Hi Xintong, I'm not sure if slack is the right tool for the job. IMO it works great as an adhoc tool for discussion between developers, but it's not searchable and it's not persistent. Between devs, it works fine, as long as the result of the ad hoc discussions is backported to JIRA/mailing list/design doc. For users, that simply would be extremely difficult to achieve. In the result, I would be afraid we are answering the same questions over, and over and over again, without even a way to provide a link to the previous thread, because nobody can search for it .
I'm +1 for having an open and shared slack space/channel for the contributors, but I think I would be -1 for such channels for the users. For users, I would prefer to focus more on, for example, stackoverflow. With upvoting, clever sorting of the answers (not the oldest/newest at top) it's easily searchable - those features make it fit our use case much better IMO. Best, Piotrek pt., 6 maj 2022 o 11:08 Xintong Song <tonysong...@gmail.com> napisał(a): > Thank you~ > > Xintong Song > > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Xintong Song <tonysong...@gmail.com> > Date: Fri, May 6, 2022 at 5:07 PM > Subject: Re: [Discuss] Creating an Apache Flink slack workspace > To: private <priv...@flink.apache.org> > Cc: Chesnay Schepler <ches...@apache.org> > > > Hi Chesnay, > > Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't find this is *repeatedly* discussed on the > ML. The only discussions I find are [1] & [2], which are 4 years ago. On > the other hand, I do find many users are asking questions about whether > Slack should be supported [2][3][4]. Besides, I also find a recent > discussion thread from ComDev [5], where alternative communication channels > are being discussed. It seems to me ASF is quite open to having such > additional channels and they have been worked well for many projects > already. > > I see two reasons for brining this discussion again: > 1. There are indeed many things that have change during the past 4 years. > We have more contributors, including committers and PMC members, and even > more users from various organizations and timezones. That also means more > discussions and Q&As are happening. > 2. The proposal here is different from the previous discussion. Instead of > maintaining a channel for Flink in the ASF workspace, here we are proposing > to create a dedicated Apache Flink slack workspace. And instead of *moving* > the discussion to Slack, we are proposing to add a Slack Workspace as an > addition to the ML. > > Below is your opinions that I found from your previous -1 [1]. IIUR, these > are all about the using ASF Slack Workspace. If I overlooked anything, > please let me know. > > > 1. According to INFRA-14292 < > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-14292> the ASF Slack isn't > > run by the ASF. This alone puts this service into rather questionable > > territory as it /looks/ like an official ASF service. If anyone can > provide > > information to the contrary, please do so. > > 2. We already discuss things on the mailing lists, JIRA and GitHub. All of > > these are available to the public, whereas the slack channel requires an > > @apache mail address, i.e. you have to be a committer. This minimizes the > > target audience rather significantly. I would much rather prefer > something > > that is also available to contributors. > > > I do agree this should be decided by the whole community. I'll forward this > to dev@ and user@ ML. > > Thank you~ > > Xintong Song > > > [1] https://lists.apache.org/thread/gxwv49ssq82g06dbhy339x6rdxtlcv3d > [2] https://lists.apache.org/thread/kcym1sozkrtwxw1fjbnwk1nqrrlzolcc > [3] https://lists.apache.org/thread/7rmd3ov6sv3wwhflp97n4czz25hvmqm6 > [4] https://lists.apache.org/thread/n5y1kzv50bkkbl3ys494dglyxl45bmts > [5] https://lists.apache.org/thread/fzwd3lj0x53hkq3od5ot0y719dn3kj1j > > On Fri, May 6, 2022 at 3:05 PM Chesnay Schepler <ches...@apache.org> > wrote: > > > This has been repeatedly discussed on the ML over the years and was > > rejected every time. > > > > I don't see that anything has changed that would invalidate the > previously > > raised arguments against it, so I'm still -1 on it. > > > > This is also not something the PMC should decide anyway, but the project > > as a whole. > > > > On 06/05/2022 06:48, Jark Wu wrote: > > > > Thank Xintong, for starting this exciting topic. > > > > I think Slack would be an essential addition to the mailing list. > > I have talked with some Flink users, and they are surprised > > Flink doesn't have Slack yet, and they would love to use Slack. > > We can also see a trend that new open-source communities > > are using Slack as the community base camp. > > > > Slack is also helpful for brainstorming and asking people for opinions > and > > use cases. > > I think Slack is not only another place for Q&A but also a connection to > > the Flink users. > > We can create more channels to make the community have more social > > attributes, for example, > > - Share ideas, projects, integrations, articles, and presentations > > related to Flink in the #shows channel > > - Flink releases, events in the #news channel > > > > Thus, I'm +1 to create an Apache Flink slack, and I can help set up the > > Flink slack and maintain it. > > > > Best, > > Jark > > > > On Fri, 6 May 2022 at 10:38, Xintong Song <tonysong...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Hi all, > >> > >> I’d like to start a discussion on creating an Apache Flink slack > >> workspace. > >> > >> ## Motivation > >> Today many organizations choose to do real time communication through > >> slack. IMHO, we, Flink, as a technique for real time computing, should > >> embrace the more real time way for communication, especially for ad-hoc > >> questions and interactions. With more and more contributors from > different > >> organizations joining this community, it would be good to provide a > common > >> channel for such real time communications. Therefore, I'd propose to > create > >> an Apache Flink slack workspace that is maintained by the Flink PMC. > >> > >> ## Benefits > >> - Easier to reach out to people. Messages are less likely overlooked. > >> - Realtime messages, voice / video calls, file transmissions that help > >> improve the communication efficiency. > >> - Finer-grained channels (e.g., flink-ml, flink-statefun, temporal > >> discussion channels for specific topics, etc.). > >> > >> ## Relationship with the mailing lists > >> I think the slack workspace should be an extension rather than a > >> replacement of the mailing lists. Community members should still be > able to > >> follow what’s going on from solely the mailing lists. That means: > >> a) All the decisions, conclusions and important opinions should be > >> reflected back to the mailing lists. After all, according to the Apache > >> Way, if it didn’t happen on a mailing list, it didn’t happen. > >> b) We should encourage people to only ask ad hoc questions on slack. > Long > >> conversations (or ad hoc questions that grow long) should be posted on > the > >> mailing lists, and can be referenced on slack for a real time > discussion. > >> > >> ## Responsiveness > >> Using slack does not mean people being pinged need to be responsive. We > >> are in an open-sourced community where all contributors are volunteers. > >> Slack should be used to make communication easier only when all the > peers > >> are convenient. We should make it clear that people should not expect > >> others to always be responsive. > >> > >> ## Archivability and searchability > >> One of the shortcomings that Slack is often mentioned with is its lack > of > >> capability to archive conversations and to search among them. There are > >> various tools that help address this problem[1]. As a first step, we may > >> start with simply relying on reflecting things back to the mailing > lists. > >> IMHO, if everything important is properly reflected back to the mailing > >> lists, we don’t really need the archivability and searchability. > >> > >> ## Other communities > >> AFAIK, there are many popular open-source projects (Apache hosted or > not) > >> that have their own Slack workspace: AirFlow [2], IceBerg [3], HBase [4] > >> etc. > >> > >> To name the Slack workspace with Apache Flink, we would need an official > >> vote and approval from the PMC members. But before we get to that, I’d > like > >> to hear more about what you think. > >> > >> Thank you~ > >> > >> Xintong Song > >> > >> > >> [1] http://apache-airflow.slack-archives.org > >> [2] https://airflow.apache.org/community > >> [3] https://iceberg.apache.org/community/#slack > >> [4] https://hbase.apache.org/book.html#trouble.resources.slack > >> > > > > >
