Where to discuss typing features
Background Historically, new typing features were discussed on the issues of the GitHub typing repository (https://github.com/python/typing/issues). After typing-sig was started, discussion about new features was supposed to shift there, but there are multiple issues with using a mailing list: * It doesn't offer the same features as other, markdown-based discussion forums offer, e.g. code formatting and syntax highlighting. * It's hard to have long-running discussions. In the issues we have some proposals that are several years old, but still sensible, and still get occasional comments. * It's impossible to "close" suggestions and get a list of "still open" proposals. Proposal and Alternatives I propose to go back to using the GitHub issues for ideas and discussions about new typing features. typing-sig can still be used for announcements, discussions about concrete proposals (e.g. for PEP feedback) and for other typing issues. I strongly suggest that we don't use a third place for these kinds of discussions. * typing issues are established. We still get regular new issues suggesting new features, which indicates that the typing repository can be found. Even if we moved somewhere else, we would need to redirect these people there (as we did with redirecting people to typing-sig), creating extra workload. * These are lots of existing and useful discussions already in the typing issues. They would either need to be moved or recreated in the new place. Existing crosslinks would get lost. * I don't think "discussions"-style forums like GitHub Discussions or Discourse lend themselved well to feature requests, as they are more geared to open ended discussions or Q&A: o While the thread format can be useful from time to time, usually in these discussions a chronological order makes more sense as discussions evolve. Especially in GitHub Discussions, each top-level "answer" stands out as its own thing, which itself has responses. Order of the answers (but not the responses) can be affected by voting. o While there are ways to mark a thread as "resolved" in GitHub Discussions, this is more geared towards Q&A formats. Usually there is no easy way to filter by unresolved issues. Often, the creator of a thread can mark a thread as "resolved". The ability to mark an answer an "accepted" also makes no sense. o Discussion threads are not as easily linkable as issues, and cross-referencing threads is harder. There are no automatic back-links from other issues and git commit AFAIK. It also does have no built-in support for "meta" issues Possible Issues The typing issues have lots of old, outdated discussions, so some people suggested a fresh start. Another problem is "notification overload". The typing repository is also used for typing-extensions and the typing documentation. Subscribing to the repo means you get notifications for all these issues as well. Implementation I propose to do the following to the typing issues: 1. Add a new label "feature" for feature discussions. 2. Add issue templates for new features (and a few other issue types) so that the correct label gets applied automatically. 3. I volunteer to do housekeeping and go through the old issues in the typing repository, closing out outdated ones and applying the proper labels. 4. As a first step, set up a bot that sends a weekly(?) mail to typing-sig with the titles and links to new feature issues and a list of feature issues that got new comments since the last mail. 5. See how that works out. This plan has the advantage of mostly keeping the status quo, just in a cleaner manner, instead of trying out something new and then potentially having to revert that if it turns out to be inadequate. (And then have three places where suggestions have been made.) Please let me know your thoughts. - Sebastian
Am 04.11.21 um 09:06 schrieb Sebastian Rittau:
Implementation
I propose to do the following to the typing issues:
1. Add a new label "feature" for feature discussions. 2. Add issue templates for new features (and a few other issue types) so that the correct label gets applied automatically. 3. I volunteer to do housekeeping and go through the old issues in the typing repository, closing out outdated ones and applying the proper labels. 4. As a first step, set up a bot that sends a weekly(?) mail to typing-sig with the titles and links to new feature issues and a list of feature issues that got new comments since the last mail. 5. See how that works out.
I have now implemented steps 1 through 3. All feature suggestions can be found here: https://github.com/python/typing/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22to... This is a PR for issue templates for the typing repository: https://github.com/python/typing/pull/921 I'm sure that these templates can be improved upon immensely. Another idea I have: Set up a GitHub Action that closes all feature issues that haven't had new comments for a year or more and have less than 5 comments. If someone still cares about this issue, they can reopen it or leave another comment. - Sebastian
Thanks so much Sebastian for putting in the work to set this up! I agree that using the existing python typing issues repository is better than setting up yet another forum to monitor. If we can have a bot that emails anyone subscribed with a weekly summary of features issues, that would be perfect – is that easy to set up? For ongoing discussions on typing-sig, I assume we’ll leave those be for now? I’d also be supportive of closing issues with no activity in 6 months rather than a year, and/or including threads with more than 5 comments. Not sure if that’s too aggressive, but keeping the issues page high signal seems worthwhile to me. From: Sebastian Rittau <srittau@rittau.biz> Date: Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7:58 AM To: typing-sig@python.org <typing-sig@python.org> Subject: [Typing-sig] Re: Where to discuss typing features Am 04.11.21 um 09:06 schrieb Sebastian Rittau: Implementation I propose to do the following to the typing issues: 1. Add a new label "feature" for feature discussions. 2. Add issue templates for new features (and a few other issue types) so that the correct label gets applied automatically. 3. I volunteer to do housekeeping and go through the old issues in the typing repository, closing out outdated ones and applying the proper labels. 4. As a first step, set up a bot that sends a weekly(?) mail to typing-sig with the titles and links to new feature issues and a list of feature issues that got new comments since the last mail. 5. See how that works out. I have now implemented steps 1 through 3. All feature suggestions can be found here: https://github.com/python/typing/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22to... This is a PR for issue templates for the typing repository: https://github.com/python/typing/pull/921 I'm sure that these templates can be improved upon immensely. Another idea I have: Set up a GitHub Action that closes all feature issues that haven't had new comments for a year or more and have less than 5 comments. If someone still cares about this issue, they can reopen it or leave another comment. - Sebastian
So I can’t tell if this is already happening or not. Are we using issues or discussions for things that used to be in typing-sig? (I follow the whole repo and there’s a lot of noise.) On Fri, Nov 5, 2021 at 13:01 Shannon Zhu via Typing-sig < typing-sig@python.org> wrote:
Thanks so much Sebastian for putting in the work to set this up!
I agree that using the existing python typing issues repository is better than setting up yet another forum to monitor. If we can have a bot that emails anyone subscribed with a weekly summary of features issues, that would be perfect – is that easy to set up?
For ongoing discussions on typing-sig, I assume we’ll leave those be for now?
I’d also be supportive of closing issues with no activity in 6 months rather than a year, and/or including threads with more than 5 comments. Not sure if that’s too aggressive, but keeping the issues page high signal seems worthwhile to me.
*From: *Sebastian Rittau <srittau@rittau.biz> *Date: *Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7:58 AM *To: *typing-sig@python.org <typing-sig@python.org> *Subject: *[Typing-sig] Re: Where to discuss typing features
Am 04.11.21 um 09:06 schrieb Sebastian Rittau:
Implementation
I propose to do the following to the typing issues:
1. Add a new label "feature" for feature discussions. 2. Add issue templates for new features (and a few other issue types) so that the correct label gets applied automatically. 3. I volunteer to do housekeeping and go through the old issues in the typing repository, closing out outdated ones and applying the proper labels. 4. As a first step, set up a bot that sends a weekly(?) mail to typing-sig with the titles and links to new feature issues and a list of feature issues that got new comments since the last mail. 5. See how that works out.
I have now implemented steps 1 through 3. All feature suggestions can be found here: https://github.com/python/typing/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22to...
This is a PR for issue templates for the typing repository: https://github.com/python/typing/pull/921 I'm sure that these templates can be improved upon immensely.
Another idea I have: Set up a GitHub Action that closes all feature issues that haven't had new comments for a year or more and have less than 5 comments. If someone still cares about this issue, they can reopen it or leave another comment.
- Sebastian _______________________________________________ Typing-sig mailing list -- typing-sig@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to typing-sig-leave@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/typing-sig.python.org/ Member address: guido@python.org
-- --Guido (mobile)
Am 15.11.21 um 00:25 schrieb Guido van Rossum:
So I can’t tell if this is already happening or not. Are we using issues or discussions for things that used to be in typing-sig? (I follow the whole repo and there’s a lot of noise.)
So here's what's been happening: * I reworked the labels used in the typing repo. We now have five "topic" labels: o "topic: documentation" o "topic: typing-extensions" o "topic: feature" for new typing features. The bulk of the issues. o "topic: maintenance" for repo maintenance o "topic: other" * I went through all issues in the typing repo, updating, closing, and labeling them appropriately. I'm sorry about the noise this caused. * I've also added issue templates so that new issues get tagged appropriately. These can certainly be improved in the future: o "Documentation issue" o "typing-extensions issue" o "New typing feature" o "Other issue" * I've set up a weekly mail with new and changed issues that are tagged with "topic: feature", sent to this list. I believe this allows people that are mainly concerned about typing features to unsubscribe from the typing repo and only subscribe to those features they are interested in. They will be informed about new discussion via the weekly summary mail. That said, this is a first stab at this, and we can certainly improve upon it (or do it differently) in the future. - Sebastian
Thanks, you went through a lot of work to make this smooth! Could you provide step-by-step instructions for a newcomer who would want to be in the approximate situation that subscribing to typing-sig would have placed them before? I don't know how to receive a notification when something is posted with a given label, for example. On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 3:28 AM Sebastian Rittau <srittau@rittau.biz> wrote:
Am 15.11.21 um 00:25 schrieb Guido van Rossum:
So I can’t tell if this is already happening or not. Are we using issues or discussions for things that used to be in typing-sig? (I follow the whole repo and there’s a lot of noise.)
So here's what's been happening:
- I reworked the labels used in the typing repo. We now have five "topic" labels: - "topic: documentation" - "topic: typing-extensions" - "topic: feature" for new typing features. The bulk of the issues. - "topic: maintenance" for repo maintenance - "topic: other" - I went through all issues in the typing repo, updating, closing, and labeling them appropriately. I'm sorry about the noise this caused. - I've also added issue templates so that new issues get tagged appropriately. These can certainly be improved in the future: - "Documentation issue" - "typing-extensions issue" - "New typing feature" - "Other issue" - I've set up a weekly mail with new and changed issues that are tagged with "topic: feature", sent to this list.
I believe this allows people that are mainly concerned about typing features to unsubscribe from the typing repo and only subscribe to those features they are interested in. They will be informed about new discussion via the weekly summary mail.
That said, this is a first stab at this, and we can certainly improve upon it (or do it differently) in the future.
- Sebastian _______________________________________________ Typing-sig mailing list -- typing-sig@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to typing-sig-leave@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/typing-sig.python.org/ Member address: guido@python.org
-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) *Pronouns: he/him **(why is my pronoun here?)* <http://feministing.com/2015/02/03/how-using-they-as-a-singular-pronoun-can-change-the-world/>
Could you provide step-by-step instructions for a newcomer who would want to be in the approximate situation that subscribing to typing-sig would have placed them before? I don't know how to receive a notification when something is posted with a given label, for example. And ideally add it to the devguide docs. Kind Regards, Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer about <https://compileralchemy.github.io/> | blog <https://www.pythonkitchen.com> github <https://github.com/Abdur-RahmaanJ> Mauritius
Am 15.11.21 um 18:12 schrieb Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer:
Could you provide step-by-step instructions for a newcomer who would want to be in the approximate situation that subscribing to typing-sig would have placed them before? I don't know how to receive a notification when something is posted with a given label, for example.
And ideally add it to the devguide docs.
I don't think the devguide includes anything about typing yet, although I might be mistaken. - Sebastian
Thanks, you went through a lot of work to make this smooth!
Could you provide step-by-step instructions for a newcomer who would want to be in the approximate situation that subscribing to typing-sig would have placed them before? At the moment, the best solution is to subscribe to typing-sig, watch
Am 15.11.21 um 17:49 schrieb Guido van Rossum: the weekly summary and subscribe to individual issues one is interested in. Should we add this to typing's README?
I don't know how to receive a notification when something is posted with a given label, for example.
I don't think there is built-in functionality in GitHub to do that, unfortunately. (A huge oversight, in my opinion.) I have briefly looked at it and there are some solutions, but this would require a bit more work. One solution is https://github.com/marketplace/actions/issue-label-notifier, which I could set up and then possibly add a way for people to subscribe/unsubscribe. If there is interest, I could look into this further. - Sebastian
On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 10:04 AM Sebastian Rittau <srittau@rittau.biz> wrote:
Am 15.11.21 um 17:49 schrieb Guido van Rossum:
Thanks, you went through a lot of work to make this smooth!
Could you provide step-by-step instructions for a newcomer who would want to be in the approximate situation that subscribing to typing-sig would have placed them before?
At the moment, the best solution is to subscribe to typing-sig, watch the weekly summary and subscribe to individual issues one is interested in. Should we add this to typing's README?
That's pretty suboptimal for me. I don't like having a week delay before seeing that an issue exists. If we had picked a solution that involved a new repo (repos are cheap these days) I could just monitor that repo and comment in near-real time (during my waking hours anyways :-).
I don't know how to receive a notification when something is posted with a given label, for example.
I don't think there is built-in functionality in GitHub to do that, unfortunately. (A huge oversight, in my opinion.) I have briefly looked at it and there are some solutions, but this would require a bit more work. One solution is https://github.com/marketplace/actions/issue-label-notifier, which I could set up and then possibly add a way for people to subscribe/unsubscribe. If there is interest, I could look into this further.
Yes, please. -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) *Pronouns: he/him **(why is my pronoun here?)* <http://feministing.com/2015/02/03/how-using-they-as-a-singular-pronoun-can-change-the-world/>
participants (4)
-
Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer -
Guido van Rossum -
Sebastian Rittau -
Shannon Zhu