[Avocado-devel] Fwd: [avocado-framework/avocado] Welcome to avocado Discussions! (#4356)

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Wed, 2020-12-09 at 10:43 -0500, Cleber Rosa wrote:
> 
> Hi Brian,

Hi Cleber,

> We enabled GitHub "Discussions" in an experimental way (the feature
> itself
> is also a preview),

Indeed.  We got invited on our project to enable it.

> The short answer is that, we were using GitHub "Issues" when we were
> not
> even sure we had an issue, that is, we wanted to discuss something.

Yes, I think this happens in a lot of projects.  Some, I think don't
see any issue with it and just let it happen and close the issue when
the discussion is resolved.

> Then
> it felt natural to move to the "Discussions" feature.  

As a substitute for having a discussion in an issue, it does seem the
natural way to go.

On the other hand, for a project with a mailing list such as this one,
I would argue that discussions that started in an issue, should be
redirected back to the list.  Sometimes easier said than done, though,
I do agree.

> I agree that there's an overlap with the mailing list. For those of
> us
> that would open the GitHub web UI every day, it's an inconvenience
> but
> not a major hurdle.

Right.  For the project owners of the discussion, not a big deal at
all.  It the other end that concerns me.  The consumers or contributors
of the project that don't work on the project all day every day and
only as required that I have concern with.

> But, the polling aspect is *very bad* for the wider
> community.

I agree.  I think it would have a net effect of reducing contribution
because people get tired of the polling aspect and effectively just
drop out until they have a discussion they need to start.  Whereas on
the ML, where it's feasible to receive every discussion message because
the cost of a message or discussion that you have no interest in is
<Delete> but where every discussion and message at least passes by your
eyes, you can very easily see something that does interest you and that
you might have some positive impact on.

> Beraldo will investigate if there's an email integration
> mechanism.

Great.

> With
> issues, you can get notified and reply via email and GitHub will post
> your
> answer to the issue.

Right.  But unless you Watch the project, you don't see every issue as
a notification/email.  I hope I can Watch just discussions, without
having to raise the noise level to all issues, etc.

> So, we're hoping that this will also be possible with
> discussions.

Yeah.  I think the ideal balance is perhaps an option to receive the
first message in every discussion, and no more, unless you acknowledge
that first message with a click of a link of some sort.  A click that
just takes you to the discussion on GH, or a link that simply says
"subscribe to this discussion", etc.

I think in fact that strikes an even better balance than the ML.  And I
have seen that in other Forum software that gateways to e-mail.

Frankly I doubt GH has that, but if Beraldo is going to get into
discussions with GH about it, perhaps he can use the above as an RFE
for them.

> And thanks for raising those valid concerns.

NP.  I doubt I'm the only one with them.  Or maybe I am.  Who knows.
 :-)

Cheers,
b.

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