[Python-ideas] Moving to another forum system where

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2018 11:54:20 -0400
James Lu <jamtlu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh wow, Google Groups is actually a much better interface.

Depends who you talk to.  For me, having to use the Google Groups UI
would be a strong impediment to my continued contribution.

Regards

Antoine.


> 
> Any better forum software needs a system where people can
> voluntarily leave comments or feedback that is lower-priority.
> I'm not sure if Discourse has this, actually. Reddit comments
> are extremely compact as are Stack Overflow comments.
> 
> I was going to propose that the PSF twitter account post a
> link to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/python-ideas/,
> but I was worried that getting more subjective personal
> experiences might undesirably decrease the signal-to-noise
> ratio.
> 
> On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 12:48 AM Franklin? Lee <
> leewangzhong+python at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 8:21 PM James Lu <jamtlu-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:  
> > >  
> > > > Is that really an issue here? I personally haven't seen threads where
> > > > Brett tried to stop an active discussion, but people ignored him and
> > > > kept fighting.  
> > > Not personally with Brett, but I have seen multiple people try to stop  
> > the “reword or remove beautiful is better than ugly in Zen of Python.” The
> > discussion was going in circles and evolved into attacking each other’s use
> > of logical fallacies.
> >
> > I disagree with your description, of course, but that's not important
> > right now.
> >
> > Multiple people *without any authority in that forum* tried to stop a
> > discussion, and failed. Why would it be any different if it happened
> > in a forum? Those same people still wouldn't have the power to lock
> > the discussion. They could only try to convince others to stop.
> >
> > If the ones with authority wanted to completely shut down the
> > discussion, they can do so now. The only thing that a forum adds is,
> > when they say stop, no one can decide to ignore them. If no one is
> > ignoring them now, then locking powers don't add anything.
> >  
> > > Other than that, my biggest issues with the current mailing system are:
> > >
> > > * There’s no way to keep a updated proposal of your own- if you decide  
> > to change your proposal, you have to communicate the change. Then, if you
> > want to find the authoritative current copy, since you might’ve forgotten
> > or you want to join he current discussion, then you have to dig through
> > the emails and recursively apply the proposed change. It’s just easier if
> > people can have one proposal they can edit themselves.  
> > >   * I’ve seen experienced people get confused about what was the current  
> > proposal because they were replying to older emails or they didn’t see the
> > email with the clear examples.
> >
> > I agree that editing is a very useful feature. In a large discussion,
> > newcomers can comment after reading only the first few posts, and if
> > the first post has an easily-misunderstood line, you'll get people
> > talking about it.
> >
> > For proposals, I'm concerned that many forums don't have version
> > history in their editing tools (Reddit being one such discussion
> > site). Version history can be useful in understanding old comments.
> > Instead, you'd have to put it up on a repo and link to it. Editing
> > will help when you realize you should move your proposal to a public
> > repo.
> >  
> > > * The mailing list is frankly obscure. Python community leaders and  
> > package maintainers often are not aware or do not participate in
> > Python-ideas. Not many people know how to use or navigate a mailing list.  
> > >   * No one really promotes the mailing list, you have to go out of your  
> > way to find where new features are proposed.  
> > >   * Higher discoverability means more people can participate, providing  
> > their own use cases or voting (I mean using like or dislike measures,
> > consensus should still be how things are approved) go out of their way to
> > find so they can propose something. Instead, I envision a forum where
> > people can read and give their 2 cents about what features they might like
> > to see or might not want to see.
> >
> > Some of these problems are not about mailing lists.
> >
> > Whether a forum is more accessible can go either way. A mailing list
> > is more accessible because everyone has access to email, and it
> > doesn't require making another account. It is less accessible because
> > people might get intimidated by such old interfaces or culture (like
> > proper quoting etiquette, or when to switch to private replies).
> > Setting up an email interface to a forum can be a compromise.
> >  
> > >    * More people means instead of having to make decisions from  
> > sometimes subjective personal experience, we can make decisions with
> > confidence in what other Python devs want.
> >
> > I don't agree. You don't get more objective by getting a larger
> > self-selected sample, not without carefully designing who will
> > self-select.
> >
> > But getting more people means getting MORE subjective personal
> > experiences, which is good. Some proposals need more voices, like any
> > proposal that is meant to help new programmers. You want to hear from
> > people who still vividly remember their experiences learning Python.
> >
> > On the other hand, getting more people necessarily means more noise
> > (no matter what system you use), and less time for new people to
> > acclimate.
> >  
> > > Since potential proposers will find it easier to navigate a GUI forum,  
> > they can read previous discussions to understand the reasoning, precedent
> > behind rejected and successful features. People proposing things that have
> > already been rejected before can be directed to open a subtopic on the
> > older discussion.
> >
> > A kind of GUI version already exists, precisely because this is a
> > public mailing list. Google Groups provides a mirror of the archives.
> > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/python-ideas
> > It's searchable, and possibly replyable. You can even star
> > conversations (but not hide them). If it isn't listed on some
> > python.org page, maybe it should be.
> >
> > Personally, when I want to find past discussions, I use Google with
> > the keyword `site:https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/`
> > <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/>. I
> > know a lot of people don't know about that, though. Maybe it can be
> > listed on one of the python.org pages.
> >
> > As for subtopics, I haven't seen such things. I've seen reply
> > subtrees, but either they don't bump the topic (giving them little
> > visibility), or they do bump the topic (annoying anyone as much as a
> > new topic). I don't know if there is a good compromise there.
> >  
>