Discuss mailing list

[sy <sy AT zm.is>]

Why not take the opportunity to also implement an actual voting platform?

On the ML, people sometimes reply to other peoples' justifications of their 
votes, which confuses things, and counting votes manually is laborious and 
error prone.

On July 7, 2018 8:37:52 PM UTC, vv AT cgs.pw wrote:
>Perhaps I misunderstood, but I don't think that
>Discord was intended to replace the mailing list.
>If I understand correctly, the ML would still be
>where voting take place.
>
>~ Ole
>
>
>On Sat, 07 Jul 2018 15:50:33 -0400 (EDT)
>"Daniel Quintiliani" <danq AT runbox.com> wrote:
>
>> My main concern is the ability to edit messages, which
>> could result in manipulation of votes. Even if users
>> editing their messages is disabled, a disgruntled or
>> dishonest admin can cause trouble. Perhaps something like
>> groups.io would be a better idea?
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> -Dan Q
>> 
>> On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 13:35:39 -0500, Jonah Aragon
>> <jonah AT triplebit.net> 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
>> > jonah AT triplebit.net.
>> > 
>> > 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
>> > 
>> > 
>> > --------
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>> 
>>