[llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for LLVM's discussions

Perry-Holby, Alexis via llvm-dev
2019-11-19T17:50:41Z

+1 for StackOverflow... Personally, I would LOVE to be able to find LLVM-related
Q&A on that platform.


-- Alexis Perry-Holby

________________________________
From: llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> on behalf of Scott
Michel via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2019 10:42 AM
To: llvm-dev
Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for LLVM's
discussions

Chandler:

Why not a stackoverflow tag for CLang developer n00bies? Why a revolution when a
minor insurrection would suffice?


-scooter

On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 11:48 PM Chandler Carruth via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
Hello everyone,

Short version:
I've set up an LLVM Discord server for real time chat (similar to IRC) and
an LLVM Discourse server for forums (similar to email lists):
https://discord.gg/xS7Z362
https://llvm.discourse.group/

Please join and use these new services. They are only partially set up and still
very new, so don't hesitate to improve them and/or reach out to this thread
with any issues you see or things you want to fix. Also, both services have
dedicated feedback channels.

Do feel free to use Discourse for technical discussions, although try not to
create duplicate discussions (any more than you would between the lists and
Bugzilla) and make sure the people you're having the discussion with are
fine using Discourse instead of the email list. In case Discourse doesn't
work out, we'll collect and archive everything so it isn't lost.

Longer version & more details:
During this year's Women in Compilers and Tools meeting, folks expressed
very clearly that our communication systems cause a non-trivial amount of
friction for new people trying to find out about, learn, or contribute to LLVM.
Both IRC for chatting and mailing lists for longer-form discussions are
unfamiliar, difficult, and often intimidating for newcomers. While I have long
been a fan and resistant to change in these areas, the feedback from folks at
WiCT was compelling and important for us as a community to address. Even if it
means I have to let go of my precious IRC. ;]

We talked to a bunch of people and looked at the options out there and the most
promising ones were Discord for chatting and Discourse for longer-form
discussions. Meike and I have set up both an initial Discord and Discourse
server. You can find them here:
https://discord.gg/xS7Z362
https://llvm.discourse.group/

There is still a lot of work to be done. Notably, it'd be great for folks to
clean up and improve the summaries for each of the groups in Discourse, and
I'll be asking various people to help moderate on both Discourse and
Discord. If you'd like to help out with a specific set of improvements to
these, don't hesitate to reach out to me or Meike and we can get you set up.
Some specific things we're already working on:

  *   Getting Discord verified with a nice URL.
  *   Archives of mailing lists on Discourse so you can search in one place,
etc.
     *   See the plan here:
https://llvm.discourse.group/t/mirroring-and-archiving-llvm-mailing-lists-on-discourse/61
  *   Moving Discourse to forums.llvm.org<http://forums.llvm.org>.
  *   Documenting the best way to move to Discourse while preserving a similarly
email-focused workflow.

We're just adding these for now, but I'd like people to seriously try
using them. While IRC has served us fairly well, I think it is one of the bigger
barriers to entry. Our email lists are more effective, but also have had serious
infrastructure challenges over the years: a constant flow of spam, bouncing for
several major email providers, etc. Discourse has very powerful email-based
workflows available and I think we should seriously consider moving to Discourse
long-term instead of the email lists.

I also want to say thanks to all the folks at the WiCT workshop for giving me
and others feedback. I was pretty set in my ways around these kind of things,
but hearing the kinds of challenges this has posed to people less established in
the community was a real eye opener. It takes a lot to speak up like this, and I
really appreciate it. I hope this also helps start to address these
long-standing issues. Also a huge thanks to Tanya for organizing the WICT
workshop and Meike for helping drive this message home to me and doing a bunch
of the work getting these things set up. I wouldn't have been able to do it
without her help, especially around Discord bots.

-Chandler
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