The issue with discourse is that you either have to host it or pay for them to host it
but still +1 for discourse, its a really nice format (I actually +1'ed the PyTorch forum on this thread too) Dhruv On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 2:09 PM, Travis Oliphant <tra...@quansight.com> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'll be chiming in from time to time as Anthony Scopatz and I help > several people from Quansight become more integrated to community > Arrow development. I'm a fan of Arrow's goals and have similar goals > for a cousin project called http://xnd.io. I'm eager to find ways to > collaborate on the compute infrastructure between the two projects, in > particular, for example. > > Here is my $0.02 on this issue, > > Chat rooms can be a useful mechanism for engaging with new developers. > However, Slack itself does not really allow for the kind of > large-scale community participation that Gitter allows for. If you > have a chat room I recommend Gitter. > > All that said, I would personally favor a discourse > (https://www.discourse.org/) solution over chat rooms. I've noticed > several younger folks not really liking the mailing lists and seeking > out chat rooms first --- the success of pytorch, mxnet communities > indicate that perhaps they could be encouraged to use something like > discourse. > > On a related note, could someone help me understand the relationship > between Github Issues and JIRA issues? Is one preferred? I understand > that contributions to the code are recommended as PRs on Github. Does > that mean a branch at Github is considered to be the primary > repository, or is there another place that code has to go to be > official? I suspect this is all documented somewhere. I would welcome > a simple link to the right place to read. > > Thank you, > > -Travis > > > --- > Travis Oliphant > Quansight > > > On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 3:25 AM, Wes McKinney <wesmck...@gmail.com> wrote: > > hi all, > > > > I wanted to bring up some concerns I have about the Slack room hosted > > at http://apachearrow.slack.com. > > > > Corporate communications have changed a lot in recent years with the > > new wave of IRC-like chat systems such as HipChat and Slack. In many > > companies, Slack has become a preferred form of communication over > > e-mail or other asynchronous messaging tools. This trend is negatively > > impacting Apache Arrow in some ways that I will explain. > > > > Initially we created the Arrow Slack channel as a means of secondary > > communication, to facilitate real-time discussions and help build the > > community. So people, particularly newcomers, are coming to the > > project and seeing 4 ways to communicate: > > > > * dev@ Mailing list > > * JIRA > > * GitHub > > * Slack > > > > As a result of broader trends in the world, they are electing to use > > Slack as their first, primary channel to interact with the project. > > This is bad for many reasons: > > > > * Slack is essentially private. While anyone can join Slack, chats are > > not archived in any public place, nor are they searchable through > > internet search portals. I do not think it meets the public > > communication requirements of Apache projects in general > > * We've exceeded the message limit for free Slack channels; upgrading > > to a paid Slack plan for Apache Arrow, with 650+ members, would be > > very expensive > > * Only 3 out of the top 20 Arrow contributors (by # of commits) are > > regularly on the Slack channel. I don't use Slack, for example, and I > > would rather not be expected to > > * We are geo-distributed in many time zones; even if we all used > > Slack, synchronous/real-time chat to discuss the project is frequently > > impractical > > > > Because of the "real-time" nature of IRC-like systems, people's > > discussions and questions get intermingled, so keeping track of > > longer-running discussions may be difficult. It's hard to know when > > someone's question has been answered or whether people have > > sufficiently discussed a particular topic. > > > > Many discussions or questions are by their nature asynchronous, and it > > may take 24-72 hours or more for Arrow contributors to make a > > thoughtful reply. > > > > As a result of all of this, we are missing opportunities to have > > deeper discussions, develop the Arrow roadmap, create new JIRAs to > > capture bug reports or feature requests, and other activities of > > healthy open source communities. Additionally, the private nature of > > Slack is causing organizational knowledge (particularly Q&A / FAQs) to > > essentially be lost. Users with questions won't stumble on answers by > > searching on Google (as they would with a mailing list or > > StackOverflow). > > > > I don't think Slack is necessarily bad for users in a corporate > > environment; in many companies it is expected that all people will > > have the Slack client open at all times. This isn't the case here, > > though. > > > > My strong preference in light of the activity I have been observing on > > Slack (which I encourage you to explore yourselves) would be to close > > the channel and direct discussions or questions take place on the > > mailing list, JIRA, or GitHub (all of which are archived on one or > > more ASF mailing lists). Since migrating to Gitbox, we have enabled > > GitHub issues on the repository, which has helped lower the barrier > > for newcomers, but a large percentage of the time GitHub issues would > > be better as JIRA issues or e-mails (which is what the GitHub issue > > template says, alas). > > > > Interested to hear the thoughts of others on this. > > > > Thanks, > > Wes >
