Hi,
Aubrey and Sam would like to try Discourse as an alternative for the
wikisource-l mailing list. A pilot installation is up and running at
https://discourse.wmflabs.org/. There is a separate category for
wikisource-l related discussions on the Discourse site. Members can create
new posts by mailing to wmflabsdiscourse+wikisource-l(a)gmail.com.
The pilot installation is to test things out. Users of Discourse can
download their posts in a .csv file. Admins can download backups - which
are Postgress database tables. I'm trying to figure out to export/download
all posts of all users. Discourse uses javascript, as does Facebook,
Twitter and many other sites.
For the Wikimedia Discourse installation to be a succesful pilot it has to
be a real alternative for a mailing list like wikisource-l. Users want to
read posts in their mail, and want to be able to reply to posts by mail,
without having to visit the site. Users who have signed up at https://
discourse.wmflabs.org/ will receive new posts by default in their mailbox.
Mail preferences can be individually set. Wikimedia Discourse users can
reply by mail to posts received by mail. Members of Wikimedia Discourse can
mail new posts. Please let me know if anything is missing at Wikimedia
Discourse that the current wikisource-l mailing list does have. Sign up for
an account at
https://discourse.wmflabs.org/ to discover the extras
Discourse offers. Wikimedia Discourse users can earn barnstars for example,
isn't that nice?
Please note that by subscribing to the wikisource-l mailing list your
mailing list subscription isn't linked to any account at any Wikimedia
wiki, neither is your mail address. For the wikisource-l mailing list you
will have to provide a mail address and after confirmation mailman will
mail you a password. If you want to sign up at
https://discourse
.wmflabs.org/ you will have to provide a mail address and pick a password
yourself. Currently their is no link between
https://discourse.wmflabs.org/ accounts
and any account at any Wikimedia wiki, nor is their link with mail
addresses, just like it as with the wikisource-l mailing list. A
phabricator ticket requesting SSO or Oauth 1.0 or Oauth 2.0 can be found at
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T124691. Currently there are no resources
available for writing an Oauth 1.0 plugin for Wikimedia Discourse, neither
are there resources available for moving MediaWiki authentification from
Oauth 1.0 to Oauth 2.0. As said, SSO or Oauth is a 'nice to have' and
doesn't have to block a succesful pilot.
Secure communication is a must. The Discourse installation is now
configured to default to use SSL, so you will always see https://.
Here is a short list of places where the Discourse installation can be
discussed:
-
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Discourse
-
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discourse
-
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T124690
and of course at the wikisource-l mailing list and at
https://discourse
.wmflabs.org/.
Best regards,
Ad Huikeshoven