llvm dev - Jun 2021 - [cfe-dev] Mailing List Status Update

On 6/15/2021 12:58, Aaron Ballman via llvm-dev wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 5:41 PM James Y Knight via cfe-dev
> <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 6:19 PM James Y Knight <jyknight at
google.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I've just tried out discourse for the first time. It is not
clear to me how to use it to replace mailing lists. It has a setting
"mailing list mode", which sounds like the right thing -- sending all
messages via email. Except that option is global -- all messages in all
categories on the llvm discourse instance. Which definitely isn't what I
want at all. I don't want to subscribe to MLIR, for example.
>>
>>
>> FWIW, it would seem that one secret trick here is to NOT check
"mailing list mode" -- that option is mostly there to confuse you, I
guess.
>>
>>> In general, I'd say I'm pretty uncomfortable with switching
from a mailing list to discourse. Discourse seems entirely reasonable to use for
end-user-facing forums, but I'm rather unconvinced about its suitability as
a dev-list replacement. Other communities (e.g. python) seem to have a split,
still: mailing lists for dev-lists, and discourse for end-user-facing forums.
>>>
>>> I'd also note that Mailman3 provides a lot more features than
what we're used to with mailman2, including the ability to interact/post
through the website.
>>>
>>> Maybe someone can convince me that I'm just being a curmudgeon,
but at this point, I'd say we ought to be investigating options to have
Someone Else manage the mailman service, and keep using mailing lists, rather
than attempting to switch to discourse.
>>
>>
>> On that last point, I've gone ahead and asked the folks at osci.io
("Open Source Community Infrastructure") if they'd be willing to
host our mailing lists. They are a group at RedHat whose mission is to support
infrastructure for open-source community projects, and they host mailman3 lists
for a number of other open-source groups, already
(https://www.osci.io/tenants/). So, I believe they have the necessary experience
and expertise.
>>
>> They have said they indeed are willing and have the capacity to run
this for us as a service, if we'd like. We'd still need to be
responsible for things like list moderation, but they'd run the mailman
installation on their infrastructure. In my opinion, we ought to take this
option, rather than trying to push a migration to discourse.
>>
>> To me, it seems this would be a much clearer upgrade path, and would
solve the hosting/volunteer-admin issue -- including for commit lists -- giving
the current maintainers quicker relief from the undesired task of running the
list service. Additionally, since it would be a migration to Mailman3, we would
get many of the additional features mentioned as desirable, e.g. searchable
archives and posting from the website.
> 
> Thank you for checking into a mailman3 hosting option, I think this
> approach would make me feel the most comfortable (far more comfortable
> than switching to Discord).
I also find Mailman 3 friendlier than Discourse from the UX point of view.

Currently Discourse doesn't directly support standard search 
functionality in web browsers, requiring workarounds like using the 
print preview: Compare 
https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-unload-on-scroll/173975 and 
https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-unload-on-scroll/173975/print

Looking at python-dev Mailman 3 interface doesn't seem to suffer from 
this issue:
https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev at python.org/

Best,
Matt

On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 7:40 AM Matt P. Dziubinski via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> On 6/15/2021 12:58, Aaron Ballman via llvm-dev wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 5:41 PM James Y Knight via cfe-dev
> > <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 6:19 PM James Y Knight <jyknight at
google.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I've just tried out discourse for the first time. It is
not clear to
> me how to use it to replace mailing lists. It has a setting "mailing
list
> mode", which sounds like the right thing -- sending all messages via
email.
> Except that option is global -- all messages in all categories on the llvm
> discourse instance. Which definitely isn't what I want at all. I
don't want
> to subscribe to MLIR, for example.
> >>
> >>
> >> FWIW, it would seem that one secret trick here is to NOT check
"mailing
> list mode" -- that option is mostly there to confuse you, I guess.
> >>
> >>> In general, I'd say I'm pretty uncomfortable with
switching from a
> mailing list to discourse. Discourse seems entirely reasonable to use for
> end-user-facing forums, but I'm rather unconvinced about its
suitability as
> a dev-list replacement. Other communities (e.g. python) seem to have a
> split, still: mailing lists for dev-lists, and discourse for
> end-user-facing forums.
> >>>
> >>> I'd also note that Mailman3 provides a lot more features
than what
> we're used to with mailman2, including the ability to interact/post
through
> the website.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe someone can convince me that I'm just being a
curmudgeon, but at
> this point, I'd say we ought to be investigating options to have
Someone
> Else manage the mailman service, and keep using mailing lists, rather than
> attempting to switch to discourse.
> >>
> >>
> >> On that last point, I've gone ahead and asked the folks at
osci.io
> ("Open Source Community Infrastructure") if they'd be willing
to host our
> mailing lists. They are a group at RedHat whose mission is to support
> infrastructure for open-source community projects, and they host mailman3
> lists for a number of other open-source groups, already (
> https://www.osci.io/tenants/). So, I believe they have the necessary
> experience and expertise.
> >>
> >> They have said they indeed are willing and have the capacity to
run
> this for us as a service, if we'd like. We'd still need to be
responsible
> for things like list moderation, but they'd run the mailman
installation on
> their infrastructure. In my opinion, we ought to take this option, rather
> than trying to push a migration to discourse.
> >>
> >> To me, it seems this would be a much clearer upgrade path, and
would
> solve the hosting/volunteer-admin issue -- including for commit lists --
> giving the current maintainers quicker relief from the undesired task of
> running the list service. Additionally, since it would be a migration to
> Mailman3, we would get many of the additional features mentioned as
> desirable, e.g. searchable archives and posting from the website.
> >
> > Thank you for checking into a mailman3 hosting option, I think this
> > approach would make me feel the most comfortable (far more comfortable
> > than switching to Discord).
>
> I also find Mailman 3 friendlier than Discourse from the UX point of view.
>
> Currently Discourse doesn't directly support standard search
> functionality in web browsers,

Could you describe what's missing/not working in more detail? At least I
can use my browser (Chrome)'s search functionality to find words in both
the pages linked below.

> requiring workarounds like using the
> print preview: Compare
> https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-unload-on-scroll/173975 and
> https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-unload-on-scroll/173975/print
>
> Looking at python-dev Mailman 3 interface doesn't seem to suffer from
> this issue:
> https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev at python.org/
>
> Best,
> Matt
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
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