[Talk-us] Forums/email lists for OSM Discussions

Wed Oct 13 01:52:33 UTC 2021

I'm a major free-software advocate and have been for more than two decades
-- all of the software I write personally and professionally is open-source
(and GPL where possible). That said, I can hold my nose and use proprietary
tools when the advantage those tools provide is above and beyond what is
possible with open-source tools AND where that proprietary software is
serving an ancillary helper function rather than underpinning the core
product/goal.

While I've really enjoyed the community engagement I've had through the
OSMUS Slack, I'd be happy to switch to Discourse or another open-source
system that has similar functionality. For those not familiar with it,
these are the major advantages I've found in using Slack for OSM-related
communication and which I hope any replacement forum or Discourse system
can replicate:

Screen-shot of the OSM-US Slack
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/10rzmspt15R2oVAjm5N5iIwlHR5PgvWLg/view?usp=sharing>

   - *User-created "channels" / "sub-forums"*
   Unlike the mailing lists which require admin-assistance to create and
   are relatively undiscoverable, Slack allows any user to create new
   "channels" and for all other users to browse the list of channels and
   subscribe in just one click so they can follow along. This self-organizing
   principle lets the community self-organize on areas of interest from
   highway shields, to trails, or golf. It's easy to browse the list for
   topics of interest and also easy to scan the list of channels you've
   subscribed to for updates.

   -
*Discussion threads within "channels" *Slack only allows one level of
   threading which can be a bit limiting (we've had threads with over 100
   posts!), but being able to break out into threads within a topic area and
   follow that thread (or not) is important. Without threads, some channels
   can be too "chatty" and get overwhelming to follow. For example, I lurk in
   the #general channel and only follow threads that are of particular
   interest, whereas in #highway-classification I follow every thread. One
   annoying limitation of Slack is that it doesn't let you auto-follow every
   thread in a channel, making it possible to miss a threaded reply that came
   in later after you've read a post.

   While I can mute mailing-list threads, lots of times people munge the
   subject lines and I keep seeing the same topic popping up again and again.

   -
*"Likes" / Emoji responses *While seemingly trivial, emoji responses allow
   people to give a basic response to a post without cluttering the chat with
   lots of "Yes!", "Thank you", "Wow!" posts that ping all subscribers and
   annoy them with extra "chatter". They are also a simple way to do
   light-weight polling.

   -
*Image attachments *To share the screen-shot above with this mailing list I
   had to figure out a way to put my image in a publicly accessible place,
   then get the URL for it, then confirm that the URL was visible to others in
   a private browser, then link to that in this email. I'd have attached the
   screen shot to this email, but I was afraid that the mailing list would
   strip it or some subscribers wouldn't get the message at all because it was
   too big.

   Easy, built-in image sharing is key to illustrating concepts and makes
   the conversation much more streamlined. Slack does this well, as to many
   other forum systems.

   -
*Basic formatting Bold*, *italics*, code, links <https://www.example.com/>.
   These just aid expression.

   -
*Near real-time messaging *While composing posts, Slack shows new messages
   that come in before yours. This makes it easy to not repeat what someone
   else just said more eloquently. It also helps keep people from talking past
   each other by keeping the group conversation in a single stream. Does
   Discourse do this? This is a big problem with email where the response
   delays are long.

   -
*Customization of notifications, read/unread, subscriptions *Most email
   clients aren't terrible at this. I like being able to have my Slack chat
   window open and see a list of new posts in channels I'm subscribed to and
   new replies to threads I'm following. I haven't used Discourse enough to
   know how it handles subscriptions and notifications, but some forum
   software is much worse than email or Slack in this regard. If it doesn't
   keep track of things I want to follow then it will become overwhelming to
   use.

   - *Direct messages*
   I don't use these much, but they are great for reaching out with a
   personal note of thanks or consolation after witnessing a challenging
   interaction. This is easy in email.

On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 8:26 PM Evin Fairchild <evindfair at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:30 PM Ian Dees <ian.dees at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Email is not a great communication platform for many people to have
>> useful conversations. It's easy to write lengthy posts that slide off
>> topic. It's easy to expand or shift the topic in an email you're writing
>> while someone else is writing a response, making it easy for people to talk
>> past one another and not make any progress on a consensus. These things
>> combine to make email mailing lists a pretty negative/unfriendly
>> communications channel for lots of people.
>>
>> Also, mailing lists are technically difficult for some people to
>> understand. Some email clients format emails weirdly, making it hard to
>> follow what's going on. Some people top-post, some people quote-post, some
>> people bottom-post.
>>
>> As list moderator, it's very difficult to maintain community norms on a
>> mailing list. I can't move posts over to another topic to encourage people
>> to stay on topic. If I want a cooling off period I have to moderate the
>> whole list. To block spam, I have to moderate all new posters.
>>
>
> Totally agree with what you're saying, and I've experienced many of the
> things you're saying myself. I've been on this mailing list for probably
> like 9(?) years and when I first joined OSM in 2010, even back then I
> thought it was odd that mailing lists were used as a communication platform
> for the OSM community. It seemed utterly archaic to me. After all, forums
> are much better for this type of discussion and those were a thing in 2004
> when OSM started out!
>
> A forum was added a few years after I joined, which was a welcome addition
> but even I haven't really used it at all. I bet it would have gotten more
> use if it had replaced the mailing lists at the time it was introduced.
>
>
> One thing to note is that OSMF is considering replacing the existing
>> forum, Q&A website, and maybe eventually the mailing lists with an instance
>> of Discourse at https://community.openstreetmap.org/. I encourage folks
>> interested in this topic to check it out and leave feedback.
>>
>
> This seems really interesting. Would love to see Discourse replace the
> mailing lists!
>
> Personally, I like Slack, but I do understand some people's reluctance to
> use it due to it not being an open source platform. However it's great to
> be able to have a really good chat platform. The thing I like most about it
> is that there's a way to have discussion threads so that of someone asks a
> question, the replies are all in one place.
>
> And besides, chat platforms like Slack, Discord, IRC, etc have their
> advantages over email and forums in that it feels more like a natural back
> and forth conversation rather than just a bunch of monologues. People don't
> generally talk in super long monologues in most face to face conversations.
> There's usually lots of back and forth in most casual conversations,
> especially when a group of people are trying to come to an agreement on
> something, which is what most of the discussions on this mailing list are
> about.
>
> So in short, I would personally support replacing this mailing list with
> Discourse. And I really like Slack and intend to continue using it as many
> others have done.
>
> -Evin
>
>> _______________________________________________
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> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
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