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

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 2:29 AM Tobias Hieta via llvm-dev
<llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
> > Well, it's not surprising that people who use Discord don't
propose the use of IRC (and vice versa), but this doesn't make the community
less fractured.
>
> No I am not surprised about that - but the original message I replied
> to made it seem like there was huge confusion and people where sent
> back and forth between IRC and discord and that was what I wanted to
> point out is not really happening.
"is not really happening" -- I'm on IRC every day as a moderator
and
I'd say this happens on the IRC side of things at least once or twice
a week. Perhaps you meant to say it's not really happening on Discord?

I think this could be a demonstration that the culture of the
community is being impacted by the fracturing. When people come to
IRC, moderators and other users will point out that discord and the
mailing lists are places where someone can also attempt to get an
answer if they don't find it on IRC. (Telling users to ask on the
mailing lists if no one has an answer on IRC has been the status quo
since I joined the community, so this isn't a new practice.) Users
respond by saying thanks and often following that advice. It sounds
like on Discord, users who don't find an answer to their question
maybe aren't being told about the other options? If so, this is a
demonstration of *why* I'm concerned about further fracturing the
community.

~Aaron
> > The main objective of the list is to discuss the project, long and
hard issues, and both old and new people can use mailing lists with pretty much
any mail client out there.
> >
> > If the argument to move to Discourse is because it's better for
long and hard discussions for the majority of the community, then that's a
clear signal.
>
> I think this is important as well and from my point of view Discourse
> is much better for long discussions:
>
> * Code formatting is easy and much better than in any email
> integration I have seen.
> * Threading is more obvious and easier to follow
> * No problems with "top posting" and replying to a single person
> instead of the full list.
> * Moderation tools were already touched on - but since I don't
> moderate the mailing list I don't want to comment on it too much.
>
> > If it's just because it's where all the cool kids are these
days, then I think we're looking for the wrong goals.
> >
> > 5 years ago, all cool kids (*) were using Slack, now they're using
Discourse / Discord, who knows where they'll all be in 5 years time?
> >
> > I don't think popularity should be a factor in choosing a new
tool, or we'll be eternally chasing doomed platforms.
>
> I 100% agree, but we also shouldn't turn down a better/more accessible
> alternative just because of inertia either.
>
> I am not making a cool kids argument here, I can't in fact claim to be
> a cool kid since I still program in C++.
>
> -- Tobias
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 1:19 PM Aaron Ballman <aaron at aaronballman.com>
wrote
> "is not really happening" -- I'm on IRC every day as a
moderator and
> I'd say this happens on the IRC side of things at least once or twice
> a week. Perhaps you meant to say it's not really happening on Discord?
Yep you are totally right. I don't see this happening on Discord.
> I think this could be a demonstration that the culture of the
> community is being impacted by the fracturing. When people come to
> IRC, moderators and other users will point out that discord and the
> mailing lists are places where someone can also attempt to get an
> answer if they don't find it on IRC. (Telling users to ask on the
> mailing lists if no one has an answer on IRC has been the status quo
> since I joined the community, so this isn't a new practice.) Users
> respond by saying thanks and often following that advice. It sounds
> like on Discord, users who don't find an answer to their question
> maybe aren't being told about the other options? If so, this is a
> demonstration of *why* I'm concerned about further fracturing the
> community.
Well, I don't send people to IRC (and I haven't seen any other discord
users do that either) - but I often direct them to the mailing list if
they are not getting an answer in Discord, but at this point the
Discord community is pretty large and usually questions are being
answered so it's less of a problem.

I totally see the problem with fracturing the community - but it can
be seen from the other point of view as well, I never was never a part
of the IRC community and wouldn't have joined. But adding the discord
server ended up expanding the community and allowed me and many more
to be more invested in the project, that's a win in my book.

Technology shouldn't change just because of "it's new" - but
if there
is a superior product that many more people are actively using we
shouldn't hold back because of inertia either.

All of the above is just my opinion of course, I have only been part
of this community a short while and haven't done anything really
important, I am just advocating for easier access since it has helped
me and many others to get more invested.

Thanks,
Tobias

On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 12:19, Aaron Ballman <aaron at aaronballman.com>
wrote:
> (Telling users to ask on the
> mailing lists if no one has an answer on IRC has been the status quo
> since I joined the community, so this isn't a new practice.)
>
And vice versa. Precisely.

I'd also like to point out the thread about reviews on Phabricator.

For a while we've been using both list and Phab, moving to Phab more and
more, but there was enough concerns that people were still doing reviews on
the list for different purposes that Phab was unable to cater.

I don't want to mix the issues, but we need to be careful on how we move,
why we move and where we go.

Phab was an experiment, which given time, ended up adopted by the majority
of the community. There was no huge fraction because the adoption was
natural.

Discourse and Discord are experiments, but the same adoption isn't
happening. MLIR uses it because MLIR was an external community to begin
with, this is not the same thing.

I may be wrong, but if feels to me as if part of the community is
"pushing"
to move away from emails and IRC, instead of letting people move naturally.

My view is that IRC vs. Discord isn't as special as email vs. Discourse.

Ad-hoc communication can happen anywhere and the more the merrier. IRC
channels can have a Discord link on the header, and vice versa, so people
can choose their favourite channels. If people aren't on one, they're on
the other, and eventually you find the person you're looking for.

Structured communication is very much different. It needs to be in a
central place, it needs to have all the info and it needs to be easy to
search. Both email and Discourse (one way or another) have that.

I have seen evidence from both sides saying they cope well with most
problems. I have also seen counter-evidence from "one side", of things
they
don't like "on the other side", which is technically irrelevant in
this
discussion.

I have no strong opinion on email vs. Discourse. I don't like either of
them. I personally find harder to use Discourse (as I have been, in MLIR),
but I'll probably adapt. I dislike IRC, but I hate platforms like Discord
(and Slack, and WhatsApp), but that's just about my own limitations.

In the end, using Discord or not is largely irrelevant. We can have any
number of ad-hoc solution if we make sure they all have pointers to all
others and the structured communication source.

But between email and Discourse, we should pick one and only one. If we
move to Discourse, we'll probably need to migrate historical data as well
as in-progress conversations, or searching for topics will not do what you
want it to do and that's crucial to a structured long-term discussion, IMO.
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On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 1:19 PM Aaron Ballman via cfe-dev <
cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> I think this could be a demonstration that the culture of the
> community is being impacted by the fracturing. When people come to
> IRC, moderators and other users will point out that discord and the
> mailing lists are places where someone can also attempt to get an
> answer if they don't find it on IRC. (Telling users to ask on the
> mailing lists if no one has an answer on IRC has been the status quo
> since I joined the community, so this isn't a new practice.) Users
> respond by saying thanks and often following that advice. It sounds
> like on Discord, users who don't find an answer to their question
> maybe aren't being told about the other options? If so, this is a
> demonstration of *why* I'm concerned about further fracturing the
> community.
>
>
I can only second Aaron's opinion. Discord has been a sad move in terms of
community fracturing and I'd rather not have that happen again.
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