Re: [GCD] Migrating repositories, issues, and patches to Codeberg

[45mg]

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> writes:

> 45mg <45mg.writes@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I strongly feel that the Guix project itself needs to maintain a
>> permanent (read-only) archive of all its mailing lists, and ensure that
>> it is searchable and downloadable.
>
> The bug-guix and guix-patches mailing lists are special in that they are
> only used as the entry point for the bug tracker.  The suboptimal list
> web interface is not how people are meant to interact with the archive.
> The submissions to this mailing list are processed by Debbugs; past
> submissions will remain visible in Debbugs, both via the SOAP interface
> (used by debbugs.el) and the web interface.

True. However, note that my point was more about help-guix and
guix-devel.

As for Debbugs: the GCD itself describes the Debbugs web interface as
"crude by today’s standards and hard to search and navigate", which I am
inclined to agree with. For example, as you mentioned, it does not show
threads (not even the rudimentary overview that lists.gnu.org gives
you!), which makes it even more painful to follow the flow of
discussions.

But anyway, this is a moot point, since the GCD proposes to move issue
tracking to Codeberg, and I think we both support that. Like I said, I
was talking about help-guix and guix-devel.

>> I'm actually fine with sunsetting issues.guix.gnu.org; while it was a
>> significant improvement over the list archives, it still needed a lot
>> more love. Moreover, it was fundamentally trying to turn threaded email
>> discussions into flat lists of messages, with mixed results.
>
> Minor correction: it did not try that; it merely meant to provide a more
> usable, focused, and integrated alternative to https://bugs.gnu.org or
> https://debbugs.gnu.org, neither of which shows threads.

[...]

>> There's one more potential consequence of this GCD that I want to bring
>> up - namely, the eventual stagnation of the discussion mailing lists
>> (guix-devel and help-guix).
>
> These mailing lists will continue to exist.  This is about the patch
> submission / review / merge workflow.
>
>> I'm not bringing this up because I want to preserve the mailing lists at
>> all costs; rather, I'm suggesting that we switch away from them as
>> well. [...]
>
> Let's please not discuss this within the context of this GCD.  If we
> cannot focus our attention on the already big subject of this GCD, we
> will only get lost in the minutia of tangentially related issues without
> getting any closer to action.

Whether it is 'tangentially related' or 'directly related' is a matter
of opinion. I was trying to argue the latter.

My first point was that we should have a public-inbox archive, because
nobody will bother to touch the horrible lists interface once they're
used to the polish of Forgejo/Codeberg. But I think you're right that
this could be discussed later and separately. (In fact I think it ought
to be done whether we accept this GCD or not.)

I think my second argument is still relevant, though. Quoting myself:

>> As I discussed above, people will be even more reluctant to communicate
>> via email once bug-guix and guix-patches are replaced by Codeberg's
>> issue tracker and pull requests. We will end up in a situation where the
>> official place for discussion (guix-devel / help-guix) will be
>> frequented less and less often. This has been observed before, for
>> example with the Python community:
>> [6] https://lwn.net/Articles/901744/

In other words: if we accept this GCD, we can expect to see a decline in
the number of people participating on help-guix and guix-devel, as a
direct consequence.

It's frankly kind of a nightmare to handle high-volume mailing lists
like this one; I don't feel it anymore because I have an efficient local
setup including a separate email account just for this, but I would
never have put in the considerable effort required to establish said
setup if it wasn't necessary to contribute in the first place. People
who are accustomed to GitHub Discussions and the like are even more
unlikely to ever do it.

And, as I stated:

>> There are many possible consequences of this. One is that GCDs like this
>> one would be seen by fewer people, so there would be less useful
>> discussion and feedback. And in general, people outside of a small
>> circle of old contributors already subscribed to the lists will not
>> participate in, or even be aware of, core community discussions.

So, I do feel that this is necessary to discuss, as one of the likely
drawbacks (or opportunities!) presented by this GCD.

> -- 
> Ricardo