[Discussion] mailing list alternative

hartbit · January 26, 2017, 7:49pm

Awesome! I want to use this now :D Btw, for the people who prefer email: how would a system where discourse sends them the email work for them?

···

On 26 Jan 2017, at 19:02, Nate Cook via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> 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

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

DevAndArtist · January 26, 2017, 8:08pm

That’s exactly how almost all of your replies were displayed in my mail-client. Combined with inlined messages it’s a nightmare to search through.

The sooner we migrate over to a forum, the better.

···

--
Adrian Zubarev
Sent with Airmail

Am 26. Januar 2017 um 21:03:48, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution (swift-evolution@swift.org) schrieb:

It's a shame that it has no facility for hiding long quotations. Trying
to find the actual content in this thread is pretty awful:
http://discourse.natecook.com/t/strings-in-swift-4/2980/13

Alvae · February 1, 2017, 5:20pm

I for one absolutely dislike using mail clients. The mail is a relic of the past that should burn in hell!

Jokes aside, I actually find it very difficult to keep track of the threads. I often end up having my client sorting the messages of one thread in a different group, probably because the alignement of the moons of Jupiter wasn’t right. Besides, searching for something takes ages in Apple Mail, especially on iOS.

Being myself a newcomer, I also agree with the argument on the intimidating aspect of the mailing list. It is almost impossible to know if something has already been discussed, or simply if an argument has already been made in some discussion. And if the discussion did occur after I subscribed, the searching issue remains.

Dimitri

···

On 1 Feb 2017, at 17:58, Jeremy Pereira via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org<mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

On 25 Jan 2017, at 23:34, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org<mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 1:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org<mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> 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.

I like and prefer the status quo, particularly for Swift Evolution.

+1

I use the Mac OS mail client in threaded mode and it’s absolutely fine. I can easily see which messages I haven’t read, it works offline, I can compose messages offline, I have complete control over which messages I keep and which messages I don’t keep.

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org<mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Michael_Buckley · February 2, 2017, 4:50pm

This morning I received an email from Discourse titled "[Swift Discussions
(Unofficial Test)] Summary". Since this message was sent to my email
address personally, rather than to the swift-evolution address, it appears
that my email address was exported from this list and imported into
Discourse.

At this point, no harm done. This is obviously a self-hosted temporary
Discourse install hosted on Nate's own server. However, I am worried about
how my email address was added to the temporary Discord. I get that this
mailing list can be viewed by anyone, and only slightly obfuscates our
email addresses. Anyone motivated enough can scrape all the email
addresses, but there's a difference between that and Apple handing my email
address to a third party which I may or may not be OK with having it, even
if it's a member of this community.

That's not to say anything bad about Discourse, or to argue one way or
another about whether to move the mailing list, but when I signed up for
swift-evolution, I trusted my email address to Apple for this purpose. It
may be misplaced, but I feel I can trust Apple to not use the email address
for any other purpose, and to keep their servers relatively secure so that
the subscribers list won't leak (again, with the exception of scraping the
addresses).

If Apple ends up hosting its own Discourse server, I won't have any
complaints. But if the decision is made to have it hosted externally, or
another service is chosen, I do not want my email address to be
automatically transferred to the new system. I would like the ability to
chose for myself at that time whether I want to subscribe.

···

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 10:02 AM, Nate Cook via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> 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

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

benrimmington · February 4, 2017, 3:12pm

Discourse doesn't properly import names with an acute accent:

<http://discourse.natecook.com/t/strings-in-swift-4/2980/77>
<http://discourse.natecook.com/users/_utf-8_Q_F_C3_A9lix>

I'm not sure why "=?utf-8?Q?F=C3=A9lix_Cloutier?=" isn't automatically decoded by the Mail library:

<https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/f1e7bca3c92ea57f69e6ebb19f7fc75f188ab953/script/import_scripts/mbox.rb#L202-L205>
<https://github.com/mikel/mail/blob/5d9e3441b3efdee4c283093ab2872d017258b62d/lib/mail/fields/common/common_address.rb#L43-L47>
<https://github.com/mikel/mail/blob/5d9e3441b3efdee4c283093ab2872d017258b62d/lib/mail/elements/address.rb#L80-L88>
<https://github.com/mikel/mail/blob/5d9e3441b3efdee4c283093ab2872d017258b62d/lib/mail/encodings.rb#L99-L118>

-- Ben

···

On 26 Jan 2017, at 18:02, Nate Cook wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor wrote:

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 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?

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/

Chris_Lattner · January 26, 2017, 4:28am

I’m mixed on that. On the one hand, it is great to have some level of commitment before people inject their opinion into the mix for some discussion. OTOH, I’m sympathetic to the desire that a lot of people want to just “follow along” without participating, and the mailman web interface is pretty uninspired.

-Chris

···

On Jan 25, 2017, at 6:57 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu@gmail.com> wrote:

Signing up for mailing lists is straightforward, yes—but that’s only a small part of it. Signing up for a mailing list is a *commitment.* Once you do it, your inbox will be inundated with mailing list posts, making it difficult to find messages that actually have been intended for you personally. Therefore, you’ll have to deal with that somehow. You can set up rules in Mail to route mailing list posts to a separate folder, but that won’t help you if you access your webmail from a public machine.

FWIW, I subscribe to many mailing lists in gmail and have it auto filter emails to mailing lists into a separate mailbox (well, really, tags) for each list. It works great for me.

This doesn’t detract from your point about it being a commitment though.

It does kind of imply a follow-up question, though: is it _undesirable_ that signing up for a mailing list is a modicum of commitment?

jtbandes · January 26, 2017, 5:26am

Signing up for mailing lists is straightforward, yes—but that’s only a

small part of it. Signing up for a mailing list is a *commitment.* Once you
do it, your inbox will be inundated with mailing list posts, making it
difficult to find messages that actually have been intended for you
personally. Therefore, you’ll have to deal with that somehow. You can set
up rules in Mail to route mailing list posts to a separate folder, but that
won’t help you if you access your webmail from a public machine.

FWIW, I subscribe to many mailing lists in gmail and have it auto filter
emails to mailing lists into a separate mailbox (well, really, tags) for
each list. It works great for me.

This doesn’t detract from your point about it being a commitment though.

It does kind of imply a follow-up question, though: is it _undesirable_
that signing up for a mailing list is a modicum of commitment?

I’m mixed on that. On the one hand, it is great to have some level of
commitment before people inject their opinion into the mix for some
discussion. OTOH, I’m sympathetic to the desire that a lot of people want
to just “follow along” without participating, and the mailman web interface
is pretty uninspired.

...not just uninspired, I'd go as far as saying it's hostile to discussion
— due to the way messages are (or aren't) organized in the pipermail
archive, it's often impossible to get a single link that encompasses the
entire discussion so far, so linking between threads is painful, not to
mention properly threading discussion in the first place. Quoting other
messages is left up to individual mail clients, which don't agree with each
other on formatting, and code blocks are similarly tragic.

On the other hand, I can link you directly to an individual post in a
231-message discussion thread about a Rust feature:

...glance through it for some great expandable inline quotes, syntax
highlighting, etc.

IMO, the only thing that makes the mailing list more of a "commitment" than
a forum is that the sign-up interface is harder to use, so it takes more
effort up front. Once you've signed up, it's not that much *extra* effort
to set up digests, or cancel your list membership, which might both be
viewed as "lower-commitment" options.

···

On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 8:28 PM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 6:57 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu@gmail.com> wrote:

-Chris

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Nevin · January 26, 2017, 5:22am

Can a forum be configured to send each new post to the mailing list with
proper subject line?

If so, that would enable a best-of-both-worlds scenario—or at least the
ability to dip our toes in a forum to see if it works, while still showing
everything on-list.

Nevin

···

On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 6:57 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu@gmail.com> wrote:

Signing up for mailing lists is straightforward, yes—but that’s only a

small part of it. Signing up for a mailing list is a *commitment.* Once you
do it, your inbox will be inundated with mailing list posts, making it
difficult to find messages that actually have been intended for you
personally. Therefore, you’ll have to deal with that somehow. You can set
up rules in Mail to route mailing list posts to a separate folder, but that
won’t help you if you access your webmail from a public machine.

FWIW, I subscribe to many mailing lists in gmail and have it auto filter
emails to mailing lists into a separate mailbox (well, really, tags) for
each list. It works great for me.

This doesn’t detract from your point about it being a commitment though.

It does kind of imply a follow-up question, though: is it _undesirable_
that signing up for a mailing list is a modicum of commitment?

I’m mixed on that. On the one hand, it is great to have some level of
commitment before people inject their opinion into the mix for some
discussion. OTOH, I’m sympathetic to the desire that a lot of people want
to just “follow along” without participating, and the mailman web interface
is pretty uninspired.

-Chris

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

dduan · January 26, 2017, 6:26pm

I'm actually convinced that I'd rather use an email client. Having to participate in a web app is a regression in my experience.

Daniel Duan

···

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2017, at 10:15 AM, Adrian Zubarev via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Awesome :) Hopefully that will finally convince the people what ‘are working on this’ to actually make it ;)

I could find some really old threads of mine in just seconds. My mail client cannot do that job that well.

Cannot wait

--
Adrian Zubarev
Sent with Airmail

Am 26. Januar 2017 um 19:03:13, Nate Cook via swift-evolution (swift-evolution@swift.org) schrieb:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> 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 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

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Austin · January 26, 2017, 6:54pm

+1 for keeping email, +0.25 for moving to GitHub like what Rust did.

I don't like mailing lists in particular (or, really, at all), but I haven't yet seen a good answer to the question: who is going to put in the long-term commitment to host and maintain a replacement solution, moderate forums, make technical upgrades and backups, and perform all the other maintenance and administrative work it takes to properly run a system like Discourse, a web forum, or even a bug tracker. I suspect that any such solution is going to require an additional commitment since 1). we will no longer be able to leverage shared mailing-list infrastructure that is run by people outside the Swift team, 2). it's pretty much a given IMO that any solution which encourages richer and easier interaction is going to require additional community curation.

Properly answering this question (even if it's as simple as the core team agreeing to devote additional whatever Apple or swift.org <http://swift.org/> resources are necessary to maintain e.g. a discourse instance over the next five years) is far more important to me than things like convenience or user-friendliness. I know this is pretty much the opposite direction that Ted wanted the discussion to go in, but I think it's important enough to bring up, plus the last time this topic came up similar concerns were raised but never really addressed.

Best regards,
Austin

···

On Jan 26, 2017, at 10:37 AM, Matthew Johnson via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:26 PM, Daniel Duan via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

I'm actually convinced that I'd rather use an email client. Having to participate in a web app is a regression in my experience.

+1. I like email way better than web forums for this kind of discussion.

Daniel Duan
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2017, at 10:15 AM, Adrian Zubarev via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

Awesome :) Hopefully that will finally convince the people what ‘are working on this’ to actually make it ;)

I could find some really old threads of mine in just seconds. My mail client cannot do that job that well.

Cannot wait

--
Adrian Zubarev
Sent with Airmail

Am 26. Januar 2017 um 19:03:13, Nate Cook via swift-evolution (swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>) schrieb:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> 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

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Austin · January 26, 2017, 7:30pm

Apple having billions of dollars, and the Swift team as a tiny part of
Apple with associated resource allocations, are two completely different
things. Please don't be obtuse.

Best,
Austin

···

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Charles Srstka <cocoadev@charlessoft.com> wrote:

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:54 PM, Austin Zheng via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

I don't like mailing lists in particular (or, really, at all), but I
haven't yet seen a good answer to the question: who is going to put in the
long-term commitment to host and maintain a replacement solution, moderate
forums, make technical upgrades and backups, and perform all the other
maintenance and administrative work it takes to properly run a system like
Discourse, a web forum, or even a bug tracker. I suspect that any such
solution is going to require an additional commitment since 1). we will no
longer be able to leverage shared mailing-list infrastructure that is run
by people outside the Swift team, 2). it's pretty much a given IMO that any
solution which encourages richer and easier interaction is going to require
additional community curation.

Are we really arguing that Apple, the most valuable corporation in the
world, does not have the resources to host a web forum?

Charles

Austin · January 26, 2017, 7:40pm

If you're not going to make the barest attempt to respond to my emails with
the slightest modicum of good faith I'm finished with this conversation.
Have fun!

Best,
Austin

···

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Charles Srstka <cocoadev@charlessoft.com> wrote:

For a tiny but massively important part of Apple on which they’re
essentially betting the entire future of the company? Yeah, I think the
world’s richest Fortune 500 company can afford to allocate the resources
for a web forum.

Charles

On Jan 26, 2017, at 1:30 PM, Austin Zheng <austinzheng@gmail.com> wrote:

Apple having billions of dollars, and the Swift team as a tiny part of
Apple with associated resource allocations, are two completely different
things. Please don't be obtuse.

Best,
Austin

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Charles Srstka <cocoadev@charlessoft.com > > wrote:

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:54 PM, Austin Zheng via swift-evolution < >> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

I don't like mailing lists in particular (or, really, at all), but I
haven't yet seen a good answer to the question: who is going to put in the
long-term commitment to host and maintain a replacement solution, moderate
forums, make technical upgrades and backups, and perform all the other
maintenance and administrative work it takes to properly run a system like
Discourse, a web forum, or even a bug tracker. I suspect that any such
solution is going to require an additional commitment since 1). we will no
longer be able to leverage shared mailing-list infrastructure that is run
by people outside the Swift team, 2). it's pretty much a given IMO that any
solution which encourages richer and easier interaction is going to require
additional community curation.

Are we really arguing that Apple, the most valuable corporation in the
world, does not have the resources to host a web forum?

Charles

dabrahams · January 26, 2017, 7:44pm

Discourse lets you use email if that's what you want to do. Nobody
participating is forced to use the web interface. The difference is
that

a) the web interface is available to those who want it
b) the history of discussions is much easier to retrieve and review

···

on Thu Jan 26 2017, Matthew Johnson <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:26 PM, Daniel Duan via swift-evolution >> <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

I'm actually convinced that I'd rather use an email client. Having to
participate in a web app is a regression in my experience.

+1. I like email way better than web forums for this kind of discussion.

--
-Dave

dabrahams · January 26, 2017, 8:36pm

That’s exactly how almost all of your replies were displayed in my
mail-client.

Yeah, I know. I've at least partly succumbed to the prevailing flow. I
started to question my own careful practices several years ago when
participating in an email thread with some people who were confused and
angered by both inline replies and by any reply that didn't contain the
entire foregoing message history.

Combined with inlined messages it’s a nightmare to search through.

The sooner we migrate over to a forum, the better.

I don't see how that's going to help with this problem. Of course, that
makes the problem I've raised irrelevant to the topic at hand, so I
guess we should stop talking about it here.

···

on Thu Jan 26 2017, Adrian Zubarev <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

--
-Dave

anandabits · January 26, 2017, 6:37pm

I'm actually convinced that I'd rather use an email client. Having to participate in a web app is a regression in my experience.

+1. I like email way better than web forums for this kind of discussion.

···

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:26 PM, Daniel Duan via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Daniel Duan
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2017, at 10:15 AM, Adrian Zubarev via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Awesome :) Hopefully that will finally convince the people what ‘are working on this’ to actually make it ;)

I could find some really old threads of mine in just seconds. My mail client cannot do that job that well.

Cannot wait

--
Adrian Zubarev
Sent with Airmail

Am 26. Januar 2017 um 19:03:13, Nate Cook via swift-evolution (swift-evolution@swift.org) schrieb:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> 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 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

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

jtbandes · January 26, 2017, 9:24pm

Since many will likely want to continue to access the discussion via mail,
I have some questions for anybody who actually has real-life experience in
using Discourse primarily via email:

1. Can one sign up to receive all posts within a project via email? Or
does one need to sign up for email on a thread-by-thread basis?

Yes, it's called "mailing list mode". Looks like this:
http://discourse.natecook.com/t/pitch-replace-discourse-with-a-mailing-list/3052/3?u=jtbandes

2. Can one receive email notifications of new threads?

Mailing list mode enables this.

3. How does one create a new thread via email? (presumably just by sending
an email with a new subject, ala mailing list?)

Yep, here's an example: http://discourse.natecook.com/
t/an-evaluation-of-mailing-list-mode/3053/1

···

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 12:43 PM, James Berry via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Based on my (limited, non-subscriber-to-discourse) experience so far, I
would vote for the status quo, perhaps based on years of using mailing
lists via email. But I’m trying to be open minded.

James

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Charles_Srstka · January 26, 2017, 7:27pm

Are we really arguing that Apple, the most valuable corporation in the world, does not have the resources to host a web forum?

Charles

···

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:54 PM, Austin Zheng via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

I don't like mailing lists in particular (or, really, at all), but I haven't yet seen a good answer to the question: who is going to put in the long-term commitment to host and maintain a replacement solution, moderate forums, make technical upgrades and backups, and perform all the other maintenance and administrative work it takes to properly run a system like Discourse, a web forum, or even a bug tracker. I suspect that any such solution is going to require an additional commitment since 1). we will no longer be able to leverage shared mailing-list infrastructure that is run by people outside the Swift team, 2). it's pretty much a given IMO that any solution which encourages richer and easier interaction is going to require additional community curation.

Charles_Srstka · January 26, 2017, 7:37pm

For a tiny but massively important part of Apple on which they’re essentially betting the entire future of the company? Yeah, I think the world’s richest Fortune 500 company can afford to allocate the resources for a web forum.

Charles

···

On Jan 26, 2017, at 1:30 PM, Austin Zheng <austinzheng@gmail.com> wrote:

Apple having billions of dollars, and the Swift team as a tiny part of Apple with associated resource allocations, are two completely different things. Please don't be obtuse.

Best,
Austin

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Charles Srstka <cocoadev@charlessoft.com <mailto:cocoadev@charlessoft.com>> wrote:

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:54 PM, Austin Zheng via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

I don't like mailing lists in particular (or, really, at all), but I haven't yet seen a good answer to the question: who is going to put in the long-term commitment to host and maintain a replacement solution, moderate forums, make technical upgrades and backups, and perform all the other maintenance and administrative work it takes to properly run a system like Discourse, a web forum, or even a bug tracker. I suspect that any such solution is going to require an additional commitment since 1). we will no longer be able to leverage shared mailing-list infrastructure that is run by people outside the Swift team, 2). it's pretty much a given IMO that any solution which encourages richer and easier interaction is going to require additional community curation.

Are we really arguing that Apple, the most valuable corporation in the world, does not have the resources to host a web forum?

Charles

anandabits · January 26, 2017, 8:07pm

I'm actually convinced that I'd rather use an email client. Having to
participate in a web app is a regression in my experience.

+1. I like email way better than web forums for this kind of discussion.

Discourse lets you use email if that's what you want to do. Nobody
participating is forced to use the web interface.

Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. If we can participate using email just like today, then I have no objection to going that route.

The difference is
that

a) the web interface is available to those who want it
b) the history of discussions is much easier to retrieve and review

An improved web archive would be excellent!

···

On Jan 26, 2017, at 1:44 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
on Thu Jan 26 2017, Matthew Johnson <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 26, 2017, at 12:26 PM, Daniel Duan via swift-evolution >>> <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

--
-Dave

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Derrick_Ho · January 26, 2017, 6:36pm

I don't like mailing lists since it is very easy to forget about a topic.
What I noticed about mailing lists is that the most controversial topics
live the longest. I think swift-evolution should be able discussing the
stuff that matters for the future of swift.

I think the best choice for that would be JIRA.

The whole swift evolution process can be better streamlined with this tool.
Each proposal goes through different states from development, to awaiting
review, to being approved or rejected.

We can make JIRA a part of the swift-evolution process. By incorporating
the process as part of the workflow. The Jira board allows everyone to see
what stage a proposal is in. You can see which have been rejected,
approved, or defered.

Each proposal can be written as part of a single JIRA story where the story
can be modified after getting feed back. With mailing lists, you need to
pile the most recent thing on the top and hope no one is replying to old
content. The formatting is quite standard and we won't run into weird
formatting issues. People can comment on the issue at hand and not get
lost. People can reference other JIRA tickets which get turned into
clickable links. People can reference other people. This helps when you are
trying to tell one specific person something and not everyone.

JIRA allows you to search for stories. In our case it will be proposals and
we will find an easier time seeing what stage it is in.

Speaking of stages, did everyone know that we are on Swift 4 stage 1? I
didn't I thought we were on swift 3 stage xyz. We can name each board after
the current swift version and stage. Often times a story is not appropriate
for stage 1 and should be discussed again in the next stage. the JIRA board
can be given the current Swift version and stage and anything that needs to
be pushed back can move to a "re-evaluate in next stage" status. Once the
new stage is set, we can simply move the story back in for discussion.

I may not be the best at describing the best parts of JIRA, but i believe
it may make the whole swift evolution process easier.

In summary we should use JIRA because
* Story can be updated.
* No loss in context
* Google searchable
* Story Statuses (i.e. discuss, review, approved, implemented.etc)
* Standard UI
* Stories can reference each other
* Easy sign up
* email support
* attachments

Anyone else +1 JIRA?

···

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 1:33 PM Daniel Duan via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

I'm actually convinced that I'd rather use an email client. Having to
participate in a web app is a regression in my experience.

Daniel Duan
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2017, at 10:15 AM, Adrian Zubarev via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Awesome :) Hopefully that will finally convince the people what ‘are
working on this’ to actually make it ;)

I could find some really old threads of mine in just seconds. My mail
client cannot do that job that well.

Cannot wait

--
Adrian Zubarev
Sent with Airmail

Am 26. Januar 2017 um 19:03:13, Nate Cook via swift-evolution (
swift-evolution@swift.org) schrieb:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Jan 25, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Ted Kremenek via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> 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

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution