[llvm-dev] LLVM Discourse migration: goals justify means?

Thu Jan 27 10:57:57 PST 2022

My attempt to adjust the perspective on this towards something constructive.
It might help, it might not, but it's an honest try.

On 1/27/22 11:01, Tanya Lattner via llvm-dev wrote:
> Roman,
>
> I would really appreciate if you would ask questions about the migration instead of making assumptions, accusations, and demands. Those involved in the migration are happy to answer them.

I have the perception that concerns are increasingly received as 
accusations and that is causing friction. Though, frustration about 
concerns that are taken lightly often leads to accusations down the 
road. Before that we often have "witness reports", descriptions of a 
situation and potentially the effects (=thoughts, actions, ...) it had 
on the reporting person.

People explaining how they experienced a situation can make the 
impression of being accusing, even if they try to report their point of 
view as objective as possible. Assuming they make accusations, assuming 
they act in bad faith, ... all leads to resignation and grief on both 
sides really quickly.
As people can only speak about their own experience, and information is 
never perfect, assumptions are necessary. Most of the time those 
assumptions are reasonable though, at least in my recollection. Everyone 
has assumptions to fill in the blanks anyway, regardless if they are 
expressed in words or not. If they end up being wrong or misleading, we 
can point that out and we can move on (e.g., as Renato did wrt. the 
Bugzilla -> Issue move).

>
> In any best laid out plan, there are unexpected things that pop up. In this particular case, we found out that mailing list mode was generating a ton of email that caused us to go over our current email limits and impact the sites functionality. We asked for the limit to be overridden until the migration was complete and that was not possible. In an effort to keep things functioning, we disabled "mailing list mode". This is not a feature that was present before. There was no button you could click on lists.llvm.org that automatically subscribed you to all the mailing lists. Most people are not subscribed to every mailing list.
>
> I’ve been working on LLVM for over 15 years and maintaining the LLVM lists for the majority of that time. I understand the importance of email for people in our community. That importance has been made very clear in the many discussions about Discourse (one the lists, in working groups, in round tables, at dev mtgs, to me, to the board as a whole).
>
> There are ample ways for people to get involved:
> 1) Participate in the Infrastructure Working Group
> 2) Read the LLVM Foundation board meeting minutes to see what the board is talking about. Ask questions if you want to know more
> 3) Email the LLVM Foundation board directly or use the mailing list (now Discourse)
> 4) Email me personally. Ask me for a video chat or phone call. I am here to answer questions and to take feedback.
>
> I hope that you can have some patience and compassion for people who are doing the migration. I am very sorry that we had to take this step, but it does not mean its permanent and it does not prevent you from using email.

I don't think the people raising concerns here do not have patience or 
compassion for the ones putting in work to make things better. At least 
I would not assume that given their past behavior or their emails.
I also think the email discussion derailed this thread and we focus on 
the list mode too much. The original email by Roman, and plenty of 
responses, talk about conceptual issues in communication, among other 
things. These should be acknowledged explicitly. As an example, it is 
good that people point out that Fridays are not perfect to announce such 
changes, or that they noted announcements during the migration should be 
mirrored on the list as well.

Last thing is the involvement. From what I read in the initial mail, and 
some of the follow ups by other people, and my own experience, people 
thought they are involved via RFC discussions. They had raised concerns, 
problems, etc. Then these discussions dried up (on the list at least). 
When a plan to action reemerged with a short deadline, people were at 
least surprised. For most people that were not involved in IWG or the 
board, this came out of the blue. They could follow the meetings and 
participate, yes, but they were already part of the discussion, so they 
thought, on the dev list. As such, it went from a failed conclusion on 
the RFC a few months ago to a finalized decision. This is what a lot of 
the concerns are about, I think. People see this happening more often 
and the answer cannot be that "they should have been in the IWG 
meetings", or at least I hope that shouldn't be it.

I hope this makes it better, or at least not worse.

~ Johannes

>
> -Tanya
>
>
>
>> On Jan 26, 2022, at 2:36 PM, Roman Lebedev via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all.
>>
>> As most of us here learned on Jan 7, apparently, we,
>> the LLVM community, have overwhelmingly supported
>> the decision to move to Discourse.
>>
>> It already raises a question as to how said decision was made,
>> and what exactly said "majority of the community" is.
>> While it is true that the LLVM RFC process is unclear at best,
>> in this particular case the problem becomes exceptionally egregious.
>>
>> While it may be a selection bias, as a data point,
>> everybody, that i regularly talk to, in #llvm IRC
>> were just as surprised to learn of said development as I was.
>>
>> There was no indication on e.g. llvm-dev@,
>> and in fact the last mention of the migration was:
>> https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/cfe-dev/2021-June/068449.html
>> (over half a year ago!), but even if you just look at said thread,
>> there were certain comments that weren't addressed, e.g.
>> https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/cfe-dev/2021-June/068406.html
>>
>> Hopefully, the "vote" wasn't held at the discourse itself,
>> otherwise it very much mirrors certain recent & future world events,
>> and does not paint the LLVM in a good light.
>>
>> I'm fearful that the same story is bound to happen yet again
>> with GitHub Pull Request migration, that all the multitude of complaints
>> that were received each time they were requested (and that happened
>> a number of times, hopefully not to exhaust those providing said feedback!)
>> will be just swept away and ignored, and the switch be pushed through
>> regardless, in the name of a noble "lowering the barrier of entry" goal.
>> (There's similar question about discord "RFC")
>>
>> So the first point I would like to raise is:
>> such painful, community-wide decisions **can not** be made in secret.
>> One way or another, it's going to affect every single LLVM developer,
>> be it one working on the upstream LLVM, or some downstream fork,
>> or those just wishing to keep up with the project.
>> **There should be transparency and accountability.**
>>
>> The second question I would like to raise is:
>> the blog post claims transparent, first-class email support,
>> but the mailing list mode can not actually be toggled on.
>> There is just no such checkbox, unlike some other discourse forum.
>> For me personally, that is a deal-breaker, and unless I'm able to
>> keep up to date with the discussions in the lists format,
>> I'm simply going to stop following discussions, period.
>>
>> While, I, personally, have not had much hands-on experience with
>> LLVM's discourse, mainly it's email side, I hear the situation
>> is not what the blogpost claims it to be, and there are other things
>> that aren't "just work", and that was known months ago, e.g.:
>> https://llvm.discourse.group/t/discourse-as-mailing-list-replacement-some-questions/3713/4
>>
>> Given that the hard switch point of Feb 1'st has already been set,
>> and is less than a week away, i'd like to hear some clarification
>> as to what is going on, and strongly recommend doing either of the following:
>> * STOP migration(s) due to "false start", the end status already being decided
>>   before the process even begun, and using the process just as a means
>>   to legalize the decision made beforehand.
>> * postponing the switch by a month (until March 1'st), or however long needed,
>>   effectively immediately, in order to make the migration actually possible
>>   by working out the issues that have come up during the migration.
>>
>> While what is written above is my personal view on things,
>> I do **not** believe the said view is unique to me.
>>
>> What are the foundation's thoughts on this?
>>
>> Roman
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
>
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