Nick, uh, I would have expected a rather heated discussion, but the opposite seems to be the case ;-)
Independent of my personal preferences w.r.t. usability, habits etc., I think it is not good for a software/tool/framework if questions and discussions are spread over too many places. I guess everyone of us knows an example of where this makes/has made it very hard for newcomers to get started ;-) As it is now, I think the mailing list has somewhat of an "official" touch, while Stack Overflow is, well, Stack Overflow ;-) To introduce another discussion platform next to the mailing list (your proposal (2.)) would increase confusion, the number of double-postings and, as you said, effectively fork the community. Your proposal (1.) sounds attractive, but I highly doubt that the user experience can match people's expectations towards the "pure" solution on either the mailing list or Discourse, given the rather different discussion styles. Having said that, I totally agree to the points you mentioned; even just linking to a thread where a question has been discussed before is very time-consuming and I would be happy to use a platform where all those points are addressed. Stack Overflow seems to provide that, too, and except for the "broader range of discussions" you mentioned, I don't see the benefit of using Discourse over Stack Overflow. So personally, I would suggest to go with (3.) and encourage SO as a platform for questions that are ok to be asked there and try to reduce/focus mailing list communication for everything else. (Note that this is pretty much the same state as now plus "encouraging people" in an unspecified way, which means that maybe nothing changes at all.) Just my 2 cent, Tobias On Wed Dec 24 2014 at 21:50:48 Nick Chammas <nicholas.cham...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> When people have questions about Spark, there are 2 main places (as far >> as I can tell) where they ask them: >> >> - Stack Overflow, under the apache-spark tag >> <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-spark> >> - This mailing list >> >> The mailing list is valuable as an independent place for discussion that >> is part of the Spark project itself. Furthermore, it allows for a broader >> range of discussions than would be allowed on Stack Overflow >> <http://stackoverflow.com/help/dont-ask>. >> >> As the Spark project has grown in popularity, I see that a few problems >> have emerged with this mailing list: >> >> - It’s hard to follow topics (e.g. Streaming vs. SQL) that you’re >> interested in, and it’s hard to know when someone has mentioned you >> specifically. >> - It’s hard to search for existing threads and link information >> across disparate threads. >> - It’s hard to format code and log snippets nicely, and by extension, >> hard to read other people’s posts with this kind of information. >> >> There are existing solutions to all these (and other) problems based >> around straight-up discipline or client-side tooling, which users have to >> conjure up for themselves. >> >> I’d like us as a community to consider using Discourse >> <http://www.discourse.org/> as an alternative to, or overlay on top of, >> this mailing list, that provides better out-of-the-box solutions to these >> problems. >> >> Discourse is a modern discussion platform built by some of the same >> people who created Stack Overflow. It has many neat features >> <http://v1.discourse.org/about/> that I believe this community would >> benefit from. >> >> For example: >> >> - When a user starts typing up a new post, they get a panel *showing >> existing conversations that look similar*, just like on Stack >> Overflow. >> - It’s easy to search for posts and link between them. >> - *Markdown support* is built-in to composer. >> - You can *specifically mention people* and they will be notified. >> - Posts can be categorized (e.g. Streaming, SQL, etc.). >> - There is a built-in option for mailing list support which forwards >> all activity on the forum to a user’s email address and which allows for >> creation of new posts via email. >> >> What do you think of Discourse as an alternative, more manageable way to >> discus Spark? >> >> There are a few options we can consider: >> >> 1. Work with the ASF as well as the Discourse team to allow Discourse >> to act as an overlay on top of this mailing list >> >> <https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-as-a-front-end-for-existing-asf-mailing-lists/23167?u=nicholaschammas>, >> allowing people to continue to use the mailing list as-is if they want. >> (This is the toughest but perhaps most attractive option.) >> 2. Create a new Discourse forum for Spark that is not bound to this >> user list. This is relatively easy but will effectively fork the community >> on this list. (We cannot shut down this mailing in favor of one managed by >> Discourse.) >> 3. Don’t use Discourse. Just encourage people on this list to post >> instead on Stack Overflow whenever possible. >> 4. Something else. >> >> What does everyone think? >> >> Nick >> >
