Re: Debian is testing Discourse
On Tue 14 Apr 2020 at 18:15:16 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Ma, 14 apr 20, 09:49:16, Curt wrote:
> > On 2020-04-14, Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > To me "may or may not be a replacemnt" and "would be better of" are
> > > very far away from "I propose to replace X with Y".
> >
> > It is also rather distant from "Nobody is proposing replacing
> > debian-user with Discourse," so I guess we're kind of even, though I
> > think my interpretation is closer to the truth than your flat and
> > unequivocal dismissal.
>
> Let's agree to disagree on this, see below on why.
>
> > I'm sorry, but it does follow from Neil's
> > comments that replacing debian-user by Discourse is under consideration
> > (as he *specified* debian-user as a *particular list* he believes would
> > benefit from the shift).
>
> Debian's lists are under the responsibility of the Listmaster Team[1]
> and so far they haven't expressed any opinion on this. Even if some
> other Debian Member would explicitly advance a proposal to change
> something regarding Debian's lists they are in charge to approve and
> implement (and no, they can't be forced to do this, because they are
> volunteers).
>
> What *may* happen:
>
> If (and only if) Discourse is popular enough it could be promoted to an
> official channel (moved from debian.net to debian.org), most likely
> operated by a completely different team than the Listmasters.
>
> As we have seen with shapado/ask.debian.net this might *never* happen.
>
> If (and only if) *some* mailing list is not useful anymore it could be
> disabled by the Listmaster Team (regardless of the popularity of some
> other official channel).
>
> With 3000+ subscribers I don't see this happening for debian-user
> anytime soon. If it's going to see any significant decline in use it
> will probably be correlated to general decline in e-mail use.
>
> I'm not aware of any list on lists.debian.org with as many subscribers
> as debian-user, only debian-devel comes close with 2500+ subscribers.
>
> Do note that some lists on lists.debian.org have less than 100
> subscribers.
>
> [1] I was under the impression they are delegated as per Debian's
> Constitution, though I can't find any proof of that now.
A nice exposition of some salient points. Perhaps this
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2020/04/msg00208.html
will also help to clarify.
On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 10:12:21AM -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:
> Do we have to start by making it a mandatory switch? I don't feel consensus to
> move to discourse will be impossible in the long term but it's normal for human
> beings to resist change, especially during a time of otherwise great stress.
>
I think we're miles away from making it a mandatory switch! In fact, I
explictly stated this in my initial email:
> What about the mailing lists?
> This may or may not be a replacement for any particular list. I suspect
> there are some thet would benefit greatly from having Discourse be the
> primary interaction, and other places where this would be less suitable.
>
> Be specific!
> Ok... I think debian-user, debian-vote and possibly debian-project would
> be better off in Discourse. I think debian-devel-announce should stay as
> an email list (for now). However, I am not suddenly proposing that we shut
> those lists down. The aim of this exercise is to see if Discourse would
> work well for us.
The whole point of this is to evaluate if Discourse would work for
Debian at all, rather than if it should be the primary communication
platform. I think that discussion is very different.
> How do you feel about making discourse.debian.org, and making it a fully
> supported tool, that's fully backed up, and available as an alternative for new
> lists? He can have another discussion later about migrating existing lists.
>
Personally, I think that would be fantastic, and the idea behind this
initial call for testing is to determine if I should be spending my
time, and aiming for a discourse.debian.org instance, or if there is no
appetite for that.
Neil
--
Brian.
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