Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Naomi Slater]

apparently GitHub has discussions now. it's still in beta, but you can 
specifically request it if you want it if you contact support, I think

e.g., https://github.com/zeit/next.js/discussions 


I'm interested to know what we think about this and how this might/could fit 
into our plans for user support, discussion, etc.

> On 13 Mar 2020, at 00:41, Arturo GARCIA-VARGAS  wrote:
> 
> I'm sure Discourse is a fantastic thing (never used it!) but for us dinosaurs 
> that still use Email it would be a bad move.
> 
> Plain text rulez
> 
> On 12 March 2020 23:37:18 GMT+00:00, Joan Touzet  wrote:
>> FYI, WikiMedia are currently looking at moving from mailing lists to 
>> Discourse and have done a comprehensive fit/gap analysis. Here's their 
>> results, as current as 7 March 2020.
>> 
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Discourse
>> 
>> Looks like email integration is still a problem, and specifically the 
>> problem of only-mailing list users being "left behind" (i.e., the
>> bridge 
>> seems to only work correctly one-way.) Other complications include data
>> 
>> export.
>> 
>> -Joan
>> 
>> On 2020-03-12 14:56, Marcus wrote:
>>> The Discourse development team are always very helpful, and
>> friendly.
>>> 
>>> http://meta.discourse.org
>>> 
>>> I am sure they would help CouchDB comply with Apache rules, if there
>> are any technical issues. Once it has been discussed with Apache of
>> course.
>>> 
>>> Discourse is excellent software. Thoughtfully designed and well
>> maintained. I had a Discourse server running on Digital Ocean for two
>> years.
>>> 
>>> It’s really nice to use and gives the community more of a
>> campfire/hub feeling.
>>> 
>>> Discourse is nothing like the old style forum software. There are
>> some talks on YouTube where Jeff (aka codinghorror) discusses how he
>> designed it (I think it was a talk at MIT?). It’s really interesting
>> from a design and development perspective.
>>> 
>>> Marcus
>>> 
>>> 
 On 12. Mar 2020, at 18:27, Joan Touzet  wrote:
 
 Hi Garren, thanks for thinking ahead on this one.
 
> On 2020-03-12 10:32, Garren Smith wrote:
> Hi All,
> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of
>> people
> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is
>> not
> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over
>> and over.
> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have
>> subscribed to
> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However,
>> it's
> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very
>> low user
> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask
>> questions.
> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and
>> the rust
> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really
>> encourage
> participation.
 
 I've been having trouble getting Discourse to send me email
>> notification when someone follows up to my responses to a thread I
>> didn't start. I think I've enabled the correct settings, but it's not
>> acting as expected. Hrm.
 
 I do know that Discourse has a full "mailing list mode," I just
>> haven't wanted 100% of the email from FoundationDB's forum to end up in
>> my inbox. (I *would* want that for user and dev@couchdb.a.o.)
 
> I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse.
>> I think
> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up
>> answers to
> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse
>> threads to
> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that
>> we still
> fulfill our Apache requirements.
 
 We'd for sure have to have everything land on the Apache CouchDB
>> mailing lists as well as here to meet Apache rules and regulations.
>> And, of course, Infrastructure is going to have to approve the move,
>> possibly the Board as well.
 
 With the lists still existing forever, Discourse would need to be
>> configured to accept email responses as well, from people emailing dev@
>> or user@, meaning a *bi-directional email gateway* will likely have to
>> be written/integrated. (I very much doubt Infra will be willing to
>> redirect dev@/user@ _directly_ into Discourse.)
 
 Thus, the bottleneck on the proposal is going to be Infrastructure's
>> desire to move ahead, as well as their ability to put resources on
>> solving the integration issues (unless you're willing to directly
>> volunteer to help code that up.)
 
 Infra may, for instance, want to host Discourse themselves (if I
>> recall correctly, it is self-hostable), and may find some friction
>> between that and the nascent Pony Mail project that serves out
>> lists.apache.org - if not technica

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Joan Touzet]

FYI, WikiMedia are currently looking at moving from mailing lists to 
Discourse and have done a comprehensive fit/gap analysis. Here's their 
results, as current as 7 March 2020.


https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Discourse

Looks like email integration is still a problem, and specifically the 
problem of only-mailing list users being "left behind" (i.e., the bridge 
seems to only work correctly one-way.) Other complications include data 
export.


-Joan

On 2020-03-12 14:56, Marcus wrote:

The Discourse development team are always very helpful, and friendly.

http://meta.discourse.org

I am sure they would help CouchDB comply with Apache rules, if there are any 
technical issues. Once it has been discussed with Apache of course.

Discourse is excellent software. Thoughtfully designed and well maintained. I 
had a Discourse server running on Digital Ocean for two years.

It’s really nice to use and gives the community more of a campfire/hub feeling.

Discourse is nothing like the old style forum software. There are some talks on 
YouTube where Jeff (aka codinghorror) discusses how he designed it (I think it 
was a talk at MIT?). It’s really interesting from a design and development 
perspective.

Marcus



On 12. Mar 2020, at 18:27, Joan Touzet  wrote:

Hi Garren, thanks for thinking ahead on this one.


On 2020-03-12 10:32, Garren Smith wrote:
Hi All,
The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.
I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
participation.


I've been having trouble getting Discourse to send me email notification when 
someone follows up to my responses to a thread I didn't start. I think I've 
enabled the correct settings, but it's not acting as expected. Hrm.

I do know that Discourse has a full "mailing list mode," I just haven't wanted 
100% of the email from FoundationDB's forum to end up in my inbox. (I *would* want that 
for user and dev@couchdb.a.o.)


I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
questions and get involved in the development discussion.
I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
fulfill our Apache requirements.


We'd for sure have to have everything land on the Apache CouchDB mailing lists 
as well as here to meet Apache rules and regulations. And, of course, 
Infrastructure is going to have to approve the move, possibly the Board as well.

With the lists still existing forever, Discourse would need to be configured to 
accept email responses as well, from people emailing dev@ or user@, meaning a 
*bi-directional email gateway* will likely have to be written/integrated. (I 
very much doubt Infra will be willing to redirect dev@/user@ _directly_ into 
Discourse.)

Thus, the bottleneck on the proposal is going to be Infrastructure's desire to 
move ahead, as well as their ability to put resources on solving the 
integration issues (unless you're willing to directly volunteer to help code 
that up.)

Infra may, for instance, want to host Discourse themselves (if I recall 
correctly, it is self-hostable), and may find some friction between that and 
the nascent Pony Mail project that serves out lists.apache.org - if not 
technically, from human factors.

You should, at a bare minimum, familiarise yourself with 
https://lists.apache.org/list.html?d...@couchdb.apache.org and determine why it 
doesn't meet our needs. A bullet-point list would be prudent; Infra is bound to 
raise this as their first point.


I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
but I think it would definitely open up our community.


I'm in support of the idea, but the devil's in the implementation details. Like 
our efforts with git, and Slack, someone is going to have to work together with 
Infra on this for a few months to make it reality. I really hope you're 
volunteering to step up to that role. I certainly don't have the time.


Cheers
Garren


-Joan


[1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
[2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Marcus]

The Discourse development team are always very helpful, and friendly.

http://meta.discourse.org

I am sure they would help CouchDB comply with Apache rules, if there are any 
technical issues. Once it has been discussed with Apache of course. 

Discourse is excellent software. Thoughtfully designed and well maintained. I 
had a Discourse server running on Digital Ocean for two years. 

It’s really nice to use and gives the community more of a campfire/hub feeling.

Discourse is nothing like the old style forum software. There are some talks on 
YouTube where Jeff (aka codinghorror) discusses how he designed it (I think it 
was a talk at MIT?). It’s really interesting from a design and development 
perspective.

Marcus


> On 12. Mar 2020, at 18:27, Joan Touzet  wrote:
> 
> Hi Garren, thanks for thinking ahead on this one.
> 
>> On 2020-03-12 10:32, Garren Smith wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
>> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
>> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
>> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
>> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
>> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
>> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.
>> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
>> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
>> participation.
> 
> I've been having trouble getting Discourse to send me email notification when 
> someone follows up to my responses to a thread I didn't start. I think I've 
> enabled the correct settings, but it's not acting as expected. Hrm.
> 
> I do know that Discourse has a full "mailing list mode," I just haven't 
> wanted 100% of the email from FoundationDB's forum to end up in my inbox. (I 
> *would* want that for user and dev@couchdb.a.o.)
> 
>> I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
>> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
>> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
>> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
>> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
>> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
>> fulfill our Apache requirements.
> 
> We'd for sure have to have everything land on the Apache CouchDB mailing 
> lists as well as here to meet Apache rules and regulations. And, of course, 
> Infrastructure is going to have to approve the move, possibly the Board as 
> well.
> 
> With the lists still existing forever, Discourse would need to be configured 
> to accept email responses as well, from people emailing dev@ or user@, 
> meaning a *bi-directional email gateway* will likely have to be 
> written/integrated. (I very much doubt Infra will be willing to redirect 
> dev@/user@ _directly_ into Discourse.)
> 
> Thus, the bottleneck on the proposal is going to be Infrastructure's desire 
> to move ahead, as well as their ability to put resources on solving the 
> integration issues (unless you're willing to directly volunteer to help code 
> that up.)
> 
> Infra may, for instance, want to host Discourse themselves (if I recall 
> correctly, it is self-hostable), and may find some friction between that and 
> the nascent Pony Mail project that serves out lists.apache.org - if not 
> technically, from human factors.
> 
> You should, at a bare minimum, familiarise yourself with 
> https://lists.apache.org/list.html?d...@couchdb.apache.org and determine why 
> it doesn't meet our needs. A bullet-point list would be prudent; Infra is 
> bound to raise this as their first point.
> 
>> I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
>> but I think it would definitely open up our community.
> 
> I'm in support of the idea, but the devil's in the implementation details. 
> Like our efforts with git, and Slack, someone is going to have to work 
> together with Infra on this for a few months to make it reality. I really 
> hope you're volunteering to step up to that role. I certainly don't have the 
> time.
> 
>> Cheers
>> Garren
> 
> -Joan
> 
>> [1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
>> [2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Bill Stephenson]

I got your previous message just moments before I sent this one, and read it 
afterwards. 

I had no idea there was so many specs on something like this, but it makes 
sense there are. 

Kindest Regards,

Bill Stephenson



> On Mar 12, 2020, at 12:33 PM, Joan Touzet  wrote:
> 
> Hi Bill,
> 
> On 2020-03-12 13:28, Bill Stephenson wrote:
>> I’ve recently pointed a few people on Reddit to this mailing list who were 
>> asking questions there. A forum would probably be a good thing to have.
>> I’m not familiar with Discourse but it looks pretty simple to spin up a 
>> digital ocean vps. 
>> 
>>   “Mail-in-a-box ” makes it pretty easy to set up 
>> an email server. DigitalOcean probably isn’t the best platform for that. I 
>> have one I setup there but it took some time to get the larger mail 
>> providers to unblock it. That’s probably the case no matter how you approach 
>> that though. Using a 3rd party service like MailChimp might be easier but 
>> would probably cost more.
>> Unfortunately I’m not in a position to donate any cash to this but I could 
>> spend some time on getting Discourse up and running on a DO vps if that’s a 
>> viable option.
> 
> Please don't take this step. Apache Infra needs to be aware of what's going 
> on, and fully support whatever approach is taken. Our community cannot be 
> seen to be "going around them" without some severe backlash.
> 
> As I mentioned in my other email, let's work together with them to make this 
> happen.
> 
> -Joan
> 
>> Kindest Regards,
>> Bill Stephenson
>>> On Mar 12, 2020, at 9:32 AM, Garren Smith  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi All,
>>> 
>>> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
>>> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
>>> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
>>> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
>>> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
>>> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
>>> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.
>>> 
>>> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
>>> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
>>> participation. I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
>>> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
>>> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
>>> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
>>> 
>>> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
>>> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
>>> fulfill our Apache requirements.
>>> 
>>> I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
>>> but I think it would definitely open up our community.
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> Garren
>>> 
>>> 
>>> [1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
>>> [2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Joan Touzet]

Hi Bill,

On 2020-03-12 13:28, Bill Stephenson wrote:

I’ve recently pointed a few people on Reddit to this mailing list who were 
asking questions there. A forum would probably be a good thing to have.

I’m not familiar with Discourse but it looks pretty simple to spin up a digital ocean vps. 

  “Mail-in-a-box ” makes it pretty easy to set up an email 
server. DigitalOcean probably isn’t the best platform for that. I have one I setup there but it 
took some time to get the larger mail providers to unblock it. That’s probably the case no 
matter how you approach that though. Using a 3rd party service like MailChimp might be easier 
but would probably cost more.

Unfortunately I’m not in a position to donate any cash to this but I could 
spend some time on getting Discourse up and running on a DO vps if that’s a 
viable option.


Please don't take this step. Apache Infra needs to be aware of what's 
going on, and fully support whatever approach is taken. Our community 
cannot be seen to be "going around them" without some severe backlash.


As I mentioned in my other email, let's work together with them to make 
this happen.


-Joan



Kindest Regards,

Bill Stephenson






On Mar 12, 2020, at 9:32 AM, Garren Smith  wrote:

Hi All,

The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.

I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
participation. I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
questions and get involved in the development discussion.

I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
fulfill our Apache requirements.

I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
but I think it would definitely open up our community.

Cheers
Garren


[1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
[2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Bill Stephenson]

I’ve recently pointed a few people on Reddit to this mailing list who were 
asking questions there. A forum would probably be a good thing to have. 

I’m not familiar with Discourse but it looks pretty simple to spin up a digital 
ocean vps. 

  “Mail-in-a-box ” makes it pretty easy to set up an 
email server. DigitalOcean probably isn’t the best platform for that. I have 
one I setup there but it took some time to get the larger mail providers to 
unblock it. That’s probably the case no matter how you approach that though. 
Using a 3rd party service like MailChimp might be easier but would probably 
cost more.

Unfortunately I’m not in a position to donate any cash to this but I could 
spend some time on getting Discourse up and running on a DO vps if that’s a 
viable option. 

Kindest Regards,

Bill Stephenson





> On Mar 12, 2020, at 9:32 AM, Garren Smith  wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.
> 
> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
> participation. I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
> 
> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
> fulfill our Apache requirements.
> 
> I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
> but I think it would definitely open up our community.
> 
> Cheers
> Garren
> 
> 
> [1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
> [2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Joan Touzet]

Hi Garren, thanks for thinking ahead on this one.

On 2020-03-12 10:32, Garren Smith wrote:

Hi All,

The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.

I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
participation.


I've been having trouble getting Discourse to send me email notification 
when someone follows up to my responses to a thread I didn't start. I 
think I've enabled the correct settings, but it's not acting as 
expected. Hrm.


I do know that Discourse has a full "mailing list mode," I just haven't 
wanted 100% of the email from FoundationDB's forum to end up in my 
inbox. (I *would* want that for user and dev@couchdb.a.o.)



I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
questions and get involved in the development discussion.
I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
fulfill our Apache requirements.


We'd for sure have to have everything land on the Apache CouchDB mailing 
lists as well as here to meet Apache rules and regulations. And, of 
course, Infrastructure is going to have to approve the move, possibly 
the Board as well.


With the lists still existing forever, Discourse would need to be 
configured to accept email responses as well, from people emailing dev@ 
or user@, meaning a *bi-directional email gateway* will likely have to 
be written/integrated. (I very much doubt Infra will be willing to 
redirect dev@/user@ _directly_ into Discourse.)


Thus, the bottleneck on the proposal is going to be Infrastructure's 
desire to move ahead, as well as their ability to put resources on 
solving the integration issues (unless you're willing to directly 
volunteer to help code that up.)


Infra may, for instance, want to host Discourse themselves (if I recall 
correctly, it is self-hostable), and may find some friction between that 
and the nascent Pony Mail project that serves out lists.apache.org - if 
not technically, from human factors.


You should, at a bare minimum, familiarise yourself with 
https://lists.apache.org/list.html?d...@couchdb.apache.org and determine 
why it doesn't meet our needs. A bullet-point list would be prudent; 
Infra is bound to raise this as their first point.



I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
but I think it would definitely open up our community.


I'm in support of the idea, but the devil's in the implementation 
details. Like our efforts with git, and Slack, someone is going to have 
to work together with Infra on this for a few months to make it reality. 
I really hope you're volunteering to step up to that role. I certainly 
don't have the time.




Cheers
Garren


-Joan


[1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
[2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Paul Davis]

Ah, fair point!

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 10:25 AM Jan Lehnardt  wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 12. Mar 2020, at 16:21, Paul Davis  wrote:
> >
> > I'm not against anything of that nature, but if memory serves the
> > email lists are dictated by ASF policy.
>
> If you remember when we did the GitHub transition, as long as we can make
> sure messages end up on a mailing list, we should be fine wrt the 
> requirements.
>
> Best
> Jan
> —
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 9:32 AM Garren Smith  wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
> >> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
> >> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
> >> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
> >> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
> >> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
> >> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask 
> >> questions.
> >>
> >> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
> >> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
> >> participation. I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
> >> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
> >> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
> >> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
> >>
> >> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
> >> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
> >> fulfill our Apache requirements.
> >>
> >> I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
> >> but I think it would definitely open up our community.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >> Garren
> >>
> >>
> >> [1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
> >> [2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/
>

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Jan Lehnardt]

> On 12. Mar 2020, at 16:21, Paul Davis  wrote:
> 
> I'm not against anything of that nature, but if memory serves the
> email lists are dictated by ASF policy.

If you remember when we did the GitHub transition, as long as we can make
sure messages end up on a mailing list, we should be fine wrt the requirements.

Best
Jan
—
> 
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 9:32 AM Garren Smith  wrote:
>> 
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
>> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
>> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
>> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
>> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
>> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
>> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.
>> 
>> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
>> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
>> participation. I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
>> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
>> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
>> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
>> 
>> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
>> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
>> fulfill our Apache requirements.
>> 
>> I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
>> but I think it would definitely open up our community.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Garren
>> 
>> 
>> [1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
>> [2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/

Re: [DISCUSS] moving email lists to Discourse

[Paul Davis]

I'm not against anything of that nature, but if memory serves the
email lists are dictated by ASF policy.

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 9:32 AM Garren Smith  wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> The CouchDB slack channel has been a real success with lots of people
> asking for help and getting involved. The main issue is that it is not
> searchable so we often get people asking the same questions over and over.
> The user mailing list is great in that sense that if you have subscribed to
> it you have a searchable list of questions and answers. However, it's
> really not user-friendly and judging by the fact that it has very low user
> participation I'm guessing most people prefer to use slack to ask questions.
>
> I've been really impressed with how the FoundationDB forum[1] and the rust
> internal forum work [2]. I find them easy to use and really encourage
> participation. I would like to propose that we move our user and dev
> discussion to Discourse or a forum that works as well as Discourse. I think
> that would make it really easy for users of CouchDB to look up answers to
> questions and get involved in the development discussion.
>
> I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure we could get all discourse threads to
> automatically email back to the user and dev mailing list so that we still
> fulfill our Apache requirements.
>
> I know its a big step away from what we're used to with our mailing lists,
> but I think it would definitely open up our community.
>
> Cheers
> Garren
>
>
> [1] https://forums.foundationdb.org/
> [2] https://internals.rust-lang.org/