Re: Mailing list vs. Discourse: proposal

Joe Harrington <[email protected]> Wed, 3 Apr 2024 13:17:18 -0400
Newsgroups gmane.comp.python.scientific.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
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My main/only concern is switching costs / lock-in to proprietary 
services for open-source projects.  If the service you are looking at 
"owns" the content in some sense, such that you have to be a member, 
pay, potentially pay in the future, or depend on their continued 
existence for access to content, then I'd raise an objection as someone 
who was once heavily involved and who continues to monitor development.

If there's something like a mailing list archive in a format that can be 
monitored in real time and that would survive the termination of the 
company/organization hosting it, then it's fine.  Something like Slack 
or Teams is a non-starter because the content can't be mass-downloaded 
and hosted outside the service, so the service could suddenly impose 
fees or terminate business if bought by a competitor, and we'd lose 
everything.  There are frequent references in the discussions to past 
discussions and decisions.  I would not want us to generate a bunch of 
history and then loose access to it.

I'm not familiar with Discuss, and perhaps not everyone is. Could you 
elaborate a bit about these concerns?

Thanks,

--jh--
Joe Harrington
Office of Research, Department of Physics, and Florida Space Institute
University of Central Florida
Founder of the NumPy/SciPy Documentation Project

On 4/3/24 10:04, Melissa Mendonça wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> We are proposing to move the development discussions from 
> [email protected] to 
> https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/contributor/scipy
>
> The proposal is as follows:
> - We start using Discourse as a replacement to [email protected]
> - We don't move the mailing list archive and history. That will all be 
> frozen at the current location 
> (https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/scipy-dev.python.org/). While 
> it is possible to migrate the history to Discourse, this makes the 
> transition A LOT more complicated including potentially exposing 
> private email addresses which is something we probably don't want to do.
> - Posters will have the ability to post on the website forum or 
> through email. I am personally still getting used to the Discourse 
> interface, but it seems it is possible to interact with the forum 
> through email only if that is preferred, so hopefully those who would 
> like to keep the email workflow would not have to adapt too much. This 
> message was posted through email, for example: 
> https://discuss.scientific-python.org/t/this-is-a-test-message/1117
>
> Note that there are two forums for SciPy in the Scientific Python 
> discourse:
> - https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/contributor/scipy (for 
> developer discussions)
> - https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/user/scipy (for user 
> discussions)
>
> There is no expectation that maintainers would monitor the user forum.
>
> I hope this is clear - let me know if you need more information. The 
> forum is already open so anyone can post there. Let me know your thoughts.
>
> Thank you Stéfan van der Walt for the help setting this up and 
> Pamphile Roy for the previous work on setting up the forum!
>
> - Melissa
>
> _______________________________________________
> SciPy-Dev mailing list [email protected]
> To unsubscribe send an email [email protected]
> https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/scipy-dev.python.org/
> Member address:[email protected]
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    <p>My main/only concern is switching costs / lock-in to proprietary
      services for open-source projects.  If the service you are looking
      at "owns" the content in some sense, such that you have to be a
      member, pay, potentially pay in the future, or depend on their
      continued existence for access to content, then I'd raise an
      objection as someone who was once heavily involved and who
      continues to monitor development.  </p>
    <p>If there's something like a mailing list archive in a format that
      can be monitored in real time and that would survive the
      termination of the company/organization hosting it, then it's
      fine.  Something like Slack or Teams is a non-starter because the
      content can't be mass-downloaded and hosted outside the service,
      so the service could suddenly impose fees or terminate business if
      bought by a competitor, and we'd lose everything.  There are
      frequent references in the discussions to past discussions and
      decisions.  I would not want us to generate a bunch of history and
      then loose access to it.<br>
    </p>
    <p>I'm not familiar with Discuss, and perhaps not everyone is. 
      Could you elaborate a bit about these concerns?</p>
    <p>Thanks,<br>
    </p>
    <p>--jh--<br>
      Joe Harrington<br>
      Office of Research, Department of Physics, and Florida Space
      Institute<br>
      University of Central Florida<br>
      Founder of the NumPy/SciPy Documentation Project<br>
      <br>
    </p>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/3/24 10:04, Melissa Mendonça
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAC7J6VZpNqZ3h3sGP06b-j_63v1DuXiuPEWQR6KbpFkCVzXwDw@mail.gmail.com">
      <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
      <div dir="ltr">
        <div class="gmail_quote">
          <div dir="ltr">
            <div>Hi all!</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>We are proposing to move the development discussions
              from <a href="mailto:[email protected]"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                class="moz-txt-link-freetext">[email protected]</a>
              to <a
href="https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/contributor/scipy"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/contributor/scipy</a></div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>The proposal is as follows:</div>
            <div>- We start using Discourse as a replacement to <a
                href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank"
                moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">[email protected]</a><br>
            </div>
            <div>- We don't move the mailing list archive and history.
              That will all be frozen at the current location (<a
href="https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/scipy-dev.python.org/"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/scipy-dev.python.org/</a>).
              While it is possible to migrate the history to Discourse,
              this makes the transition A LOT more complicated including
              potentially exposing private email addresses which is
              something we probably don't want to do.</div>
            <div>- Posters will have the ability to post on the website
              forum or through email. I am personally still getting used
              to the Discourse interface, but it seems it is possible to
              interact with the forum through email only if that is
              preferred, so hopefully those who would like to keep the
              email workflow would not have to adapt too much. This
              message was posted through email, for example: <a
href="https://discuss.scientific-python.org/t/this-is-a-test-message/1117"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://discuss.scientific-python.org/t/this-is-a-test-message/1117</a></div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>Note that there are two forums for SciPy in the
              Scientific Python discourse: <br>
            </div>
            <div>- <a
href="https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/contributor/scipy"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/contributor/scipy</a>
              (for developer discussions)</div>
            <div>- <a
href="https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/user/scipy"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://discuss.scientific-python.org/c/user/scipy</a>
              (for user discussions)</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>There is no expectation that maintainers would monitor
              the user forum.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>I hope this is clear - let me know if you need more
              information. The forum is already open so anyone can post
              there. Let me know your thoughts.<br>
            </div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>Thank you Stéfan van der Walt for the help setting this
              up and Pamphile Roy for the previous work on setting up
              the forum!</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>- Melissa<br>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
      <br>
      <fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
SciPy-Dev mailing list -- <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>
To unsubscribe send an email to <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/scipy-dev.python.org/">https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/scipy-dev.python.org/</a>
Member address: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>
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