails per month, and Discourse seems to have ~250 posts per month. I > won't repeat the mistake of trying to draw conclusions about *our* > community (see reply about S.O. below), but it certainly seems *their* > community has a strong preference. Not making any arguments here, I just > find the raw data interesting.
And, if we meet in some time (let's say 6 months from the kick off) and look at the numbers, I think it would be much easier discussion if we should ditch the list or not. Additionally, we would have 6 months of hands on experience with Discourse. > >> and honestly, I'm not afraid of any community split. And if we find >> ourselves using forum for everything, good for everyone. If we find >> that the forum-like is not for us, we still have the backup plan. >> >> Anyway, having forum focused for users and mailing list on developer >> discussion (for now at least) sounds like a natural split and >> possible evolution. > > Oh absolutely, this is possible, and as I said I'm just about OK with > this. It's not my preferred choice ofc, but so long as we agree to > review it every so often, I can live with it. > > My main concern is that we still get a good interaction between the > users and the devs. We can't actually ensure that today - the lists are > entirely separate, so I see it as a positive that I can @mention someone > to involve them in a thread (whereas today I have to ping them on IRC or > forward the mail to them). That's an improvement in communication > options if we move everything, especially with @group support. > > Basically, if we can agree some guidelines around the interaction > between -dev members and Discourse then I think it can work. But as > Ewoud said, I think having it all in one place is better if we can > handle the change. > >> Do you think having discourse would actually stop people asking on >> stack overflow? Why? That might be just a sign that people are used >> to ask about just anything on stack overflow. > > A fair argument, I am making assumptions - perhaps my point was unwisely > made. I was simply trying to say that I was aware of other groups (there > were also Facebook and LinkedIn groups at one time, there may be more) > who chose to use an unofficial platform (i.e. not something we list on > our support page) rather than interact with us on our official channels. > *Why* they chose to do so is an assumption, yes, and I don't think you > can reduce that to zero, no, but it can be minimized. > > However, I do still think it implies that there is a group of people we > are not serving (as Neil outlined), who would like something other than > a list. We can solve that need while still maintaing something that > looks (at least a bit) like a list for those that want it. > > Note: please do give me a chance to sort out this email mangling mess > before we conclude threading in list-mode is broken. As it looks right > now, it's not Discourse's fault, it's Mailjet's fault. > >> What I find appealing about the forum-like approach is being able to >> categorize threads based on topics. This can have a potential of >> bringing attention to the right folks when needed. So far, I haven't >> seen if the Discourse can actually be used effectively for that: >> let's give it a try. > > Obviously we can create entirely new categories as & when we choose, so > I'll assume you're looking for something more fine-grained within a one > or more categories. > > There's a number of ways of doing this, depending on exactly what you're > after. Firstly posts can be tagged, and those tags can be used as > notification types (so I can be notified on, say, "salt"-tagged > threads). If that doesn't bring the right people in, then a mention in > any post (either a group, @salt, or a person, @gwmngilfen) will > also generate a notification for the appropriate people. Tags can't be > applied to a post by email (there's a feature request for that[1]), but > @mentions will definitely work in any format. > > Both tags and groups are set up, and for now everyone has rights to > create new tags. Groups are admin-created, I made a few > (hamburger->Groups to join), let me know if you want more groups > created. Give both a try, but be aware that mailing-list mode already > sends you *everything*. You will need to disable that if you want to > test selectively getting some things and not others. > > There may be other methods too, depending on our usecase. Discourse is a > Rails app, and many of us here know how to write Rails engines... [2] > >> Anyway, I don't think it's a silver bullet and all of our problems >> just go away. > > Agreed, but it brings a *lot* of tools to help that we don't currently > have. Like any tool, it must be used correctly, but we're really good at > discussing that kind of thing. I think we'll be able to find > features/plugins that solve needs as they come up - but first we need a > platform that lets us be that flexible. > > I'm definitely for at least a transition/evaluation >> period and once proven, we can decide on whether the benefits are as >> good as promised or we want to re-evaluate: this is not resistance to >> change: this is demage control. > > I prefer "risk mitigation" to "damage control", no damage has yet been > done :) > > What kind of trial are you thinking, particularly in reference to the > problems I outlined in side-by-side testing above? > >> The bad scenarios are: >> >> 1. some of the developers community will refuse contributing to the >> forum and insisting only on mailing list: this is really bad and if >> anyone plans doing so, please speak up now > > This is true, it's bad. But we must accept that we are highy unlikely to > get 100% agreement on this. If there's a significant majority in favour > of moving forward, we should. Aiming for 100% agreement on such a big > change is unrealistic and not something we've done on other > controversial decisions, either. I'm not suggesting 100% agreement, on the other hand I'm serious about listening carefully to the people that actually ARE active in the community. Anyway, I think it's clear now that I'm for the side-by-side period, and I'm ok with having both ways around. It seems to me like the best way to avoid crystal-ball guesses and assumptions, and focus more on the data. And honestly, if people will not start using it just because there is still mailing list, than there might be some wrong assumptions to begin with. Otherwise, we will have the data and everyone will be ore confident about the change, even when not agreeing 100%. -- Ivan > >> 2. we would have the forum as the only way to discuss things and it >> would make the discussion harder, not easier, for whatever reason: >> we can't know that until we try IMO >> >> We can eliminate 1. by having this discussion and not rushing to the >> decision and 2. can be eliminated by running the two side-by-side. > > I'll repeat my dislike for side-by-side in a single channel, that's not > going to work, at least long-term. As stated, I can be persuaded to do > -users separate to -dev if there are significant votes for that. > > Greg > > [1] https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-tags-by-email/25796/7 > [2] https://meta.discourse.org/c/plugin > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "foreman-dev" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to foreman-dev+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "foreman-dev" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-dev+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
