Hi Everyone, I apologize for the delay in responding, I wanted to give some time for others to share their thoughts and due to the mention of a dedicated solr.apache.org URL (I wanted to verify if this was something Discourse offered in their free plan for open source projects, unfortunately it is not).
I appreciate Alessandro's generous offer of hosting the forums on the ir-relevant.net site however I'd lean towards having its forums fully owned by Apache/Solr. I am approaching this primarily from a visibility/marketing perspective and I think having dedicated, official forums would be more "impressive" to those considering Elastic <https://discuss.elastic.co/>, OpenSearch <https://forum.opensearch.org/>, Solr, etc. I would love to see the forums hosted on the official Solr domain as Ishan suggested. The Apache TVM project's discussion URL is https://discuss.tvm.apache.org/, so Solr could potentially have one like: https://discuss.solr.apache.org/ I'd recommend using Discourse <https://discourse.org/> as the forum software (it is what both Elastic and OpenSearch appear to be using). A free instance <https://free.discourse.group/> is available from Discourse for open source projects. By default this instance would be hosted at solr.discourse.group and unfortunately the free plan does not support custom domains (though we could do a redirect from https://discuss.solr.apache.org/ or similar the final url would still be solr.discourse.group). If Solr exceeds the 50k/views/mo. (sustained traffic, not occasional spikes) the free plan offers we'd need to upgrade to the Standard Plan which is available at a 50% discount for nonprofits (regular price: $100/mo.; discounted price: $50/mo.). Alternatively we could using a VPS host with a ~$20/mo. instance. In any case, I wouldn't anticipate us exceeding the free plans capabilities for quite some time. I'd suggest having two categories to start - End Users (businesses/individuals who utilize the application) and Development (for more code related topics). Two additional possible categories would be Beginners, and Third-Party Integrations / Plugins but I'd suggest adding these later after the forums gain some traction. I'd love to get something out there sooner than later and am happy to get the instance setup and configured with Discourse if folks are amenable and that would be helpful. I'd suggest using the free plan to start to expedite the spin-up process. Sincerely, Dave Mackey On Tue, May 16, 2023 at 11:04 AM Alessandro Benedetti <a.benede...@sease.io> wrote: > I agree Ishan, > just wanted to mention what I can donate from my company anyway. > Happy to allow a customized logo and colors for the Solr section and allow > a redirect from solr.apache.org/discussions it that's something useful. > Cheers > -------------------------- > *Alessandro Benedetti* > Director @ Sease Ltd. > *Apache Lucene/Solr Committer* > *Apache Solr PMC Member* > > e-mail: a.benede...@sease.io > > > *Sease* - Information Retrieval Applied > Consulting | Training | Open Source > > Website: Sease.io <http://sease.io/> > LinkedIn <https://linkedin.com/company/sease-ltd> | Twitter > <https://twitter.com/seaseltd> | Youtube > <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDx86ZKLYNpI3gzMercM7BQ> | Github > <https://github.com/seaseltd> > > > On Tue, 16 May 2023 at 15:32, Ishan Chattopadhyaya < > ichattopadhy...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I would prefer if this discussion forum is hosted at an official domain, > > e.g. solr.apache.org/discussions or something like that. That's the only > > right way to support an official solution. > > > > Can ASF help us here in any way? > > > > On Tue, 16 May, 2023, 2:09 pm Alessandro Benedetti, < > a.benede...@sease.io> > > wrote: > > > > > We have been working for the last few months on an upcoming Information > > > Retrieval forum: https://ir-relevant.net > > > > > > This will be a fully free forum, sponsored by my company. > > > We have an Apache Solr section: > > > https://ir-relevant.net/forums/forum/search-technologies/apache-solr/, > > and > > > I would be happy to donate it to the Apache Solr project, I can add all > > the > > > committers that are interested as moderators. > > > The forum already implements gamification, a modern UI, and easy > archive > > > (and SEO for Google and searchability of topics) > > > It will be live in the next couple of weeks, we are fixing some final > > bugs! > > > > > > Let me know! > > > > > > Cheers > > > > > > -------------------------- > > > *Alessandro Benedetti* > > > Director @ Sease Ltd. > > > *Apache Lucene/Solr Committer* > > > *Apache Solr PMC Member* > > > > > > e-mail: a.benede...@sease.io > > > > > > > > > *Sease* - Information Retrieval Applied > > > Consulting | Training | Open Source > > > > > > Website: Sease.io <http://sease.io/> > > > LinkedIn <https://linkedin.com/company/sease-ltd> | Twitter > > > <https://twitter.com/seaseltd> | Youtube > > > <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDx86ZKLYNpI3gzMercM7BQ> | Github > > > <https://github.com/seaseltd> > > > > > > > > > On Mon, 15 May 2023 at 22:12, Ishan Chattopadhyaya < > > > ichattopadhy...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > This is a great idea! I think this is a much better alternative than > > > > current user and dev lists, which are handicapped by an atrocious UX > > for > > > > browsing archives (PonyMail). > > > > > > > > On Tue, 16 May, 2023, 1:34 am David Mackey, <d...@davemackey.net> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Hi All, > > > > > > > > > > At yesterday's meeting I suggested that discussion forums might be > > > useful > > > > > for managing tension in communications and increasing the > visibility > > / > > > > > popularity of the Solr project. At the time this didn't seem viable > > due > > > > to > > > > > the centrality of mailing lists to ASF's communications but Eric > > > > suggested > > > > > that if other projects where using forums that Solr could as well. > > > > > > > > > > *(ASF Projects Using Discussion Forums)* > > > > > I did some research and discovered that a number of ASF projects > are > > > > using > > > > > forums: > > > > > > > > > > - Airflow <https://airflow.apache.org/community/>, Pulsar > > > > > <https://github.com/apache/pulsar/discussions>, RocketMQ > > > > > <https://github.com/apache/rocketmq>, ShardingSphere > > > > > <https://github.com/apache/shardingsphere>, StreamPipes > > > > > <https://github.com/apache/streampipes>, and Doris > > > > > <https://github.com/apache/doris> are all using GitHub > > Discussions > > > > > <https://github.com/apache/airflow/discussions>. > > > > > - TVM <https://tvm.apache.org/> uses Discourse > > > > > <https://discuss.tvm.apache.org/>. > > > > > - OpenOffice.org <http://openoffice.org/> uses phpBB > > > > > < > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/index.php?sid=b4a0ff493ecb816d6a05cceaeee19283 > > > > > > > > > > > . > > > > > > > > > > *(Refined Role Proposal for Discussion Forums)* > > > > > Understanding better the fundamental nature of mailing lists to ASF > > > > > projects I'd like to suggest a more tightly scoped implementation > of > > > > > discussion forums for the Solr project: > > > > > > > > > > - As an adjunct to, not replacement of, mailing lists. > > > > > - With a focus on answering questions that users/developers have > > > that > > > > > are informational rather than decision making. > > > > > - And perhaps some early stage idea discussions before they are > > > ready > > > > > for a serious proposal. > > > > > > > > > > (*Advantages of Discussion Forums to Solr Community)* > > > > > I think this would offer the Solr community a few different > > advantages: > > > > > > > > > > - *Visible Vitality *- The Solr project has vitality but it > isn't > > > > > entirely visible. An active forum (discuss.elastic.co) can > > provide > > > > this > > > > > visibility. > > > > > - *Redundant Question Reduction* - Forums provide a way for > users > > to > > > > > find answers to questions that might otherwise be asked > repeatedly > > > in > > > > > Slack > > > > > chats or on the mailing lists. > > > > > - *Content Creation* - Users create valuable content (which is > > > indexed > > > > > by search engines) through their discussions. > > > > > - *Noise Reduction* - If at least some informational / idea > > > > discussions > > > > > were occurring in the forums the volume of emails on the mailing > > > list > > > > > would > > > > > be reduced. > > > > > > > > > > *(Recommended Implementation)* > > > > > While GitHub Discussions would be the easiest to implement I would > > > > > recommend Discourse. GitHub is developer-centric and as such would > > > likely > > > > > exclude most (non-dev) users. > > > > > > > > > > Discourse (the org) offers Discourse (the software) as a hosted > > service > > > > for > > > > > free < > > > > https://blog.discourse.org/2018/11/free-hosting-for-open-source-v2/> > > > > > to open source projects. > > > > > > > > > > I'm happy to help if this is something the Solr community would be > > > > > interested in. Thanks for taking the time to read and consider. > > > > > > > > > > Sincerely, > > > > > Dave Mackey > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
