> Dear Ubuntu Developers,
>
> Following the move from IRC to Matrix, the topic of moving to Discourse
> from mailing lists came up, as one might expect. I can't be alone in
> finding it extra effort to track both. Could the key Ubuntu developer
> lists move over to Discourse entirely, so there's one fewer place where
> key Ubuntu development communications happen? I note that
> ubuntu-desktop@ has essentially made the move already.
>
> Personally I'm less sure this time, because I haven't found a way for
> various mailing list workflows to work on Discourse for myself, but I am
> open to figuring out how to make it work.
>
> In response to my concern, Ian Weisser[1] has kindly offered to spend
> some time with me and anyone else similarly skeptical to figure out how
> mailing list workflows would map over to Discourse. This would be
> realtime - I think the plan is to use some suitable video call platform.
It's quite famous that if the tools permit it, everybody has different
workflows; this initiative is certainly very welcome. I'm a bit worried
by the number of different workflows however and that some people may
assume already that the mapping or adaptation is impossible.
For reference, years ago, the OCaml community started using discourse[1]
and fairly quickly people moved there without further incentive. The
move has certainly helped with overall activity (without becoming
spammy).
I'm sure people had very specific workflows too: the caml-list dates
back to 1992. The discourse instance started as an experiment and the
migration just happened: this probably shows there is a preference for
it among people even if it's difficult to measure and no show-stoppers
either. IOW, given the free choice between mailing-lists and discourse,
most people favored discourse.
I'll stress that there is a pretty good email interface. You get text
emails in markdown (you probably already receive notifications and
weekly summaries that way), you can even reply and even create new
topics by email [2].
There is also a "mailing-list mode" where every message on discourse is
mailed as a separate email and which should map pretty well to
mailing-list workflows. I've also found documentation from mozilla about
email interactions which gives a good overview of what can be done[3].
That being said, I have some questions not about individual workflows
but about the general organization.
a) Right now there are several mailing-lists with different access rules.
Will these be mapped?
b) We have per-list privileges but I don't think that can be mapped to
discourse. I think I have a reasonably high trust level on discourse.u.c
but I'm still pretty limited in what I can do (I can't edit posts more
than a couple months old and I need someone else to turn them into
"wiki').
c) Besides the highest, discourse trust levels are granted automatically
based on activity, including long and frequent reading. This is
incompatible with email-based workflows. Moreover, discourse doesn't
take actibvity elsewhere into account (especially these mailing-lists).
Is there a plan to grant at least Trust Level 2 or 3 based on membership
in Ubuntu teams?
d) Can't we just do like OCaml: create the matching categories, allow
posting on both and see how things evolve? There should be fewer
discussions and the outcome should be reached more quickly while being
based on actual usage and producing actual experimental data.
Personally, I think this discussion matches a recent issue I had when
sending "Plans and timeline for post-quantum cryptography" (archived at
[4]).
There was discourse, and discourse categories, but not the right ones it
seemed; and mailing-lists, and several mailing-lists, but with different
access rules and different subscribers (a team mate told me they hadn't
seen my e-mail on -discuss for instance). Had a matching category for
"ubuntu-devel" existed, I would have chosen it without hesitation.
[1] https://discuss.ocaml.org/
[2] https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-incoming-email-to-create-new-topics-or-group-messages/62977
[3] https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/how-do-i-use-discourse-via-email/15279
[4] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2025-February/019774.html
--
Adrien
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