[cfe-dev] [llvm-dev] Mailing List Status Update

[Matt P. Dziubinski via cfe-dev]

On 6/15/2021 18:29, David Blaikie wrote:
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 7:40 AM Matt P. Dziubinski via llvm-dev 
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
> 
>     On 6/15/2021 12:58, Aaron Ballman via llvm-dev wrote:
>      > On Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 5:41 PM James Y Knight via cfe-dev
>      > <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
>      >>
>      >> On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 6:19 PM James Y Knight
>     <jyknight at google.com <mailto:jyknight at google.com>> wrote:
>      >>>
>      >>> I've just tried out discourse for the first time. It is not
>     clear to me how to use it to replace mailing lists. It has a setting
>     "mailing list mode", which sounds like the right thing -- sending
>     all messages via email. Except that option is global -- all messages
>     in all categories on the llvm discourse instance. Which definitely
>     isn't what I want at all. I don't want to subscribe to MLIR, for
>     example.
>      >>
>      >>
>      >> FWIW, it would seem that one secret trick here is to NOT check
>     "mailing list mode" -- that option is mostly there to confuse you, I
>     guess.
>      >>
>      >>> In general, I'd say I'm pretty uncomfortable with switching
>     from a mailing list to discourse. Discourse seems entirely
>     reasonable to use for end-user-facing forums, but I'm rather
>     unconvinced about its suitability as a dev-list replacement. Other
>     communities (e.g. python) seem to have a split, still: mailing lists
>     for dev-lists, and discourse for end-user-facing forums.
>      >>>
>      >>> I'd also note that Mailman3 provides a lot more features than
>     what we're used to with mailman2, including the ability to
>     interact/post through the website.
>      >>>
>      >>> Maybe someone can convince me that I'm just being a curmudgeon,
>     but at this point, I'd say we ought to be investigating options to
>     have Someone Else manage the mailman service, and keep using mailing
>     lists, rather than attempting to switch to discourse.
>      >>
>      >>
>      >> On that last point, I've gone ahead and asked the folks at
>     osci.io <http://osci.io> ("Open Source Community Infrastructure") if
>     they'd be willing to host our mailing lists. They are a group at
>     RedHat whose mission is to support infrastructure for open-source
>     community projects, and they host mailman3 lists for a number of
>     other open-source groups, already (https://www.osci.io/tenants/
>     <https://www.osci.io/tenants/>). So, I believe they have the
>     necessary experience and expertise.
>      >>
>      >> They have said they indeed are willing and have the capacity to
>     run this for us as a service, if we'd like. We'd still need to be
>     responsible for things like list moderation, but they'd run the
>     mailman installation on their infrastructure. In my opinion, we
>     ought to take this option, rather than trying to push a migration to
>     discourse.
>      >>
>      >> To me, it seems this would be a much clearer upgrade path, and
>     would solve the hosting/volunteer-admin issue -- including for
>     commit lists -- giving the current maintainers quicker relief from
>     the undesired task of running the list service. Additionally, since
>     it would be a migration to Mailman3, we would get many of the
>     additional features mentioned as desirable, e.g. searchable archives
>     and posting from the website.
>      >
>      > Thank you for checking into a mailman3 hosting option, I think this
>      > approach would make me feel the most comfortable (far more
>     comfortable
>      > than switching to Discord).
> 
>     I also find Mailman 3 friendlier than Discourse from the UX point of
>     view.
> 
>     Currently Discourse doesn't directly support standard search
>     functionality in web browsers, 
> 
> 
> Could you describe what's missing/not working in more detail? At least I 
> can use my browser (Chrome)'s search functionality to find words in both 
> the pages linked below.


Sure! It may be easier to notice in a longer thread: Compare the 
following two views--searching for D104227 using the built-in search in 
a web browser initially finds 0 occurrences in the first one (at the 
same time it works fine in the print preview and finds 1 occurrence in 
the penultimate comment, at least at the moment of writing):

https://llvm.discourse.group/t/rfc-introduce-alloca-scope-op/2940

https://llvm.discourse.group/t/rfc-introduce-alloca-scope-op/2940/print

The issue is related to the unload-on-scroll behavior of Discourse: When 
you open a page on https://llvm.discourse.group it doesn't load (or 
show) the entire thread on one page by default but instead progressively 
loads (and unloads) partial content as you scroll along.

There's no such restriction in the Mailman web UI since it displays the 
entire thread on one page by default, even for longer threads, e.g., 
https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev@python.org/thread/JM6SQ2YNMDAKXYD5O54QWMVR2X7QOXVL/
Loading the complete thread (displaying all messages) allows the 
built-in search to work without issues.

Best,
Matt