[SciPy-Dev] Unpacking the mailing list: Discourse, Slack = Mailing list

[Stefan van der Walt]

On Thu, May 20, 2021, at 04:26, Matti Picus wrote:
> Among criteria for a community forum might be:
> 
> - permanence: can we find a discussion in ten years when we went to 
> figure out what led to a particular decision

That's certainly the idea.  The server is hosted by NumFOCUS, which should give it some permanency.  We have backups set up to Backblaze, and someone from SciPy will get credentials to that so SciPy can extract their data at any time.

> - transparency: will the discussions be archived in a public manner with 
> little need for logins or signups

Yes, the discussions can be browsed (but not added to) without logging in.

> - searchability: is there a good way to search the discussions for 
> relevant fragments (single words are often not enough).

It's as searchable as any site; Discourse also has a built-in search.

> I am not sure how long discourse promises to preserve discussions. I am 
> a dinosaur and prefer email. Discourse -> email seems to work OK for the 
> python forums I monitor.

I am also on the email train, but I have heard from enough people about their preference for Discourse that I find it compelling.  A good example to check out is:

https://discuss.python.org/

(Python moved away from a mailing list to Discourse a while ago.)

I mentioned to Pamphile and Ralf that, for SciPy, there is one further consideration.  If you use discuss.scientific-python.org, SciPy gets its own category and subcategories.  If you launch your own entire server, then you get something more like discuss.python.org (you can set your own categories).

Personally, I would like to see our entire community come together in one place for discussions (similar to https://forum.image.sc/) , but this is obviously up to each project to decide for themselves.

Best regards,
Stéfan