GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 757543
[SUGGESTION] Add forums.gnome.org, using the awesome Discourse software.
Last modified: 2015-11-09 01:23:09 UTC
The mailing list is archaic and hard to navigate and use. Why not use something like Discourse, who's notification preferences (and all other settings) are extremely configurable? https://www.discourse.org
It can easily be self-hosted at forums.gnome.org.
note the mailing list software currently in use, mailman, has a new hybrid list-forum interface in the laetst version called hyperkitty. https://lwn.net/Articles/596049/ So hopefully will get better after that upgrade.
(In reply to trusktr from comment #0) > Why not use Would you volunteer to set that up and maintain that for GNOME?
(In reply to André Klapper from comment #3) > (In reply to trusktr from comment #0) > > Why not use > > Would you volunteer to set that up and maintain that for GNOME? Sure, I gladly would. Most of the work would be in setting it up, but after that Discourse can auto-update itself. I have a Linode (Arch Linux) I can host it on, if needed, although it's not the fastest as I have a bunch of web apps running on it. It's easy to clone and expand though.
Created attachment 314774 [details] An instance of Discourse that I help manage, upgrading itself. It's really cool. Discourse updates itself via Docker.
Auto upgrading is not a good thing. Looked at it briefly, it heavily focusses on being a forum software. Not so much on being software meant as a mailing list. I do like the mobile focus, but some forum features are actually bad. It seems interesting anyway, but need to know more if: * Could it replace mailman? * Can it do topics within a mailing list (commits-list uses this)? * Does it send out sane emails (plain text)? * Could you review patches without it messing with the layout? * How does it deal with text that should be shown fixed width? * In the "mailing list" replacement, does it limit who can email? * Can you download an archive of the messages as "mbox"? * Can it handle threading? * Can it handle a 250+ threaded discussion with multiple people talking about different items? It seems to fail in this. * How does it deal with changed subjects topic1 -> topic2 (was: topic1) * Can it show a proper overview of the thread? Stuff like above are basic expectations. Forum software often is pretty terrible to host large discussions. Often just focusses on one discussion at a time. People usually have sub-threads, etc. Something new should focus on enabling that, not to mimic what other forum software does.
Created attachment 315023 [details] Screenshot of discussion threading.
* Could it replace mailman? It has reply-by-email https://meta.discourse.org/t/set-up-reply-via-email-support/14003/ https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-reply-via-email-support/7764 * Can it do topics within a mailing list (commits-list uses this)? It has topics. I haven't tried reply-by-email yet though. * Does it send out sane emails (plain text)? Haven't tried it yet. The default is HTML formatted. It can according to https://meta.discourse.org/t/plain-text-e-mail-notifications/13895/ * Could you review patches without it messing with the layout? Not sure what you mean. * How does it deal with text that should be shown fixed width? The editor uses Markdown, so backticks for code, plus all the other stuff Markdown offers. You'd write a C++ snippet like this: ```cpp int main(void) { return 0; } ``` * In the "mailing list" replacement, does it limit who can email? I haven't tried it yet. I'm gonna try enabling the mailing list feature for http://forums.infamous.io * Can you download an archive of the messages as "mbox"? No idea. Why would you need to do that? * Can it handle threading? In what sense? On the server-side? I'm not sure how that's implemented. I just know the app itself is really pleasant to use for archived discussion. * Can it handle a 250+ threaded discussion with multiple people talking about different items? It seems to fail in this. Oh, you mean discussion threading, not CPU threading. x] You mean like in the screenshot that I've attached? * How does it deal with changed subjects topic1 -> topic2 (was: topic1) It seems like when you rename a topic it just changes with no trace of what the old name was, as far as I can tell from trying it just now. I'm not sure if there's any setting around this. * Can it show a proper overview of the thread? What's a proper over view?
I made a topic on their Meta forum about title history: https://meta.discourse.org/t/see-topic-title-history/35325/
Please note that in the GNOME infrastructure, we are not using any Docker containers, and getting ready for that would require a big overhaul regarding things like handling updates etc. I am also not comfortable with having a community member running infrastructure under *.gnome.org domain, since we would have no way of catching up in case stuff goes down or something else happens. We are currently managing the entire infrastructure through Puppet, so you'd have to set it up from there (repo is available at https://infrastructure.gnome.org/browse/puppet/). Also, I think that it will be very difficult to convince the current contributors to move away from the process they have been using for many years (mailing lists) to something like Discourse. I am personally more in favor for an upgrade to Mailman 3 (which we can do once they port all features from Mailman 2), which would also allow us to run hyperkitty, which allows a web-based forum-like view for those that prefer that (example at https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/infrastructure%40lists.fedoraproject.org/), and the mailing list interface for the people that prefer that.
> We are currently managing the entire infrastructure through Puppet, so you'd have to set it up from there (repo is available at https://infrastructure.gnome.org/browse/puppet/). That's probably too much work for me right now anyway (compared to the Docker approach) > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/infrastructure%40lists.fedoraproject.org/ That's actually quote cool. I'd no idea there was an interface for Mailman like that, which I can totally live with. It lacks some basic usability, which they can hopefully improve upon: For example, when I clicked the top left title while viewing a thread, it took me to the old Mailman site instead of back to that hyperkitty dashboard. There appears to be no actual way to get back, other than using my browser's back button. But anyway, I like where that's going. :]
I think perhaps hyperkitty could take some inspiration from Discourse's UI. I agree that if we can keep the mailing list functionality completely intact, yet have an amazing interface on top of it (like Discourse's), that that would be the best option. Marking wontfix in favor of that idea.
Great, thanks again for the suggestion! I'll try to get an idea of when we can upgrade GNOME infra to Mailman 3 + Hyperkitty. Note that the annoying experience on lists.fedoraproject.org is partly because that instance only has parts of its lists migrated, and parts still on mailman 2 (because some lists require features that are still being ported).