> On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution
>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> I have no problem with the project moving to forums instead of the Mailman
>> mailing lists we have now — if it is the right set of tradeoffs.
>>
>> My preference is to approach the topic objectively, working from goals and
>> seeing how the mailing lists are aligning with those goals and how an
>> alternative, such as Discourse, might do a better job.
>>
>> The current use of mailing lists has been carry-over of how both LLVM does
>> public discussion (which is all mailing lists) and how the Swift team at
>> Apple has used mailing lists for discussion. That inertia has benefits in
>> that it is a familiar workflow that is “proven” to work — but the doesn’t
>> mean it is the best option going forward.
>>
>> Here are some of the things that matter to me:
>>
>> - Topics are easy to manage and search, with stable URLs for archives.
>>
>> - It is easy to reference other topics with a stable (canonical) URL that
>> allows you to jump into that other topic easily. That’s hard to do if you
>> haven’t already been subscribed to the list.
>>
>> - Works fine with email clients, for those who want to keep that workflow
>> (again this inertia is important).
>>
>> - Code formatting, and other tools that add clarity in communication, are a
>> huge plus.
>>
>> I’d like to understand more the subjective comments on this thread, such as
>> "may intimidate newcomers”. This feels very subjective, and while I am not
>> disagreeing with that statement I don’t fully understand its justification.
>> Signing up for mailing lists is fairly straightforward, and one isn’t
>> obligated to respond to threads. Are forums really any less “intimating”?
>> If so, why is that the case? Is this simply a statement about mailing lists
>> not being in vogue?
>>
>> I do also think the asynchronous nature of the mailing lists is important,
>> as opposed to discussions feeling like a live chat. Live chat, such as the
>> use of Slack the SwiftPM folks have been using, is very useful too, but I
>> don’t want participants on swift-evolution or any of our mailing lists feel
>> obligated to respond in real time — that’s simply not the nature of the
>> communication on the lists.
>>
>> So in short, using mailing lists specifically is not sacred — we can change
>> what we use for our community discussions. I just want an objective
>> evaluation of the needs the mailing lists are meant to serve, and work from
>> there. If moving to something like (say) Discourse would be a negative on a
>> critical piece that is well-served by the mailing lists, that would (in my
>> opinion) a bad direction to take. I’m not saying that is the case, just
>> that this is how I prefer we approach the discussion.
>
> I’ve looked into Discourse a bit, and it does look very promising. One
> *specific* way in which a motivated individual could help would be to take a
> look at Discourse’s import scripts
> <https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/master/script/import_scripts>
> and try importing swift-evolution’s mailing archives with them. We absolutely
> do not want to lose history when we switch technologies. Do the messages
> import well? Are threading and topics maintained in a reasonable manner? Does
> Discourse provide effective UI for looking into past discussions on some
> specific topic we’re interested in?
>
> - Doug
✋
I forged the mighty, turgid rivers of rubyenv, hand-tweaked gem dependencies,
and sed-cleaned mbox files to try this out—you can see the results of an import
(using one or two day old data) at this address:
http://discourse.natecook.com/
It looks like the threads were handled properly, though they bear some obvious
marks of their mailing list origins. Users can actually claim their accounts if
they do a password reset. However:
- it's hooked up to a trial SendGrid account, which will top out at 100
emails/day
- I should probably delete this soon so Google doesn't think it's the
real deal
I might have mentioned this before, but I'm strongly in favor of forum-based
solution over the mailing list (at least for this group), and Discourse seems
to be the best one running right now (and fairly open to extension and
customization). I made a new topic here to demonstrate a couple features (code
blocks and inline images):
http://discourse.natecook.com/t/pitch-add-dark-mode-to-swift/3051
Thanks -
Nate
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