Re: Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[Michael Catanzaro]

I won't take a stance on Discourse but I would like to hear from our 
Discourse moderators about their thoughts on a couple moderation issues 
I've noticed.


#1, posts are being hidden rather aggressively, including seemingly 
innocuous posts like 
https://discourse.gnome.org/t/are-you-happy-with-javascript-programming-language-used-by-gnome-project/1744:


"""
I would like to ask if is there anything that annoys you about 
JavaScript, what makes you angry or inefficient while working with this 
language, or maybe what others do incorrectly when using this language 
to develop Gnome Shell Extensions and Applications.


Is JavaScript here (In the Gnome community) to stay for a long, what 
would be better and why?

"""

I can't imagine any reason that should have been hidden. It makes the 
rest of the topic hard to follow. I'm not sure why users flagged this 
topic (maybe misclicks?) or why human moderators didn't correct it (are 
there humans reviewing reported posts)? Furthermore, it's the first 
post in the topic. Surely the entire topic should be hidden if the 
first post is hidden, since it would be nonsensical to view a topic 
without its starting point.


Another less-serious example of a moderation problem, here:

https://discourse.gnome.org/t/official-applications/1663/2

A low-quality post was hidden, but the follow-up post was not. Now 
people reading the topic will want to go back to the hidden post to see 
why Pavlo wrote what he did. When a post is removed, any other posts 
quoting it should also be removed or the discussion doesn't flow 
properly without the hidden posts, and the point of having hidden the 
first post is defeated.


Michael


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Re: Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[meg ford via foundation-list]

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 1:38 PM Bradley M. Kuhn  wrote:

> I am a GNOME Foundation Member *Emeritus*, so please don't take my opinion
> as
> too important.
>
> Olav Vitters wrote, back in August when proposing Discourse:
> > Discourse is free software (including the Javascript) and the
> > dependencies are also free software.
>
> This is correct, "for the moment".  However, Discourse is somewhat of a
> monoculture project, controlled by one company, and has some troubling
> similarities to MongoDB in this regard.  I encourage everyone in the GNOME
> Foundation read Discourse's CLA [0] (which is a Google Doc and likely
> requires non-free Javascript to sign, although not to read), and decide if
> the GNOME Foundation should be comfortable relying on as critical
> infrastructure for a project that has this sort of non-community-oriented
> licensing and governance model.
>
> Of course, Discourse, the software, may well be forked under GPL if
> Discourse, the company, ever uses the CLA to make the canonical version
> into
> proprietary software, but given the monoculture of the project development,
> that might be unrealistic logistically and resource-wise.
>
> Also, given that Discourse is both the name of the software and the name of
> the company, GF will be de-facto promoting the company (and, by
> implication,
> their business model) merely by using the software publicly.


Thanks for the information! I’d like to point out that GNOME is already
using discourse, so while it’s good to take this into account I think it’s
more relevant to the general decision and less relevant to the question of
whether we should move the foundation list.

Cheers,
Meg

>
>
>   * * *
>
> One of my favorite pieces of GNOME history that I was involved with was the
> GNOME copyright assignment policy
> <
> https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/FoundationBoard/Resources/CopyrightAssignment
> >
> , which I am proud to have helped create and draft.  I was so glad that
> GNOME
> took a strong position against proprietary relicensing by for-profit
> companies, as most copylefted project have historically not taken that kind
> of stand.
>
> So, I mainly just want to point out that Discourse *is* such a company.  Of
> course, everyone of us -- even those that use 100% Free Software on our
> machines -- probably use some copylefted software from a company that does
> this kind of thing, so I don't think this issue should necessarily preclude
> GNOME Foundation from choosing to officially rely on such software, but I
> suggest the issue is at least worth discussing before the change is made.
>
> I won't say more on this issue since I'm only a Member Emeritus; it's for
> the
> members to decide this question.
>
> Tobias Mueller  wrote:
> >> I found the discourse mailing list mode to be inferior to a mailing
> list.
>
> I admit I also agree with this, but I assumed (at least on my old behalf)
> that I'm just an old dog who doesn't want to learn new tricks. :)
>
> I admit that especially since becoming Emeritus, it's been easier for me to
> check in with what GF is up to by quickly skimming through emails on this
> list in my usual way, and I lament the change as it's likely to lead me to
> "not check" at all because it won't be worth figuring out Discourse's email
> interface to keep up with a project that I'm not actively working with.
> But,
> again, don't let the opinion of one Emeritus member stop you from needed
> progress. :)
>
>
> This is apropos of nothing, but I wanted to mention that I was on a plane
> last week and I saw someone using GNOME.  Usually, when I'm on the plane
> going to a tech conference, the person using GNOME is going to the same
> conference as me.  Then, I saw they were just using LIbreOffice to work on
> mundane business documents -- clearly stuff not related to the tech
> industry.
> This was so wonderful to see and while I know that competing with Microsoft
> and Apple for the desktop remains difficult and challenging, there are
> users
> out there who aren't tech geeks using GNOME every day and getting real
> introduction to software freedom thanks to the work you all do.  As I said
> in
> my GUADEC keynote years ago, thank you all again for doing this work!
>
>
> [0] CLA is at
> <
> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7JzGhGR-B9pFrg2byt2tnRjMqJtpnA0Yktl4dwy0-4tGo8g/viewform
> >
> which is linked from <
> https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md>
> --
> Bradley M. Kuhn - he/him
>
> Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy:
> https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
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>
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Re: Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

I am a GNOME Foundation Member *Emeritus*, so please don't take my opinion as
too important.

Olav Vitters wrote, back in August when proposing Discourse:
> Discourse is free software (including the Javascript) and the
> dependencies are also free software.

This is correct, "for the moment".  However, Discourse is somewhat of a
monoculture project, controlled by one company, and has some troubling
similarities to MongoDB in this regard.  I encourage everyone in the GNOME
Foundation read Discourse's CLA [0] (which is a Google Doc and likely
requires non-free Javascript to sign, although not to read), and decide if
the GNOME Foundation should be comfortable relying on as critical
infrastructure for a project that has this sort of non-community-oriented
licensing and governance model.

Of course, Discourse, the software, may well be forked under GPL if
Discourse, the company, ever uses the CLA to make the canonical version into
proprietary software, but given the monoculture of the project development,
that might be unrealistic logistically and resource-wise.

Also, given that Discourse is both the name of the software and the name of
the company, GF will be de-facto promoting the company (and, by implication,
their business model) merely by using the software publicly.

  * * *

One of my favorite pieces of GNOME history that I was involved with was the
GNOME copyright assignment policy

, which I am proud to have helped create and draft.  I was so glad that GNOME
took a strong position against proprietary relicensing by for-profit
companies, as most copylefted project have historically not taken that kind
of stand.

So, I mainly just want to point out that Discourse *is* such a company.  Of
course, everyone of us -- even those that use 100% Free Software on our
machines -- probably use some copylefted software from a company that does
this kind of thing, so I don't think this issue should necessarily preclude
GNOME Foundation from choosing to officially rely on such software, but I
suggest the issue is at least worth discussing before the change is made.

I won't say more on this issue since I'm only a Member Emeritus; it's for the
members to decide this question.

Tobias Mueller  wrote:
>> I found the discourse mailing list mode to be inferior to a mailing list.

I admit I also agree with this, but I assumed (at least on my old behalf)
that I'm just an old dog who doesn't want to learn new tricks. :)

I admit that especially since becoming Emeritus, it's been easier for me to
check in with what GF is up to by quickly skimming through emails on this
list in my usual way, and I lament the change as it's likely to lead me to
"not check" at all because it won't be worth figuring out Discourse's email
interface to keep up with a project that I'm not actively working with.  But,
again, don't let the opinion of one Emeritus member stop you from needed
progress. :)


This is apropos of nothing, but I wanted to mention that I was on a plane
last week and I saw someone using GNOME.  Usually, when I'm on the plane
going to a tech conference, the person using GNOME is going to the same
conference as me.  Then, I saw they were just using LIbreOffice to work on
mundane business documents -- clearly stuff not related to the tech industry.
This was so wonderful to see and while I know that competing with Microsoft
and Apple for the desktop remains difficult and challenging, there are users
out there who aren't tech geeks using GNOME every day and getting real
introduction to software freedom thanks to the work you all do.  As I said in
my GUADEC keynote years ago, thank you all again for doing this work!


[0] CLA is at


which is linked from 

--
Bradley M. Kuhn - he/him

Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy:
https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
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Re: Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[meg ford via foundation-list]

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 1:28 AM Alexandre Franke  wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 11:14 PM meg ford via foundation-list
>  wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> Hi Meg,
>
> > I'd prefer to use Discourse. I'm sick of the spam and would like to
> leave foundation list, but still want to read Board minutes.
>
> Board minutes are posted to foundation-announce as well so if that’s
> all you care about on foundation-list you can unsubscribe regardless
> of a move to discourse.
>

Thanks! Good point. I do need to send emails to foundation list on behalf
of the Travel Committee though and dealing with moderation as someone who
isn’t a list member could be time consuming.

Meg

>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Alexandre Franke
> GNOME Hacker
>
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Re: Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[Allan Day]

Neil McGovern  wrote:
...
> > I think with Discourse you have to opt in to get email notifications?
> > That could be an issue. Certainly with things like the AGM, the board
> > is required to serve notice to all members.
>
> Yes, you do. Although for AGM notices etc, I don't think it's
> sufficient to simply post to a mailing list. For this year's one, we
> sent an individual mail to each member.

Sorry, I thought that I'd replied to this - thanks for the
clarification. Consider my query resolved - let's make the move!

Allan
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