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Should we sunset Discourse? #168

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yoavweiss opened this issue Feb 20, 2023 · 19 comments
Closed

Should we sunset Discourse? #168

yoavweiss opened this issue Feb 20, 2023 · 19 comments

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@yoavweiss
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Since we moved our proposals to a GH based process, our Discourse doesn't serve a huge purpose, and is somewhat of a maintanance burden (apply updates, fix it up once in a while, expense hosting bills, etc).

Can we sunset it? I found this thread discussion archiving Discourse instances.

Thoughts?

^^ @cwilso @lwatson @marcoscaceres
@cwilso
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cwilso commented Feb 20, 2023 via email

@LJWatson
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LJWatson commented Feb 20, 2023 via email

@marcoscaceres
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Ok with me too.

@marcoscaceres marcoscaceres mentioned this issue Feb 21, 2023
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@ljharb
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ljharb commented Feb 21, 2023

Where should users be directed if they have questions, or if they want to discuss a new feature without the process weight of making an entire repo?

@yoavweiss
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https://github.com/WICG/proposals is the repo to make proposals nowadays. I don't think we've seen a lot of discussions outside of that recently.

@yoavweiss
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#178 rightly indicates that we could replace that functionality with GH Discussions.

@ghost
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ghost commented Mar 30, 2023 •
edited by ghost
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Hello everyone!

I would like to know if the forum: WICG Discourse has officially closed? the forum: WICG Discourse has officially closed? For example:

I always go to this site to find out about proposals on the web and recently when I accessed this page it did not load. I saw this open issue. So, my question, has this page been closed or not?
image

Could someone answer my question or help me?

@yoavweiss
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It wasn't closed, but the server seems to be down. I'm looking into it..

@yoavweiss
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It should be back up now..

@marcoscaceres marcoscaceres mentioned this issue Apr 5, 2023
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@marcoscaceres
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In #178, it was proposed that:

Hosting the forum on GH org discussions would eliminate the self-hosting requirement.

@ghost
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ghost commented Apr 6, 2023

Hi marcoscaceres.

Hosting the forum on GH org discussions would eliminate the self-hosting requirement.

I wonder if you all have heard about the decentralized network protocol: nostr. you all have heard about the decentralized network protocol: nostr?

For example, there would be no hosting cost and no centralization of any platform. These two features that you all want to look a lot like the decentralized network protocol: nostr does. These two features: no hosting cost and no centralization of any platform.

Note: I'm not asking for the nostr protocol to be used for anything, just wondering if this could be an interesting use case for a decentralized networking protocol that's talked about a lot these days. For example, Instead of using a centralized and private platform as GitHub. Why not use something open? something like nostr?

@marcoscaceres
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@vincivermeer, there a lots of things to factor in, not only hosting costs or decentralization. Maintainability, support, longevity, UI and accessibility, etc. all factor in.

@ghost
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ghost commented Apr 6, 2023 •
edited by ghost
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Hi @marcoscaceres.

@vincivermeer, there a lots of things to factor in, not only hosting costs or decentralization. Maintainability, support, longevity, UI and accessibility, etc. all factor in.

There are many well-known apps on nostr that look like the interface of twitter, blogger, etc. For example, twitter: https://hamstr.to, telegram: iris.to. As they are open projects, they are encouraged by anyone.

Again, this is a question and not a feature request. My question is, why don't we use decentralized and open source applications?

@ljharb
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ljharb commented Apr 6, 2023

Why would it need to be decentralized? All the repos are on github, so the obvious choice for hosting is also github.

@ghost
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ghost commented Apr 6, 2023 •
edited by ghost
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Hi ljharb.

Why would it need to be decentralized?

Regarding nostr for GitHub Discussions.

pros:

  • The initial advantage is that there are several servers. You are not dependent on a single platform.
  • no hosting cost
  • no centralization of any platform
  • Maintainability, support, longevity, UI and accessibility etc - are included from person to person through financial donations, time, dedication
  • you don't need email, password, username. A public and private key is generated for the login

cons:

  • is a not well known network protocol, people may be suspicious of its security and trust
  • each nostr application can implement unique features that differ from each other
  • nostr generates a public and private key automatically, in that sense if you lose the public or private key - you lose access or control of your data

Regarding GitHub Discussions for nostr.

pros:

  • Keep everything in one place (GitHub) for code, issues, PRs, and now discussion.
  • Much more modern editing (including emoji response, threads, accepted answer, etc) and markup tools (code formatting, etc).
  • Many users already have GitHub accounts, whereas current creating a "wicg.org" account is an extra step (also it's not possible for new users to create new threads on the existing forum until they reply to some other threads).
  • Better support for notifications and subscriptions.
  • Don't need to run/maintain our own server.

cons:

  • There are several proposals that are not on GitHub, they are in the discourse. So, nostr is a protocol that works through json messages. In that sense, it's easy to migrate all discourse messages with the discourse API.
  • it's not decentralized, you're hostage to GitHub
  • you don't have access to all GitHub infrastructure tools
  • entrust your data to a company that is not fully open in its infrastructure
  • No way to import users, so people would need to create GitHub accounts to post/reply
  • More dependence on a third-party service (GitHub).
  • GitHub Discussions is not a networking protocol but a software development platform

All the repos are on github, so the obvious choice for hosting is also github.

  • From the point of view of practicality, usability, user experience - everything from GitHub is great.
  • But there are several options available - that's what I'm talking about and not asking for here.
  • What I mean is that there are alternatives today for anything. In fact, there are pluses and minuses to GitHub Discussions and nostr. It is precious to always evaluate every scenario before any decision.

@ljharb
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ljharb commented Apr 6, 2023

Everything's already hostage to github, and it's fine, so I think you'd probably need to make a compelling case that's not "centralized bad".

It's not my decision at all, though, so I'll let someone else weigh in instead :-)

@ghost
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ghost commented Apr 6, 2023 •
edited by ghost
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Hi ljharb.

Everything's already hostage to github, and it's fine, so I think you'd probably need to make a compelling case that's not "centralized bad".

  • I didn't say that hosting things on GitHub was bad, I just said pros and cons.
  • But centralization is common when a service, product or protocol becomes popular. For example, there are several very popular apps on nostr. In this sense, there is centralization even in decentralized network protocols.
  • My point is that centralization is not something that most people can get rid of.
  • Another point I want to say is that centralization is not always a bad thing. Centralization can be good or bad, depending on your decision or your will.
  • So, I'm not defending nostr or GitHub Disussions, but presenting positive and negative points of both solutions.
  • I think you are right in what you said.

It's not my decision at all, though, so I'll let someone else weigh in instead :-)

  • I'm glad I don't make any decisions either.
  • Therefore, I tried to somehow help this issue by showing advantages and disadvantages in everything.
  • My hope is that all will be well for as many people as possible.
  • So, thanks for your feedback and comments - ljharb! Maybe I'm wrong, and in that sense I'm glad for your comment. Because somehow it contributed to my self-reflection.

@ghost ghost mentioned this issue May 8, 2023
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@ghost
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ghost commented May 19, 2023 •
edited by ghost
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Hi. Please, close my account: wicg-profile-discourse.

@yoavweiss
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There's an archive of Discourse at https://discourse.wicg.io/
Closing this!

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@ljharb @cwilso @yoavweiss @marcoscaceres @LJWatson