Re: It’s time to transform the Fedora devel list into something new

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On Fri, Apr 21, 2023 at 10:50:42AM +0200, Jarek Prokop wrote:
> >also drives us towards more scattered communications. Our infamous
> >mega-threads are not really effective for getting to community
> >consensus, and tend to bring out the worst in us.
> 
> Passionate people generate passionate discussion.
> 
> The only thing you will gain by a forum is that at the point
> the message will not be deemed appropriate, it will probably
> be deleted or "beatified" by the mod team. The passion from our
> human nature will not go away with a platform change.

That's true -- and I'm not looking to get rid of passion, or silence
opinions. But when something is _really_ out of line (often written in the
heat of the moment), it's better to have options to ... as you say,
beautify* the conversation. That makes it better for other people
participating, and better for the person who has a chance to make their
point in a more constructive way.

* also, to fix typos :) 

[snip]
> A discussion to a technical change, for me, will forever be in a ticket.
> No matter the "wider discussion platform" projects will always have
> bug trackers where one can create a ticket.

Of course. That's not what I'm talking about. Consider for example this:
https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/2817. That's not about the technical decision
itself -- it's an branch of the conversation that should have been here.

> >biased towards those for whom it is working just fine. But, core Fedora
> >development discussion can’t be limited to that ever-shrinking group.
> >Consider who isn’t here. The problems are real, and the trend isn’t in
> >a good direction.
> But, is it shrinking due to a platform, or something other?

I don't think Fedora contribution and activity overall are shrinking. And
I'm quite convinced that the platform is part of it.

> It makes me want to try discourse out, not saying I'll stick around,

I'm glad to hear that. 

> I am, luckily, not paid to read forums
> with no threading. IMO, a stream of posts with mentions of previous
> posts is not threading. Threading begins and ends
> on new topic posts AFAICT on discourse.

It's not presented as a tree, but there _are_ threads of replies. If you see
something like "2 replies" under a particular post, you can click that and
the view will be restricted to just those replies, which you can then follow
further.

Example: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/future-of-encryption-in-fedora-desktop-variants/80397/83?replies_to_post_number=83

But also, yes — when something really diverges in Discourse, it should be a
new topic. A moderator can move things after the fact (like I did with
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/getting-systemd-homed-working-properly-on-fedora-workstation/81004)
but even better, when replying, you can create a linked topic. See
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/site-tip-create-linked-topics-for-deep-dives-or-tangents/34526

> But I'd be happier if there was some
> tangible metric how to measure if we got more *related to the topic*
> engagement.
> I would hate to see 20 "+1" posts from "random" users counted
> towards "it is better now".

That's reasonable. Do you have suggestions for a good metric?

> >In Project Discussion, each different Fedora team can have its own tag,
> >and you can subscribe to those that you’re interested in. Cross-posting
> >is easy: tag a post with multiple teams.
> I'd be interested in having a kind of "crossroad sign", to direct me
> towards tags what I would care about
> from a packager perspective. Not happy about this change, but it
> would make my experience a bit better...

There's a big _index_ at https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/tags, but
that's probably bit much (while at the same time not containing enough
description). What would this "sign" ideally look like to you?


> >That said, it is web-first software. (Or mobile, if that’s your thing.)
> >That requires some adjustment, I know. I hope opening up a Fedora
> >Discussion tab – or keeping one open — becomes an easy habit.
> If I was a volunteer that's the thing I'd remember once in a blue
> moon that it even exists.
> But I guess that's just person to person :).

There _are_ email notifications, and you can interact by replying to them.
(You can even +1 or <3.)

There is also a "digest" mail sent automatically if you're not active,
showing active topics possibly of interest, which can serve as a
more-frequent-than-blue-moon reminder. (You can turn this off, of course.)


> As a person in my early 20s, I hate how everything is becoming web centric
> and no one can convince me to feel otherwise. While I am hearing from
> varying people around me, how it must be bad using email, it provides
> client-side filtering unparalleled by any platform that I used in the
> past.

It's fine, but it's no NNTP. That was really the best. :)

Do take a look at

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/guide-to-interacting-with-this-site-by-email/25960

It's not perfect, but it's better than most other forum software's email
interfaces.


> I enjoyed Fedora being on mailing lists, nothing ever came close to the
> threading of emails. I was not getting lost in threads of conversation
> while still being under the umbrella topic, no need to open who knows how
> many links to read all tangents.

I appreciate your perspective, feedback, and willingness to try this out!


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Fedora Project Leader
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