[ocaml-infra] discuss.ocaml.org now available

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

Dear all,

Firstly, thank you to Marshall for kicking off this discussion.  It seems clear from the discussion that there is a desire for an asynchronous, modern mailing-list style communications mechanism for the community.  There are several other more synchronous chat-based solutions (IRC, Slack, Gitter), but Discourse stood out as as an open-source forum that is successfully used by other communities such as Rust [1].

Therefore, I have set up a hosted Discourse instance at http://discuss.ocaml.org as an experimental service, and now need your help to decide whether or not this is a viable longer term solution for our community.  It is open to signups, and we have two immediate things to do:

- Decide how to organise the categories in the site [2]
- A timeline for shifting various ocaml.org services over to this [3]

Most immediately, as we decide on categories, we need volunteers to help nurture the site and keep an eye on their areas. Globally, there are currently two administrators (Gabriel Scherer and myself), and we can expand access controls as the site comes into its own.

It is open to public signups immediately, so please do give it a try. Bear in mind that as it is experimental, it is probably a good idea to expect some rearrangements of the configuration in the next few weeks. Anyone interested is extremely welcome to comment on the existing topics below with their opinions, or to begin a new one as appropriate.


[1] Gabriel Scherer did the research the last time this topic came up! https://users.rust-lang.org/t/what-are-rusts-discourse-hosting-plans-and-time-requirement/6462

[2] http://discuss.ocaml.org/t/which-categories-to-create-in-the-site/19

[3] http://discuss.ocaml.org/t/discussion-site-status-and-timeline/23

best regards,
Anil

> On 12 May 2017, at 02:08, Marshall <marshall at logical.net> wrote:
> 
> I see IRC and Slack (and Gitter, I think) as playing a different role than Yahoo or Google groups and mailing lists (and Discourse, I think).  Both categories of interaction—one good for relatively fast interactions, the other with better support for long time delays—seem valuable, but in different ways.  Each category should be supported, even though Yahoo groups doesn’t seem like the best member of the second category.
> 
> There are additional comments in the Google group interface to caml-list that don’t show up in the caml-list archives (nor in my inbox).  I’m not sure why I can’t see these messages elsewhere.  There was a suggestion there to use Pan as an interface to the Yahoo group.  I don’t know anything about Pan, but if there’s a better interface that would be likely to be appealing to new users, then an option would be to promote use of that interface.  It sounds as if Pan uses a Usenet interface.  Many of us feel fondly that Usenet affected our lives in a very positive way, although in a time that seems distant now.  In my ignorance of Usenet's current state, my first thought is to wonder whether it would be ideal for appealing new users, but I don’t know the answer.
> 
> Marshall
> 
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