[CentOS-devel] Gauging interest in Discourse

Mon Oct 31 19:55:05 UTC 2022
Josh Boyer <jwboyer at redhat.com>

On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 3:44 PM Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 3:40 PM Josh Boyer <jwboyer at redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 3:30 PM Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 3:09 PM Josh Boyer <jwboyer at redhat.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 3:06 PM Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 2:57 PM Shaun McCance <shaunm at redhat.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hi all,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > You might be aware that there is a CentOS category on the Fedora
> > > > > > Discourse instance:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/c/centos/71
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There have been some discussions about having a dedicated Discourse
> > > > > > instance for CentOS. Discourse has a lot of advantages, such as better
> > > > > > moderation and integration with our accounts system. But I understand
> > > > > > that many people are comfortable with their existing workflows.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There's no point in running Discourse if it doesn't get enough buy-in.
> > > > > > So I'm asking for input on using Discourse for various things:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Project announcements, like events, meetings, and infra changes
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Activity reports, such as for SIGs and events
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * User support, replacing forums.centos.org
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Development of Stream itself, basically centos-devel
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Development of stuff inside SIGs
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Replacement for the comments section of the blog
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Alternatively, just replacing the blog entirely
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Something else I'm not thinking of
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > From my point of view, I'd look at a CentOS Discourse as a replacement
> > > > > for the older CentOS Forums. I would rather not replace the developer
> > > > > discussions with Discourse, but user support and engagement places,
> > > > > sure.
> > > > >
> > > > > Activity reports and such should be going out to the blog because
> > > > > that's how the media is going to pick it up. Notably, the CentOS
> > > > > Hyperscale SIG is continuously in the news because we did the
> > > > > extremely simple thing of always having our reports on the blog. SIGs
> > > > > that don't do that don't get talked about. They don't get mindshare,
> > > > > and they don't get growth and further interest.
> > > >
> > > > I do like the blog posts.  Those from Hyperscaler are quite nice.
> > > >
> > > > > I prefer the mailing list for developer discussions because it allows
> > > > > me to tag people into discussions easily enough. However, CentOS
> > > > > Stream development is currently not in a very good place because
> > > > > almost nobody from RHEL engineering is here. Same goes for the IRC
> > > > > channels and any other medium. CentOS Stream development remains
> > > > > horrifically opaque, and that is a bug. Unless things change at some
> > > > > point, most mailing lists could be closed with not that much impact,
> > > > > since there's no communication anyway.
> > > >
> > > > What kind of communication/interaction are you expecting?
> > > >
> > >
> > > On the mailing list, it'd be nice to see RHEL developer folks
> > > notifying folks of big changes landing (like what Alexander Bokovoy
> > > and Florian Weimer do from time to time) so that the community can
> > > give feedback and test. Also, having RHEL folks on the mailing list
> >
> > We've been trying to encourage more of that.  I agree it's very
> > beneficial, even if the people providing the posts get very little
> > response.
> >
> > > would mean that we can make the happy path for contributors trying to
> > > reach RHEL folks about contributions much simpler. On the IRC channel,
> > > it'd just be good to see them hanging out so the discussions in there
> > > could be more productive and useful.
> >
> > I try to pull in relevant people when a conversation comes up that I
> > think they could contribute to.  The issue as far as I can see is
> > there's very little chatter in the IRC channels in general.
> >
>
> There's a bit of a catch-22 there I think, I'm not sure how to resolve that...

I'm not sure there's anything to resolve.  IRC being vibrant isn't
really a metric I'd consider critical to the project.  Engagement in
some form probably is, but it should be looked at in aggregate, not on
a specific platform/channel basis.

> > > There's also the problem of not being able to figure out who is the
> > > maintainer for a package to contact them when sending merge requests.
> > > It seems GitLab emails go to /dev/null for a lot of them, which makes
> > > things difficult overall.
> >
> > Why do you need to contact them outside of the MR itself?  The
> > maintainers should be watching their projects and getting
> > notifications that way.  Notably, there are several packages that have
> > multiple maintainers and cascading a bunch of email addresses for
> > people to email after an MR is filed isn't really something we're
> > going for.
> >
> > If you need to contact them because they don't respond at all, then
> > we're working on that.  If it's "they don't merge my stuff fast enough
> > or tell me what to do instead", then I would say we need to be careful
> > we're not conflating contribution with priority.
> >
>
> It's the former rather than the latter. I would also say that having
> dead silence for months is not appropriate no matter what kind of
> misconstrued conflations people might think of.

I agree.  To be clear, we're working on that for RHEL as a whole, not
just CentOS Stream MRs.  It is not uncommon for some bugs to be open
for years in RHEL, much to my disliking.

josh