Re: [opennic-discuss] [PROPOSAL] Migrating from Sympa to Discourse
Amunak <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.network.opennic.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
My comment is about Discourse. Though Discord does have similar issues, like the wonderful idea of bundling a whole Chrome instance into the application (which is just a glorified SPA with little regard to OS conventions and native design anyway). On 16.07.2018 13:47, Rouben wrote: > Is your comment about Discourse or Discord? > > To quote Jonah: > Discord (proprietary chat platform) != Discourse (open source > forum/mailing list hybrid) > > On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 05:27 Amunak <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > My issue with Discourse is that the sheer amount of scripts (that > it absolutely cannot work without) indicates that it's not a very > well designed app; not in mind with obscure clients or people who > may wish to run as little scripts as they want (for whatever > reason). It also seems unnecessarily complicated as a replacement > for a system that works very well. > > Then you also have the issue with admin(s) being potentially able > to censor others fairly easily and people not having full copies > of all messages at all times. > > > On 07.07.2018 20:35, Jonah Aragon wrote: >> Hello all! >> >> This is going to be a pretty big proposal today, since not much >> has happened in a while. TL;DR: we should move to Discourse (but >> I hope you'll read the rest of this mail anyways). >> >> ## It's just a proposal. >> >> I want to be clear right from the start that this is just a >> proposal, nothing here is guaranteed, and the entire point of >> this thread is to hear your opinions. Before shutting it down, >> lets see if we can reach some sort of agreement. >> >> ## Why should we do this? >> >> For quite some time, I've been thinking about ways OpenNIC's >> community platforms have been a success, and ways we could >> improve ourselves, especially in terms of gaining new users and >> fostering regular discussion. Times change, and a mailing list is >> simply a relic of another era. I firmly believe there is a >> significant group of people that would join our community, but >> don't want to join a mailing list. In these modern times, people >> simply expect a UI to join platforms like this, and are a lot >> more comfortable there/online versus participating via email. >> This is a thought I've heard repeated by other community members >> here, so I'm not alone. >> >> ## Why Discourse?/Why a forum? >> >> Let me just link >> to https://blog.discourse.org/category/use-cases/ for an >> overview, but I'll pull out some especially useful examples >> below, in no particular order. >> >> * Easier for new users to get started with a clean and simple >> interface >> * Better search and search engine indexing >> * Post creation tries to be helpful, suggesting similar topics >> that already exist. >> * Markdown support. >> * Category-level subscriptions. >> * Browser & phone push notifications for new posts. >> * Community digest by email & “unread” on the web (for those who >> can’t keep an eye on the web site all the time). >> * Converting a post to a wiki post, so everyone can edit it. >> * Group-level notifications. >> >> In an overall sense, migrating to a forum, and Discourse in >> particular grants us many new features out of the box, that >> aren't replicable on a list like this, as well as flexibility in >> the future. >> >> ## How it helps with support >> >> When it comes to support, especially with integral operating >> system components like DNS, which we specialize in, what matters >> is that users can ask a question and get a reply that they can >> feel confident in. >> >> The problem with mailing lists is that neither of these things >> are really achievable on a mailing list. If a user, who just >> joined this mailing list and knows nobody, gets two differing >> replies, who is (s)he to trust? A forum on the other hand can >> display user reputation levels, badges, and titles that >> distinguish trusted members of our community from another new >> user's reply. A mailing list has nothing distinguishing users >> apart whatsoever, to the point where I still have to check >> peoples history and qualifications after years of participating here. >> >> Discourse specifically also helps new users by showing "Similar >> Topics" when they're creating a post, ideally pointing them to >> existing resources before starting a new thread. This is >> impossible for new users to do from within their mailbox, and >> incredibly difficult to find via Sympa's uh, "lacking," web >> interface. Features like this can prevent duplicate posts from >> cluttering our platform. >> >> Discourse also supports plugins (it's a Rails app) which should >> allow us to look at things like issue templates, etc. for people >> needing support with some of our services like Tier 2 servers. >> >> ## How it helps with announcements >> >> We currently don't have a dedicated announcements platform, >> making it impossible for any organizationally relevant news to be >> shown to many new users. Currently, our only option is to send it >> to the mailing list, which is what we currently do, but that >> leads to important information being lost among the other >> threads. Discourse has supports for sticky posts and a global >> announcements banner we can use to get important messages across. >> >> ## More general notes >> >> Discourse has a lot of things going for it, as a platform. Groups >> support for example, can help segment our members into groups we >> can use for notifications, etc. If there's a change to the root >> zone for example, a quick ping to @tier2ops from our Tier 0 >> administrator can notify them all right away. Groups can be >> invite-only or users can self-select to join them, depending on >> configuration. >> >> Additionally, private messages may be useful, especially if >> somebody is offline on IRC, which happens often. It also has a >> privacy benefit over the mailing list: many users are a lot more >> comfortable sharing usernames versus their email address. >> >> ## But I love mailing lists! >> >> Discourse does offer a per-user "mailing list mode" you can >> enable. Now, I'm not going to try and sell this as a 1:1 >> replacement for this mailing list, but a lot of the core >> functionality can remain the same. Creating new topics, replying >> to posts, and getting individual replies via email should all >> work. Threading works too, so the basic functionality of a >> mailing list should work fine. >> >> Is it a perfect replacement for this use-case? No. Is it a >> worthwhile tradeoff? I think so, you tell me :) >> >> ## How will this server work? >> >> @fusl (Katie) will be hosting a Discourse server for us. (As an >> aside, she also hosts the wiki, our two active anycast servers, >> and a lot of backend stuff for this organization). I'm hoping to >> get Discourse online within the next week or two at >> community.opennic.org <http://community.opennic.org> that we can >> test out, which would become our live server if this proposal is >> approved. >> >> ## What's next? >> >> Nothing immediately. I want to gather a lot of feedback on this >> proposal before we proceed. I'll be here to answer any questions, >> and you can also email me privately with any questions/concerns >> at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>. >> >> After some time, exactly how long depending on the amount/type of >> feedback we get on this proposal, we'll be able to look at >> everything and come to a decision, and bring it to a vote here. >> This time around I don't want to rush anything, and I want to >> make sure we consider everything before coming to a conclusion, >> so please voice any feedback you may have. It's a pretty big >> change, organizationally, and I want to make sure we get >> everything right. >> >> I very much hope everyone here will support me on our journey to >> the modern world. Change isn't easy for anybody, but I genuinely >> believe we need this to happen. Let me know your thoughts! >> >> Thanks everybody, >> >> Jonah >> >> >> -------- >> You are a member of the OpenNIC Discuss list. >> You may unsubscribe by emailing [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]> > > > > -------- > You are a member of the OpenNIC Discuss list. > You may unsubscribe by emailing > [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > > -- > Rouben > > > > -------- > You are a member of the OpenNIC Discuss list. > You may unsubscribe by emailing [email protected] -------- You are a member of the OpenNIC Discuss list. You may unsubscribe by emailing [email protected]