Hear hear to being able to properly search past conversations.
I know it's not the fashionably geek thing to say, but I must admit that I always find mailing lists to be incredibly annoying, compared to forums. Not only is searching completely separate from reading, even browsing old topics is another interface again (assuming one hasn't been subscribed forever and kept every old message). Then, when you do manage to find an old message, there's no way to reply to it (short of copying and pasting and losing context).
Maybe https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Support_desk (and its sibling https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Current_issues ?) is the best place to ask questions about the software, its development, and other things. If so, let's make that fact much more well advertised! (Although, I think Flow is brilliant, when it's for discussing a wiki page — because the topic is already set (effectively by the title of the page its attached to). When it's trying to be a host to multiple unrelated topics, it becomes pretty annoying to use.)
On Sun, 19 Nov 2017, at 05:57 AM, Niharika Kohli wrote:
I'd like to add that having Discourse will provide the one thing IRC channels and mailing lists fail to - search capabilities. If you hangout on the #mediawiki IRC channel, you have probably noticed that we get a lot of repeat questions all the time. This would save everyone time and effort.
Not to mention ease of use. Discourse is way more usable than IRC or mailing lists. Usability is the main reason there are so many questions about MediaWiki asked on Stackoverflow instead: https://stackoverflow.com/unanswered/tagged/mediawiki https://stackoverflow.com/unanswered/tagged/mediawiki, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/mediawiki-api?sort=newest https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/mediawiki-api?sort=newest, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/mediawiki-extensions...
I'd personally hope we can stop asking developers to go to IRC or mailing lists eventually and use Discourse/something else as a discussion forum for support.
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 1:31 PM, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, I have expanded https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discourse#One_place_to_ seek_developer_support
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Support_desk is the only channel whose main purpose is to provide support. The volunteers maintaining are the ones to decide about its future. There is no rush for any decisions there. First we need to run a successful pilot.
The rest of channels (like this mailing list) were created for something else. If these channels stop receiving questions from new developers, they will continue doing whatever they do now.
I'd like to understand how adding a venue will improve matters.
For new developers arriving to our shores, being able to ask a first question about any topic in one place with a familiar UI is a big improvement over having to figure out a disseminated landscape of wiki Talk pages, mailing lists and IRC channels (especially if they are not used to any of these environments). The reason to propose this new space is them, not us.
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 5:01 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Brian Wolff wrote:
On Friday, November 17, 2017, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
The Technical Collaboration team proposes the creation of a developer support channel focusing on newcomers, as part of our Onboarding New Developer program. We are proposing to create a site based on
Discourse
(starting with a pilot in discourse-mediawiki.wmflabs.org) and to
point
the many existing scattered channels there.
What does point existing channels to discouse mean exactly? Are you planning to shutdown any existing channels? If so, which ones?
Excellent questions. I'd like to know the answers as well.
I raised a similar point at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Discourse. I skimmed https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T155678, looking for some answers,
and
I didn't find any.
Quim, are you involved in MediaWiki support in places such as the #mediawiki IRC channel or the mediawiki-l mailing list? Are you involved in MediaWiki support elsewhere? I'm trying to better understand how it would be appropriate for you to seemingly suggest disrupting or shutting down these established and functioning venues. If this is not your suggestion, I'd like to understand how adding a venue will improve
matters.
MZMcBride
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-- Quim Gil Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Niharika Software Engineer Community Tech Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l