On Wed, 19 Sep 2018 11:54:20 -0400 James Lu <jam...@gmail.com> wrote: > Oh wow, Google Groups is actually a much better interface.
Depends who you talk to. For me, having to use the Google Groups UI would be a strong impediment to my continued contribution. Regards Antoine. > > Any better forum software needs a system where people can > voluntarily leave comments or feedback that is lower-priority. > I'm not sure if Discourse has this, actually. Reddit comments > are extremely compact as are Stack Overflow comments. > > I was going to propose that the PSF twitter account post a > link to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/python-ideas/, > but I was worried that getting more subjective personal > experiences might undesirably decrease the signal-to-noise > ratio. > > On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 12:48 AM Franklin? Lee < > leewangzhong+pyt...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 8:21 PM James Lu > > <jamtlu-re5jqeeqqe8avxtiumw...@public.gmane.org> wrote: > > > > > > > Is that really an issue here? I personally haven't seen threads where > > > > Brett tried to stop an active discussion, but people ignored him and > > > > kept fighting. > > > Not personally with Brett, but I have seen multiple people try to stop > > the “reword or remove beautiful is better than ugly in Zen of Python.” The > > discussion was going in circles and evolved into attacking each other’s use > > of logical fallacies. > > > > I disagree with your description, of course, but that's not important > > right now. > > > > Multiple people *without any authority in that forum* tried to stop a > > discussion, and failed. Why would it be any different if it happened > > in a forum? Those same people still wouldn't have the power to lock > > the discussion. They could only try to convince others to stop. > > > > If the ones with authority wanted to completely shut down the > > discussion, they can do so now. The only thing that a forum adds is, > > when they say stop, no one can decide to ignore them. If no one is > > ignoring them now, then locking powers don't add anything. > > > > > Other than that, my biggest issues with the current mailing system are: > > > > > > * There’s no way to keep a updated proposal of your own- if you decide > > to change your proposal, you have to communicate the change. Then, if you > > want to find the authoritative current copy, since you might’ve forgotten > > or you want to join he current discussion, then you have to dig through > > the emails and recursively apply the proposed change. It’s just easier if > > people can have one proposal they can edit themselves. > > > * I’ve seen experienced people get confused about what was the current > > proposal because they were replying to older emails or they didn’t see the > > email with the clear examples. > > > > I agree that editing is a very useful feature. In a large discussion, > > newcomers can comment after reading only the first few posts, and if > > the first post has an easily-misunderstood line, you'll get people > > talking about it. > > > > For proposals, I'm concerned that many forums don't have version > > history in their editing tools (Reddit being one such discussion > > site). Version history can be useful in understanding old comments. > > Instead, you'd have to put it up on a repo and link to it. Editing > > will help when you realize you should move your proposal to a public > > repo. > > > > > * The mailing list is frankly obscure. Python community leaders and > > package maintainers often are not aware or do not participate in > > Python-ideas. Not many people know how to use or navigate a mailing list. > > > * No one really promotes the mailing list, you have to go out of your > > way to find where new features are proposed. > > > * Higher discoverability means more people can participate, providing > > their own use cases or voting (I mean using like or dislike measures, > > consensus should still be how things are approved) go out of their way to > > find so they can propose something. Instead, I envision a forum where > > people can read and give their 2 cents about what features they might like > > to see or might not want to see. > > > > Some of these problems are not about mailing lists. > > > > Whether a forum is more accessible can go either way. A mailing list > > is more accessible because everyone has access to email, and it > > doesn't require making another account. It is less accessible because > > people might get intimidated by such old interfaces or culture (like > > proper quoting etiquette, or when to switch to private replies). > > Setting up an email interface to a forum can be a compromise. > > > > > * More people means instead of having to make decisions from > > sometimes subjective personal experience, we can make decisions with > > confidence in what other Python devs want. > > > > I don't agree. You don't get more objective by getting a larger > > self-selected sample, not without carefully designing who will > > self-select. > > > > But getting more people means getting MORE subjective personal > > experiences, which is good. Some proposals need more voices, like any > > proposal that is meant to help new programmers. You want to hear from > > people who still vividly remember their experiences learning Python. > > > > On the other hand, getting more people necessarily means more noise > > (no matter what system you use), and less time for new people to > > acclimate. > > > > > Since potential proposers will find it easier to navigate a GUI forum, > > they can read previous discussions to understand the reasoning, precedent > > behind rejected and successful features. People proposing things that have > > already been rejected before can be directed to open a subtopic on the > > older discussion. > > > > A kind of GUI version already exists, precisely because this is a > > public mailing list. Google Groups provides a mirror of the archives. > > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/python-ideas > > It's searchable, and possibly replyable. You can even star > > conversations (but not hide them). If it isn't listed on some > > python.org page, maybe it should be. > > > > Personally, when I want to find past discussions, I use Google with > > the keyword `site:https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/` > > <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/>. I > > know a lot of people don't know about that, though. Maybe it can be > > listed on one of the python.org pages. > > > > As for subtopics, I haven't seen such things. I've seen reply > > subtrees, but either they don't bump the topic (giving them little > > visibility), or they do bump the topic (annoying anyone as much as a > > new topic). I don't know if there is a good compromise there. > > > _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/