Almost three years ago, we moved the existing Ask Fedora site from an
engine which attempted to replicate Stack Exchange to a new system (the
current [Ask Fedora]) based on [Discourse], a modern open source web
forum platform. We had some frustrations with the software, and the
Stack-Exchange-like approach wasn't really working for us. This has
been a huge success, and the new Ask is incredibly popular.
At the same time, we also tried an experiment — we set up [Fedora
Discussion] as a parallel site for community and project conversations.
This goes hand-in-hand with the (soft-launch, but we're getting there)
[Matrix]-based [Fedora Chat] service — Discussion for longer-form,
long-lasting asynchronous communication, and Chat for synchronous
connections.
This experiment has gone well, and we have solid and increasing use,
with several different Fedora teams (including Fedora Council and
CommOps) making it their primary place for communication. We've had
some nice improvements over time as we've learned to use the system
(not to mention a nice new logo from Máirín Duffy and the Fedora Design
Team). But, the site's basic structure is still what we arbitrarily
came up with when we first launched it: kind of a mishmash of
categories and concepts. As we've had more requests to use the site,
it's become increasingly clear that these early decisions don't match
what we need.
So, I'm going to take the opportunity of the end-of-year break to do a
big reorganization. You can read the [background and details], and
[follow along with my task-list] if you like. The important details
are: I'm going to do most of the work behind the scenes on a temporary
staging site, but there's a lot of shuffling so I'm not sure how long
it will take. I plan to put the **current site into read-only mode on
the 27th or 28th of December, and have it back up and running by
January 1st**.
When that's done, we'll have a structure that will better handle
discussion in all the different areas and teams that comprise the whole
Fedora Project. I expect this to continue to grow in the years to come,
as part of our [overall effort to keep Fedora relevant and growing].
(Of course, [HyperKitty] is still there for more traditional mailing
lists — Discourse has a fairly decent email interaction model, but it's
definitely web-first in approach.) More about all of that when the new
site is in place and ready to show off!
(Oh, and one more thing — based on [discussion and broad community
consensus], we're actually planning to merge the two Discourse sites,
Ask and Discussion, so that we have both user and contributor
conversations close together. This reorganization will make that
easier, but we're not ready for that for a while yet.)
-- Matthew
[Ask Fedora]: https://ask.fedoraproject.org/
[Discourse]: https://www.discourse.org/
[Fedora Discussion]: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/
[Matrix]: https://matrix.org/discover/
[Fedora Chat]: https://chat.fedoraproject.org/
[background and details]: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/considering-a-general-reorganization-of-this-site/34174
[follow along with my task-list]: https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/task-list-for-fedora-discussion-reorganization/19304
[overall effort to keep Fedora relevant and growing]: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-in-2025-what-do-we-want-and-how-will-we-get-there/35258/23
[HyperKitty]: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/
[discussion and broad community consensus]: https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/considering-a-merge-into-discussion-fedoraproject-org/18941
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Fedora Project Leader
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