Github discussions for discussions-to

[Pandapip1]

Github discussions (example link: https://github.com/github/docs/discussions) would be an ideal platform for EIP discussions, because:

• Issues can be linked
• Everything related to EIPs is on one website (and one repo)
• The format is ideal for discussing EIPs (comments can be posted either on the main thread or other comments)

I suggest that Github discussions be enabled.

[MicahZoltu]

One potential problem with GitHub discussions is that unlike Git (which is distributed and can be reconstituted in the case of censorship), GitHub discussions are not distributed and cannot be reconstituted. Ethereum-Magicians on the other hand is self hosted and (presumably) backed up so if it gets censored for any reason it can be reconstructed on another server.

I don't know if this is a compelling enough argument to keep things there, but I do think it is worth considering.

[Pandapip1]

Github discussions too can be backed up (with GH's GraphQL API)

[MicahZoltu]

Is there an open-source or self hosted tool we can use to bring the forum back up if GitHub bans us for some reason?

[Pandapip1]

I'll start working on one!

[MicahZoltu]

Building one, or looking for one? We should probably not try to roll our own unless there is a significant problem with Ethereum-Magicians. If you just mean looking to see what is available for self-hosted restoration of GitHub discussions, I think that would be a good next step. 😄

One thing to keep in mind is that we recently switched from GitHub issues to Ethereum Magicians, and switching again is likely to frustrate people with the continual moves. We may want to establish if Ethereum Magicians is not serving us effectively (like inability to edit posts) before sinking too much effort into looking for yet another alternative.

[Pandapip1]

Building one, or looking for one?

Building one

[MicahZoltu]

I recommend holding off on that (unless you want to do it for other reasons). Lets first establish that we want to move off of Ethereum Magicians badly enough. Building our own forum software feels like an unnecessarily complex solution to what is a relatively small problem.

[xinbenlv]

Building our own forum software feels like an unnecessarily complex solution to what is a relatively small problem.

Agreed.

[Pandapip1]

Building our own forum software feels like an unnecessarily complex solution to what is a relatively small problem.

The software itself is built into GitHub. The issue itself is pretty small -- all that's needed is a GitHub action that periodically polls GitHub's GraphQL API and outputs it as a JSON file.

Ethereum Magicians is working well for now, however. Maybe at some point, if the backup software is added, discussions can be enabled as a trial.

[MicahZoltu]

For archiving the discussion I agree, you can probably setup a cron job or something for that (and in fact it probably already exists). The part that I think would be very challenging is reconstituting the data in some place other than GitHub. With Ethereum Magicians, I believe it is self hosted so we can just spin up the server somewhere else in the world if we get censored, and with git repositories they are already decentralized.

However, if we got banned from GitHub for some reason (has happened to projects in the past), we would need a way to spin up a discussion forum that had all of the past EIP discussions in it.

[poojaranjan]

The general recommendation for an EIP discussion place is Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians.

It was earlier brought to our attention that FEM had limited editing window and authors weren't allowed to edit after a few days. Because of this limitation we were looking into alternate place for discussion-to link.

However, the issue of limited editing window is now resolved. Any author with reputation on the forum is allowed to edit the discussion thread whenever needed.

With this issue being resolved, participants of the EIPIP meeting seems to be onboard with strongly recommending Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians as EIP discussion forum.

[Pandapip1]

I still think the ability to have multiple threads for an EIP and to link issues (including PRs) is nice, but I guess that Micah's point that it introduces a problem with centralization is a pretty big issue. I'll close this.

[MicahZoltu]

I agree, GitHub discussions has some nice features that it would be great to utilize, and consolidating everything in one tool is also advantageous. Unfortunately, the centralization of GitHub discussions (unlike git which is decentralized) is problematic for us (from a philosophical/ethos perspective).