Re: IM dev discussions?

[Bastien <bzg@gnu.org>]

Hi Timothy,

Timothy <orgmode@tec.tecosaur.net> writes:

> Both these things may not come together, or at the same time. For instance, I’m
> currently talking to someone on the Doom discord who has a few potential
> improvement to Org in the works, and the main barrier to us hearing about them
> is their nervousness at sending an email in to the Org ML.

We probably can reassure them and teach them how not to be afraid to
go public and send an email to this list.

> Like it or not, I have the distinct impression that
>> to be fine with working by email, the old way.
> is a much greater ask than it used to be. Some people may come around with time,
> but for getting started at least I think there’s quite a bit of value in having
> less “alien” way of getting started. One could argue that by neglecting
> non-ML/IRC ways of interacting with the Org project we are accidentally seceding
> territory to non-free services like reddit, stackexchange, and co.

Let's imagine we set up a Discourse instance on forum.orgmode.org.

It will probably attract users that don't really like/want to interact
through a mailing list, and maybe some of them will prefer this option
rather than posting to reddit, SO, etc.

It is a good outcome per se, and a way not to cede too much territory
to non-free services.

But then at some point we will have two problems: we will need to
spend energy encouraging these Discourse users send their patches to
the mailing list and people on this ML who are mostly here to help
others will have to split their time and attention between the ML and
forum.orgmode.org, because both will be official support channels
for the Org community.

To sum it up (1) I don't think we have the resources to compete with
non-free services like reddit (and should accept that they work as
users-to-users support channels) and (2) teaching users how to send a
patch to the mailing list is something we will have to do anyway at
some point if we want to help users become contributors.

So I really see why a Discourse instance might be tempting but this
will surely break something that works okay right now: this list as
the place where to keep track of Org's development and contribute
to it.

...

For french-speaking people, we have both a ML and a forum.

- the list: https://lists.sr.ht/~bzg/emacsfr
- the forum: https://emacs.gnu.re/public/

We advertize both equally on https://emacs-doctor.com.

It is okay to have both here because they are not competing with each
other, they are just places for discussing things.

Interestingly, the ML seems more active than the forum, but I would
not mind seeing the forum become more active than the list.  They are
just places to discuss Org topics in french.

The difference with considering list.orgmode.org + forum.orgmode.org
is that none of these places (FR-ML and FR-forum) is "the place were
we keep track of Org's development and where we encourage and teach
people how to contribute"... that's what matters in this discussion.

All best,

-- 
 Bastien