Re: [opennic-discuss] [PROPOSAL] Migrating from Sympa to Discourse

Perhaps one proposal with Discourse for everything with an effective date of October, and then a proposal to use Fusl's Wiki plugin for voting with the same effective date, so that whatever OpenNIC members decide on will take effect at the same time?

--

-Dan Q


On Thu, 02 Aug 2018 16:50:43 -0400 (EDT), "Daniel Quintiliani" <[email protected]> wrote:

> There is an issue I thought of here.
> 
> Many of those who would support migrating to Discourse want to use Fusl's Wiki plugin for voting, while others want to use Discourse for everything.
> 
> Which vote should come first?
> 
> --
> 
> -Dan Q
> 
> 
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 20:14:20 -0400, Rouben <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Are there plans to tie into LDAP so one doesn’t need to register for an
> > account, beyond specifying their email address and other profile data?
> > 
> > On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 14:57 Jonah Aragon <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> > > We now have a testing Discourse server up and running! Feel free to create
> > > an account at https://discourse-dev.opennic.org/ and test it out!
> > >
> > > After creating an account, you will have the option to enable “Mailing
> > > List Mode,” which replicates the functionality of a traditional mailing
> > > list such as this one (i.e. you will receive an email for each post and
> > > reply). Follow these instructions to do so if you so choose:
> > > https://gist.github.com/JonahAragon/6b5aef4f076d3640815cbe8dfdb133e8#mailing-list-mode
> > >
> > > Additionally, mailing in to create a post is available. To post in the
> > > “General” category (which is where basically everything besides support
> > > requests will go at the moment) simply send an email to
> > > [email protected] from your account’s email (you will
> > > need to register beforehand).
> > >
> > > Please send me any feedback you may have. This is just a server setup for
> > > testing purposes so feel free to mess around with it and see what it can
> > > do, and what will need changing before we switch to it in production.
> > >
> > > Feel free to email me here with any feedback, or post it in the Site
> > > Feedback section on Discourse so I can see what may need to be changed.
> > >
> > > Jonah
> > >
> > > (I thought I sent this to the mailing list earlier but I may have just
> > > sent it to myself, whoops!)
> > >
> > > > On Jul 7, 2018, at 1:35 PM, JONAH ARAGON <[email protected]> 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 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].
> > > >
> > > > 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
> > >
> > > Jonah
> > >
> > > --
> > Rouben
> > 
> > 
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