Hello all, So we are three days into the forum migration, and things are going well. Good news and bad news, of course, so here is an update.
The Good News The new forum [1] is working very well. We already have over 200 users [2], 74 topics, and 261 posts. The transition has gone very smoothly so far in terms of migrating users over into the new system. People are getting used to the new platform pretty quickly. The Bad News Email parsing in the new forum as not as good as I had hoped it would be, so users are not able to reply with inline quotes, they must reply at the top of an email [3]. Users are able to reply via email and start topics via email, but it's obvious that the new forum is not as good of a mailing list as Mailman, our mailing list software. That being said, out of the 200+ users we have, only a few people are actually still using email at this point to interact with HTM Forum. I've been actively trying to get users to log into the website and use the web interface, which is where all the power tools are. Migration Status: 83% I sent out invitations to 1,121 email addresses across all our mailing lists, and so far only 194 of you have joined up. That means 83% of you are have not migrated yet. If you haven't already, please register at https://discourse.numenta.org or follow the link in the invitation you were sent. Join us on HTM Forum! [1] https://discourse.numenta.org/categories [2] https://discourse.numenta.org/users [3] https://discourse.numenta.org/t/reported-email-quirks/291 --------- Matt Taylor OS Community Flag-Bearer Numenta On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 7:41 PM, Matthew Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello NuPIC, > > First of all... DON'T PANIC. > > *TL;DR: *I'm migrating all our mailing lists to HTM Forum > <http://discourse.numenta.org/categories>. This mailing list will be > frozen and archived and further discussion will happen on HTM Forum > <http://discourse.numenta.org/categories>. Here's why > <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/why-im-trying-to-migrate-htm-mailing-lists-to-this-forum/53>, > and here is the plan > <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/mailing-list-migration-plan/72>. I sent > an email invitation to each subscriber to join the new forum, please follow > the instructions. > > *Some explanation...* > > When we started the NuPIC open source project in 2013, we had to establish > a solid communication channel for the community. I argued at the time for a > very old mailing list software called "Mailman", and that's what we've used > for all our mailing lists so far. > > There are good things and bad things about this, but as the community has > grown, I've found the mailing lists getting hard to follow and confusing > for new users. I get emails from people on a weekly basis who cannot figure > out how to subscribe or unsubscribe from our lists because of the early > 1990s interface. There are also frequent situations where discussions are > inadvertently broken up into separate email threads for very obscure > technical reasons that have no real solution. Not to mention people > replying to digest emails. 😡 > > I think it's time to *modernize our communication channels*, so we are > moving all our mailing lists to Discourse <http://www.discourse.org/> (created > by the same team that brought you Stack Overflow > <http://stackoverflow.com/>). I've been talking to Jeff Atwood and the > Discourse team over the past few months, and they have given us a FREE > forum at https://discourse.numenta.org, which I have been setting up for > community usage. Discourse is an amazing forum, and I'm really happy about > this move. > > So... THIS MAILING LIST WILL BE SHUT DOWN AND ARCHIVED ON *JUNE 27 2016*! > > In the meantime, you should have received an email from " > [email protected]" inviting you to join HTM Forum > <http://discourse.numenta.org/categories>. Please follow the instructions > in this email to set up your account. (Check your spam folder if you did > not get one, and don't worry if you can't find it, you can just sign up > normally at https://discourse.numenta.org.) > > *Can I still use email to interact with the new forum?* > > Yes, and here are detailed instructions > <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-to-migrate-from-the-mailing-lists-to-htm-forum/86>. > You can still get posts delivered to your inbox, reply to them, and they > will show up on the forum. You can also start new topics via email. But > please keep in mind that Discourse is a rich discussion interface, with > many useful features that can only be used at > https://discourse.numenta.org. I encourage you all to *try the web > interface* before defaulting to email-only. I think you'll like it. > > *What will happen to the old mailing list archives?* > > We'll store them indefinitely in their current archived locations. New > messages sent to these lists will be rejected after the migration is > complete. An auto-responder will direct the sender to HTM Forum > <http://discourse.numenta.org/categories>. > > *Why would you do something so drastic without holding a vote or > something?* > > Open source communities are not always democratic. I feel strongly that > the community will benefit greatly from this move. It's not about Numenta, > really, it's about fostering the growth, cohesion, and health of the HTM > community. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I think the > timing is right for this change. Of the small sample of community members > who I have engaged on this issue, all of them have eventually approved the > decision. > > > If you have any other questions, feel free to respond to this email until > June 27th. But I'd rather hear from you on HTM Forum > <http://discourse.numenta.org/categories>. 😉 > > Regards, > --------- > Matt Taylor > OS Community Flag-Bearer > Numenta >
