[QGIS-Developer] Revolt Chat Community Server

[Régis Haubourg]

Hi Greg,

On 03/11/2022 01:20, Greg Troxel via QGIS-Developer wrote:
> Régis Haubourg via QGIS-Developer<qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org>
> writes:
> I think it's really unfortunate that people object to using email, for
> reasons that to me border on fashion.
>
> Besides archives, mailinglists have another important point, which is
> that the set of subscribers to a list are a community, a group that
> makes some effort to belong, and people tend to remain.   I don't see
> this with other mechanisms.

Agreed. I think - hoping I am not rewriting history - that Discourse was 
created to address these issues, with keeping the advantages of the 
mailing lists.


> I agree about too much traffic.  Between it being easy to type, vs an
> expectation of thoughtfulness in email, and people popping into chats,
> expecting help, and then leaving, I find it too much and only follow a
> few.

Same here.

>> - we also have issues, Pull requests and potential GitHub discussions
>> to not forget here :)
> We do, but that's proprietary software and relying on it more raises the
> cost of leaving.

Clearly, but if we had gitea or a self hosted gitlab, the problem of 
having a good part of the discussions there would be the same, even with 
FOSS versions.

>> - adding a new communication channel without stating officially which
>> is the main channel just breaks the single source of truth principle
>> we had with mailing lists. I have seen recently two feedback from
>> community users thinking that there was no debate on major topics,
>> just because the discussion on the mailing list topics stalled. But
>> those discussions in fact did occur, but spread across those new
>> channels, and we didn't have enough bandwidth to summarize the
>> decision on the mailing list (and we also forgot). This is the most
>> annoying issue.
> I think this should be  fixed by declaring the mailinglist to be the
> communication method of record.
>
>> Discourse is a modern forum, that can act as a chat if you are inline,
>> or a mailing list, and let users tune their notifications levels
>> pretty nicely.  Just have a look to the main page, stating the
>> principles of this tool [0]
> This is interesting and I don't have experience with it.  I suspect that
> means the kinds of projects I tend to participate in are either
> mailinglist culture projects or github only.
>
>>   - Discourse as one organized and persistent place, including the
>> osgeo history discussions. This would be the main communication
>> channel. I will contact OSGEO to see if the system administration
>> committee want to go this way for all the osgeo mailing lists.
> I am open to considering this if it functions as a non-broken
> mailinglist.  That's a tall order, with From: fields correct without
> messing up DKIM/DMARC, but maybe there is good enough.
>
>> - We choose on main chat tool for instant messaging. Discord or Revolt
>> could be the choice. I would vote for open source first. So this would
>> be Element-Matrix or Revolt. Revolt is a bit too much overlapping
>> Discourse feature to me. Element Matrix is already bridged to IRC and
>> exists.
> I would say that open source, clients and server should be an absolute
> requirement, and there should be a very strong bias to federated and
> already in use.  And, I'd include "people who avoid Google push services
> do not have a second-class experience".
I agree, as long as it doesn't divert too much our workforce from 
focusing on QGIS and that we don't fall into vendor locking traps. But I 
know we have a diversity of opinions in the project.
> You say Element Matrix, but I think it's really "Matrix" and people can
> use whatever clients they want (and I get it that most use Element).

Yep, sorry for this shortcut. I link both because many non tech don't 
even know about Matrix protocol.


> Also, revolt's terms contain:
>
>    You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account
>    and password, including but not limited to the restriction of access to
>    your computer and/or account. You agree to accept responsibility for any
>    and all activities or actions that occur under your account and/or
>    password, whether your password is with our Service or a third-party
>    service.
>
> which seems like it is trying to be an indemnification, and it is
> clearly unreasonable.  I don't think it's ok for osgeo projects to ask
> people to sign contracta with third parties as part of participating.
> But, I realize I am likely viewed as an extremist.
>
> That said, revolt's terms (for their site) are less troublesome than
> many other centralized services.

Interesting. I had a look at the project info. The idea is really to 
offer a FOSS Discord alternative but the number of contributors is not 
that high (8). and the rationale behind this project is really to fill 
this FOSS alternative gap. When Discourse offers something radically 
different.

All the best and thanks a lot for those constructive thoughts. I'll 
raise this discussion to the next PSC.






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