Change forum to GitHub Discussions? #6803
Replies: 1 comment
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Posted at 2022-04-04 by Andreas_Rozek does one need a GitHub account in order to join such a discussion? Personally, I have one, of course, but not every user may want to register at GitHub just in order to participate in discussions around Espruino? Posted at 2022-04-04 by Ronin I support this 👍. Posted at 2022-04-05 by @MaBecker 👍🏻 Posted at 2022-04-05 by Alessandro I support this! AFAIK a GitHub Discussions is bound to a GitHub project: does this mean that there would be multiple GitHub Discussions (Espruino, Bangle Apps, EspruinoAppLoaderCore, etc.)? Posted at 2022-04-05 by @MaBecker I guess it can be an empty repository named Forum just for discussion Posted at 2022-04-05 by @gfwilliams
Yes, I think so. It's a good point, but given the issues we've had just making forum usernames based on emails, I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing :) I think not requiring any account would cause too much of an issue with spam :(
No, there'd just be one. As @MaBecker says maybe a separate project just for the forum makes sense. Posted at 2022-04-05 by Andreas_Rozek
Definitely agreed - my point was that asking questions about an Espruino device should not require a GitHub account (now managed by Microsoft and almost certainly not GDPR compliant...) Posted at 2022-04-05 by @gfwilliams
I'm not a huge Microsoft fan (I can't even remember when I last touched a Windows PC) but personally I find their recent behaviour very hard to fault (GitHub/VS Code/WSL/etc). Given the sheer scale of Microsoft I find the relative lack of bad news pretty heartening. There will definitely be people that complain, but I don't see those people lining up offering to set up an alternative and also maintain/host/de-spam it for the next 10 years :) For GDPR - surely if there was a company that was going to be GDPR compliant it would be Microsoft. If they weren't they'd be facing lawsuits all over. Posted at 2022-04-05 by ChrisS
Fully agree. Of course everyone who published an app on the Espruino GitHub repository already has a GitHub account. And that may also be the majority of the current forum users. But people who bought e.g. a Bangle.js 2 for privacy reasons (it doesn't share data with third parties) may not want to create a GitHub account. And they may also avoid the current forum due to the use of Google Analytics and therefore not give feedback in this thread. It would be great to have a forum where privacy-conscious people are welcome, too. Posted at 2022-04-05 by Andreas_Rozek I'm not a lawyer, but GitHub has published a lengthy data protection statement which mentions the GDPR several times. For the moment, this looks somewhat promising. @gfwilliams I don't know the current regulations in the UK - but in the EU one would have to prove GDPR compliance of all used (sub)services as well (by proper data protection statements and subcontracts) Posted at 2022-04-06 by opichals To me GitHub discussions sound like a good idea. I was also thinking about that having a copy of every release binary in the GitHub project Releases section would make it easier finding all the different board images built. Posted at 2022-04-06 by Andreas_Rozek @gfwilliams may https://rewind.com/blog/top-github-compliance-concerns/ help you with your questions around GDPR compliance? StackExchange may also have some valuable information in that context Posted at 2022-04-06 by Andreas_Rozek From GitHub's Data Protection Agreement, the following excerpt seems promising to me
Posted at 2022-04-06 by @gfwilliams @chriss yes, there will be some people like that... However I'm sure they probably use AdBlock/similar so I doubt analytics will put them off writing something here if they care so much about this change. There's an argument that using something that a lot of other projects use (like GitHub discussions) is preferable to the current solution, as people who care will have likely already found a solution they are happy with for accessing GitHub (burner accounts/etc). Posted at 2022-04-06 by @gfwilliams @Andreas_Rozek from a GDPR standpoint the fact that GitHub is now owned by Microsoft is extremely positive. They can't hide behind being a USA-based startup, and Microsoft has to do things right or they get sued. But for my company, I don't believe the GDPR applies in this case. Neither me not customers are going to be uploading any confidential data - the forum posts here are and always were public, and when people write a forum post they know it's going to be public. When you create a GitHub account, it's with GitHub, so the information there is GitHub's and will be bound by their GDPR compliance. ... but this is exactly why I want to move to something like GitHub discussions. The amount of time I waste dealing with company related admin is insane - and it means I don't spend that time doing work that's actually useful to Espruino users. Posted at 2022-04-06 by ChrisS
People who avoid this forum will most probably not see this thread.
The people I know of think different about this. Microsoft collects a lot of data from a lot of users. E.g. with each Windows version they collect more data from their users. The question is: Do we want to support such a company by using their platforms? Not everyone wants this and burner accounts don't help in this case. I think I understand the reasons for using GitHub discussions but I am nevertheless a bit sad about this move. Posted at 2022-04-06 by Andreas_Rozek @gfwilliams @chriss I don't want to discuss any GDPR issues of Windows or other Microsoft products here - the question should instead be: will the migration to GitHub discussions (which should lower the load on Gordon's shoulders) be safe for users (and Gordon himself!)? Right now, it seems so (from the viewpoint of a non-lawyer, of course) Yes, GitHub was bought by Microsoft (sigh!) but they officially(!) claim to be GDPR-compliant (and seem to offer the data processor contracts Gordon may need to be safe himself). For me as an end-user, this claim is sufficient - any further inspection should be left to lawyers. As a consequence, I'd now welcome the migration to GitHub discussions (although I still don't really like the idea that anybody would need to register with GitHub just in order to join a discussion about Espruino - at least, "foreigners" should be able to read what was written in the forum) Posted at 2022-04-06 by myownself I don't really enjoy using GitHub Discussions, I think this forum has a much friendlier (I guess classic?) interface, but if maintaining this forum is taking up lots of Gordon's time then moving to the least effort option makes sense. I'll get somewhat used to it. It will also mean giving up the small degree of pseudoanonymity I currently have - my username on this forum is completely different to my GitHub/real world name, but anyone with a mind to could already piece it together from things I have said. I think the most important thing would be making sure the wealth of information here moves to GitHub Discussions (or whatever other platform) - the current forum can sometimes be hard to search, but there is a lot there when you dig back. Posted at 2022-04-06 by Mi Agree in all points Posted at 2022-04-06 by @gfwilliams Hmm - well, that's not as conclusively positive as it was earlier in the thread! Right now the maintenance of this forum isn't a huge problem, and porting all posts to GitHub discussions would likely take me a while so it's not something I want to do if it annoys half the users. BUT I'm aware that this forum is not indexed very well by search engines. I often find it very hard to find threads that I knew were commented on only a week ago, so new users must find it much worse. Really I like the ability for users to flag the 'correct' answer. So often there'll be a post with a concise answer that then get hidden under a bunch of (actually unrelated) 'me too' replies, and it's be great to avoid that and maybe even 'fix' existing posts Posted at 2022-04-07 by rigrig I'm not a fan of using GitHub at all (pretty much for the reasons outlined here): if a project chooses to use it I won't stay away for that reason, but it would make me sad to see more of Espruino moving into a proprietary platform. On the other hand I guess the code and issues already live there, so it would make sense to have everything on one platform. I don't have much experience with GitHub discussions, but I assume linking/mixing questions and issues would probably work smoother too. Posted at 2022-04-07 by @MaBecker In the beginning I tried to bookmark posts that are important to my work, next was to use What about extending this forum if possible .....
Anything else? Posted at 2022-04-07 by @gfwilliams Extending the forum would be nice, but it's hosted my microcosm (who get enough by tagging ebay/amazon with referral links to pay for their ongoing maintenance). I don't have the ability to change the forum directly other than by patching it with a
Yes. I guess if something happens in the future there are likely to be similar all-on-one self-hosted alternatives that Espruino could be ported to. Posted at 2022-04-08 by Poolitzer I think moving to Discussions would be fine. Having all the knowledge stored in this forum available there would be required though imo. If you actually spend time on this forum you could allocate to more development otherwise (not sure I get you here, you say "Right now the maintenance of this forum isn't a huge problem" as well as "The amount of time I waste dealing with company related admin is insane "?), I would do the move. Posted at 2022-06-09 by Ronin Is there any final decision on this? Posted at 2022-06-09 by TheLogan I've personally never used GitHub Discussions, what are the pros and cons compared to the current forum in your mind? :) Posted at 2022-06-09 by yngv126399 wish I could "like" this message.... oh! wait..... Posted at 2022-06-09 by TheLogan I just discovered that I wasn't on the first page .. 😅 Posted at 2022-06-14 by @gfwilliams
Given the reasonably large amount of negativity on this thread, it doesn't seem worth me spending a bunch of time doing something that'll upset a bunch of people - so I guess we're sticking where we are for now :) I have a feeling that most people would actually quite like it, but as I haven't heard from them I've got to guess based on the response here... Posted at 2022-06-14 by Poolitzer Large amount of negativity? There were like two people saying they don't like the UI of GitHub. Other big discussion was about data protection rules, but None really said they wouldn't use the GitHub discussion. More people were in favour of the move then against, especially the first few reactions Posted at 2022-06-14 by @gfwilliams That's not how I read it... Looking back:
And @ronin, @alessandro, @opichals, @Poolitzer and @MaBecker were for it. As you say, nobody said they wouldn't use it, but then having 50% of people not liking something doesn't seem like good grounds for changing - especially when it'll take a bunch of time Posted at 2022-06-14 by TheLogan I wouldn't mind an update to the forum, but to me it would seem a better use of time to upgrade the documentation pages (the layout looks rather dated which sadly reflects back on espruino as a whole), and maybe get a vscode extension going, (something I've personally been tinkering with for a week or two, though I've come to realize that I need to learn more about babel, and perhaps gulp and webpack and how they work together) Posted at 2022-06-14 by Andreas_Rozek Well, I don't think you should judge your user's opinions just by the posts in this topic. To use myself as an example: being critical (e.g., in terms of privacy and GDPR compliance) does not necessarily means "dissent" - it's just that I want to avoid running into troubles by not having looked at the consequences of this switch. On the other side: since I am participating in a GitHub discussion (on the new GitHub "achievement" badges), I definitely prefer the existing forum! Posted at 2022-06-15 by TheLogan Alternatively, if the forum really does need to be replaced, I think more people may be up for an open-source solution like I think it has all the features that are wanted, like likes etc Posted at 2022-06-15 by Andreas_Rozek I know Discourse from Node-RED and can definitely agree. However, AFAIK, Gordon wanted to avoid having to maintain a forum himself, which is why he looked at GitHub Discussions... Posted at 2022-06-15 by TheLogan Totally understandable, then it's probably not the best option :) Posted at 2022-08-14 by @allObjects Obviously missed this discussion / voting / weighing in... Not sure my comment changes much from point of view of liking or not liking github for discussion. These are the cons for the current forum:
I don't want to leave it at cons - and that may be reason for many to be content with the current forum:
Posted at 2022-08-15 by Serj Let's imagine a situation: a new non-tech user, bought a Bangle.js and he has a few small questions about the clock | programming, what should he do, create an account on GitHub? Rather, he will go to Reddit's Bangle.js thread or to this Forum. The forum is more friendly for such situations. For a wider audience coverage, there should be either a Forum or a Discord server. Reddit's Bangle.js thread not so much active. Although I also see the disadvantages of Discord: search engine optimization, problems when you need to create many small disposable topics, backups. Personally, I would prefer Discord instead of this forum + GitHub in addition. But since there will be no Discord, then let there be this forum + GitHub. Posted at 2022-08-17 by Andreas_Rozek Well, as someone who "runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds", I came in contact with many discussion forums in the past few months. My personal conclusion - from a user's point of view(!):
On the other hand, "discourse" looks like a noteworthy alternative as it provides a clear user interface not unlike this forum. With greetings from Germany, Andreas Rozek Posted at 2022-08-17 by @gfwilliams From my point of view, this forum seems 'good enough' - I'm not sure there'd be a great benefit from moving to Discourse? @serj I'm not sure it's a huge deal to create a GitHub account? After all, you kind-of have to create an account for any forum, and the chance of a Bangle.js user having a GitHub account is reasonably high I'd imagine. Interesting about the GitHub 'hints' - I can see it being good in a way (it helps with the whole issue I have where problems get reported once on github and once on the forum, often by the same user). Personally I really like the idea of GitHub, but it seems to me there's enough negativity here that it's not really worth me spending the considerable amount of time it'd take to port the contents of the forum over, just to annoy half my users :) Posted at 2022-08-18 by @SimonGAndrews Move to github discussions sounds positive to me. Improving searching would be a big plus. Lower admin also a plus. Posted at 2022-08-18 by Serj @gfwilliams how much time does it take to administer this forum? Not answers to questions, but specifically service? Let's say if you replace this forum with github discussions, how much time will you save in future? Posted at 2022-08-18 by @thyttan I do sometimes wonder if people haven't found the "Title matched search terms" filter and turned it off when searching this forum. I see people saying "I searched the forum for something and didn't find anything", and when I go and search for the same thing I will often find more than one conversation mentioning or even answering the specific question they were asking. Maybe something to consider, @gfwilliams: make "Title matched search terms" filter be unchecked by default? Posted at 2022-08-18 by @gfwilliams @serj realistically I won't save much time in admin, it doesn't take much time at all (however I'm unable to assign others as admin, so I can't have anyone else helping out). But I do wonder whether having better search (and specifically Googlability - the current forum rarely ends up in Google search results) would help users and maybe even sales.
That's a great idea - thanks! (edit: just fixed it I hope!) To be honest even with that, I often find I can't even find my own threads - which makes me think its unlikely others can find the info they need either :) Posted at 2022-08-19 by @thyttan Not saying it is elegant or solves the problem, but if someone find it useful: EDIT: Now if I search with the lower, thread specific, search box to the right, "Title matched search terms"-filter is unchecked. But if I search with the upper, general, search box it is still checked. Maybe that's how it should be. Just wanted to point it out. Posted at 2024-12-19 by @gfwilliams Just pulling this back up - microcosm, the forum system I'm using for Espruino, is shutting down in March because the UK's Online Safety Act makes it a nightmare for the one person that currently runs it to comply. More info at https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/ So I'm going to have to migrate to a new forum, one that I don't host (or I'll fall foul of the OSA too). Right now, the obvious choice appears to be GitHub Discussions and looking back I think the general consensus is it's ok? Maybe not ideal for those that dislike Microsoft/GitHub but it's probably better privacy-wise than most other forums systems that'll insert a bunch of ads. In the new year I'll look at trying to export the contents of the forum - I'm not 100% sure how I'll handle users but maybe I can get compile a list of forum users -> current GitHub usernames so at least for those users I can keep the ownership of posts the same. Posted at 2024-12-19 by @thyttan I'm fine moving over. Will miss this incarnation of the forum though! Posted at 2024-12-19 by @cbkerr Zulip could be another option to look into. They give free plans to open source projects (https://zulip.com/for/open-source/) and "communities" (https://zulip.com/for/communities/) and I think this forum basically meets those requirements. "Open-source projects, including projects with a small paid team." Posted at 2024-12-21 by @halemmerich GitHub Discussions is fine for me. Is there a sensible way to migrate away from GitHub Discussions if the need arises? Posted at 2025-01-06 by @gfwilliams
I haven't really considered that, but there's an API for accessing it (which I'd use to migrate in) so I'm sure we could use that for migrating out too Posted at 2025-01-10 by @gfwilliams Ok, I'm starting to look properly at migrating the forum now and I have a proof of concept. I can't create posts in someone else's name, so I'm just going to make each new post come from a single Espruino GitHub user, and then put in:
(or just If you'd like to have your posts link to your GitHub username, please can you post below with your GitHub user, and then I can map the two together when importing? Realistically I won't be able to alter the posts after the initial import. Posted at 2025-01-10 by @thyttan @thyttan on github. Posted at 2025-01-11 by @gniezen @gniezen on github Posted at 2025-01-11 by @devsnd @devsnd on github Posted at 2025-01-13 by @gfwilliams Thanks! Posted at 2025-01-13 by @yerpj @yerpj on github Posted at 2025-01-13 by @andresdju @andresdju on github Posted at 2025-01-13 by @cbkerr @cbkerr on github Posted at 2025-01-29 by @gfwilliams Thanks! Just a note that I'll likely port everything over during February. Hopefully it'll only take a day but I'll shut the forum off during that time to avoid losing any new posts. Posted at 2025-01-29 by @joakim @joakim on github (same as here) Posted at 2025-01-29 by @allObjects @allObjects on github (same as here) Posted at 2025-01-29 by @SimonGAndrews @SimonGAndrews on Github , Thanks Posted at 2025-01-30 by @MaBecker MaBe here and MaBecker on github, thanks. Posted at 2025-01-30 by @gfwilliams Thanks! It really helps knowing your GitHub usernames even if they're the same - I don't want to end up automatically linking everyone's username in case I end up referencing the wrong person! Posted at 2025-01-31 by @enaon
thanks for clarifying. enaon on github, same as here. Posted at 2025-01-31 by @fanoush me too, same as here, thanks Posted at 2025-01-31 by @halemmerich The same @halemmerich as on here, thanks Posted at 2025-02-03 by @wminarik Same as here @wminarik |
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Posted at 2022-04-04 by @gfwilliams
How does everyone feel about changing Espruino forums to GitHub discussions (example here)?
It would be a big change, but GitHub discussions actually look quite good. For example this is the ImageMagick one: https://github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/discussions
The main improvements as I see it are:
With a bit of luck I should be able to import the existing forum messages too, so we'd be able to retrospectively tag answers in existing posts.
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