mirror of
https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang.git
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Jon MeowandChandler Carruth
5a2db81039
Switch from Discourse Forums to GitHub Discussions For use of https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/discussions Co-authored-by: Chandler Carruth <chandlerc@gmail.com>
120 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
120 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
# GitHub Discussions
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<!--
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Part of the Carbon Language project, under the Apache License v2.0 with LLVM
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Exceptions. See /LICENSE for license information.
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SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception
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-->
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[Pull request](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/pull/444)
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<!-- toc -->
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## Table of contents
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- [Problem](#problem)
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- [Background](#background)
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- [Proposal](#proposal)
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- [Alternatives considered](#alternatives-considered)
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- [Keep using Discourse Forums](#keep-using-discourse-forums)
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- [Try to maintain history](#try-to-maintain-history)
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- [Caveats](#caveats)
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- [Rationale based on Carbon's goals](#rationale-based-on-carbons-goals)
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<!-- tocstop -->
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## Problem
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Right now we run our own [Discourse Forums](https://forums.carbon-lang.dev/).
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[GitHub Discussions](https://docs.github.com/en/discussions) was recently
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released, and should be evaluated for appropriateness as a replacement.
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## Background
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[GitHub Discussions](https://docs.github.com/en/discussions) is a new forum
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solution offered by GitHub. Although it was initially only for public
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repositories, as of March, it is
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[available to private repositories](https://github.blog/2021-03-09-github-discussions-now-available-for-private-repositories/).
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Developers can
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[preview in carbon-lang](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/discussions).
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[Discourse Forums](https://forums.carbon-lang.dev/) are currently used by
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Carbon. These run on a Google Cloud instance owned by Carbon team.
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## Proposal
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We should shut down the Discourse Forums and adapt GitHub Discussions to our
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needs. GitHub Discussions categories and documentation should be updated
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accordingly, alongside evolution process changes.
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Discourse Forums should be frozen and eventually shut down once we are confident
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in the switch. History can manually copied from the frozen instance as needed,
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and discarded otherwise.
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## Alternatives considered
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### Keep using Discourse Forums
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Advantages:
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- Discourse's UI is better in some places:
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- Easy drag-and-click UI for quoting.
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- Easy to navigate to the original post of a quote.
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- Less noisy notifications because it's separate from other discussion,
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such as issues and PRs.
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- However, notifications will all be in one place.
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- Preview is visible while writing, whereas GitHub uses a tab.
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- More advanced search support.
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- Discourse Forums has categories and subcategories.
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- GitHub Discussions only has categories.
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- Discourse Forums has controllable settings for many things.
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- GitHub Discussions offers fewer options, although simplicity is
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sometimes better.
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- Keeps existing history.
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- [Swift](https://forums.swift.org/) and [Rust](https://users.rust-lang.org/)
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are prominent examples also using Discourse.
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- Avoids handing more control to GitHub.
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Disadvantages:
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- GitHub's UI is better in some places:
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- Responses to responses are threaded in-place, which may be appreciated
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by some.
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- Links to issues and PRs will work more seamlessly, with tooltips.
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- Discourse Forums has nuisance warnings about similar posts and @-ing to
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many people in a group, which cannot be disabled. These get in the way
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of frequent posters.
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- When copying links, Discourse Forums' URL updates made it easy to
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accidentally link to a specific post; GitHub makes that require a
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deliberate action.
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- There is direct support for filing issues based on discussions.
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- Supports voting on posts and sorting by vote, for more types of
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discussions, particularly Q&A.
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- Discourse Forums is a now unnecessary split in communication mechanisms.
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- GitHub is the only possible direction of consolidation: we already use
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GitHub for issues and PR discussion, and moving that to Discourse is
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infeasible.
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- Running Discourse Forums ourselves requires significant maintenance, and
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[still has configuration issues](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/issues/356).
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### Try to maintain history
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We've deliberately not put much into Discourse Forums, and GitHub issues are
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already a focus of discussion. There's not enough history to justify significant
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investment into making a copy.
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#### Caveats
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The
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[contributor wiki](https://forums.carbon-lang.dev/t/contributor-directory-wiki/134/2)
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can be moved to
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[GitHub's wiki](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/wiki).
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## Rationale based on Carbon's goals
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- [Community and culture](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/blob/trunk/docs/project/goals.md#community-and-culture):
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- GitHub Discussions offers a way to consolidate tools and make community
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forums easier to find.
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