[llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for LLVM's discussions

[Mehdi AMINI via llvm-dev]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 9:25 AM Rob Conde via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Some thoughts:
>
>    - I think there's a psychological difference of a mailing list vs.
>    slack/discord. Slack/discord maybe feels like being in a group of your
>    friends and asking a casual question. A mailing list feels like being in a
>    class and raising your hand to interrupt for a question.
>    - An email is going to go to everyone on the list. The slack/discord
>    message is only going to go to who is in the channel at the moment (not
>    technically...but usually I don't read the history of everything I missed
>    when not in a channel).
>    - It's a positive for a mailing list that you spend the time thinking
>    about what you're going to say as mentioned before...but it also adds a
>    burden for the poster. Some peoples learning style is to talk-it-through,
>    and because the expectation for a mailing list is that you're going to put
>    a lot of thought into your question, it discourages that.
>    - Having a (more or less) immediate back-and-forth on a slack/discord
>    type medium has an entirely different "vibe" than a mailing list.
>
>
It was maybe a mistake to couple the two topics (IRC/email vs
discord/discourse) in the same thread, because I'm confused by the
comparison of discord vs mailing-lists.

My understanding is that Slack/discord is intended to replace our IRC
channel and *not* the mailing-lists.
Separately there is also *Discourse* which is a better replacement for the
mailing-lists: this is closer to an online forum. Discourse also has a
"mailing-list" mode where you can receive *everything* through email and
answer by email (it gets posted to the thread in discourse).

I don't have a strong opinion on Discord, but am very much in favor of
Discourse: not only it plays "OK" with email but it allows to have
subcategories, to move thread around, to subscribe to particular categories
(or a specific thread) to get notifications and mute others.
Creating a new category on Discourse is also much less process-oriented
than creating a mailing-list (sometimes the tool can make something very
smooth/usable: just like git made working with branches natural).

It also allows to have every subproject share a common "community" space
that does not really exist today: this thread is a good example: it lives
on llvm-dev@ and does not include the mailing-lists of the other
sub-projects. So llvm-dev@ is mixing technical content with the community
management? Someone working on LLDB *has to* follow closely llvm-dev and
filter out the 95% technical content to get the 5% they want?

Of course we could create more and more mailing-list: but we never did
(discoverability isn't great, managing subscription is annoying, and
creating a mailing-list isn't a "light-weight process).

Best,

-- 
Mehdi








> Ultimately, both styles of communication are valuable...especially if they
> both have searchable histories.
>
> Rob
> ------------------------------
> *From:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> on behalf of Stefan
> Teleman via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, November 18, 2019 12:04 PM
> *To:* LLVM Dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for
> LLVM's discussions
>
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 11:55 AM David Chisnall via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 18/11/2019 16:39, Stefan Teleman via llvm-dev wrote:
> > > I can't recall an instance when I had difficulty using, or was
> > > intimidated by, email, for saying something on a mailing list.
> >
> > Subscribing to a mailing list, particularly one as high-traffic as
> > LLVM-Dev, is a high friction activity.  I was contributing to LLVM for
> > several years before I subscribed to llvm-dev, because I didn't want to
> > deal with the traffic volume (filtering is a lot better now, but having
> > to set up a mail filter adds another step for subscribing).  The only
> > open source projects that I interact with via mailing lists are ones
> > where I am already an contributor.
>
> In other words, the friction coefficient is directly proportional to
> the verbosity of the mailing list.
>
> llvm-dev is very verbose. I.e. high "friction" coefficient. So are
> cfe-dev and llvm-commits. O-Well. That's how they are.
>
> I don't quite see how some sort of pretty Web UI will reduce the
> friction coefficient. It might introduce a new, "annoyance"
> coefficient, because of the added noise of pretty formatting, emojis,
> color quoting, and all kinds of other extraneous - and unnecessary -
> decorations that have very little to do with the information being
> conveyed.
>
> --
> Stefan Teleman
> stefan.teleman at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 9:25 AM Rob Conde via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Some thoughts:
>
>    - I think there's a psychological difference of a mailing list vs.
>    slack/discord. Slack/discord maybe feels like being in a group of your
>    friends and asking a casual question. A mailing list feels like being in a
>    class and raising your hand to interrupt for a question.
>    - An email is going to go to everyone on the list. The slack/discord
>    message is only going to go to who is in the channel at the moment (not
>    technically...but usually I don't read the history of everything I missed
>    when not in a channel).
>    - It's a positive for a mailing list that you spend the time thinking
>    about what you're going to say as mentioned before...but it also adds a
>    burden for the poster. Some peoples learning style is to talk-it-through,
>    and because the expectation for a mailing list is that you're going to put
>    a lot of thought into your question, it discourages that.
>    - Having a (more or less) immediate back-and-forth on a slack/discord
>    type medium has an entirely different "vibe" than a mailing list.
>
> Ultimately, both styles of communication are valuable...especially if they
> both have searchable histories.
>
> Rob
> ------------------------------
> *From:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> on behalf of Stefan
> Teleman via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, November 18, 2019 12:04 PM
> *To:* LLVM Dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for
> LLVM's discussions
>
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 11:55 AM David Chisnall via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 18/11/2019 16:39, Stefan Teleman via llvm-dev wrote:
> > > I can't recall an instance when I had difficulty using, or was
> > > intimidated by, email, for saying something on a mailing list.
> >
> > Subscribing to a mailing list, particularly one as high-traffic as
> > LLVM-Dev, is a high friction activity.  I was contributing to LLVM for
> > several years before I subscribed to llvm-dev, because I didn't want to
> > deal with the traffic volume (filtering is a lot better now, but having
> > to set up a mail filter adds another step for subscribing).  The only
> > open source projects that I interact with via mailing lists are ones
> > where I am already an contributor.
>
> In other words, the friction coefficient is directly proportional to
> the verbosity of the mailing list.
>
> llvm-dev is very verbose. I.e. high "friction" coefficient. So are
> cfe-dev and llvm-commits. O-Well. That's how they are.
>
> I don't quite see how some sort of pretty Web UI will reduce the
> friction coefficient. It might introduce a new, "annoyance"
> coefficient, because of the added noise of pretty formatting, emojis,
> color quoting, and all kinds of other extraneous - and unnecessary -
> decorations that have very little to do with the information being
> conveyed.
>
> --
> Stefan Teleman
> stefan.teleman at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
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