Does OpenSCAD deserve a modern Forum platform?
Doug:
Are you suggesting a trial run of a Discourse forum, to see how it goes,
and then maybe switching over? Or a parallel Discourse forum that
people could use.
I personally am a fan of function over form. Which means email over
"modern". I have a young friend who recently said that she had
forgotten that she even had an email account. She texted someone to
give me a message rather than emailing me directly, even though she and
I have emailed at times. I wonder if that generation will survive.
Jon
On 1/23/2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
This discussion thread, and the "modern forum" discussion thread from December, both began with a request to switch to Discourse. Some OpenSCAD users want a forum that "looks and feels modern", and while I don't know what that means, it seems that Discourse satisfies the requirement. So let's consider Discourse.
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write "General" category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that is synced with the mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of two groups of people: those who won't use a mailing list, and those who won't use a forum. Mirroring the mailing list in Discourse provides a nicer web UI for browsing the archives than what we currently have.
Although this is a compromise, I feel it is better than getting rid of the mailing list, which is what some people are suggesting.
I take part in a few Discourse fora which send me an email when somebody
adds to a thread and then I have to click on a link to go to the forum to
read it. So basically more effort to read but just as many emails. So what
does that achieve? Better to get an email with the message in it and
not have to go visit the forum. The only use I find for the OpenSCAD forum
is to find an old post when I have deleted the email. So it is a good
archive.
On Sat, 23 Jan 2021 at 21:20, jon jon@jonbondy.com wrote:
Doug:
Are you suggesting a trial run of a Discourse forum, to see how it goes,
and then maybe switching over? Or a parallel Discourse forum that
people could use.
I personally am a fan of function over form. Which means email over
"modern". I have a young friend who recently said that she had
forgotten that she even had an email account. She texted someone to
give me a message rather than emailing me directly, even though she and
I have emailed at times. I wonder if that generation will survive.
Jon
On 1/23/2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
This discussion thread, and the "modern forum" discussion thread from
December, both began with a request to switch to Discourse. Some OpenSCAD
users want a forum that "looks and feels modern", and while I don't know
what that means, it seems that Discourse satisfies the requirement. So
let's consider Discourse.
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write "General"
category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that is synced with the
mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of two groups of people: those
who won't use a mailing list, and those who won't use a forum. Mirroring
the mailing list in Discourse provides a nicer web UI for browsing the
archives than what we currently have.
Although this is a compromise, I feel it is better than getting rid of
the mailing list, which is what some people are suggesting.
On 01-23-2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
...
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write "General" category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that is synced with the mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of two groups of people: those who won't use a mailing list, and those who won't use a forum.
Unless the mailing-list people want to write something. Personally, I
like things just the way they are.. Just because something is "modern"
doesn't necessarily make it better (IMNSHO).
- Michele
I agree. The web hosted folks want us to go to their servers, while
there is no need if the content is in the email itself. The Discourse
approach sounds like it takes a lot more time than the current system.
So much for "modern".
Is there any up side to those systems? I mean, other than that they are
"modern"?
On 1/23/2021 4:32 PM, nop head wrote:
I take part in a few Discourse fora which send me an email when
somebody adds to a thread and then I have to click on a link to go to
the forum to read it. So basically more effort to read but just as
many emails. So what does that achieve? Better to get an email with
the message in it and not have to go visit the forum. The only use I
find for the OpenSCAD forum is to find an old post when I have deleted
the email. So it is a good archive.
On Sat, 23 Jan 2021 at 21:20, jon <jon@jonbondy.com
mailto:jon@jonbondy.com> wrote:
Doug:
Are you suggesting a trial run of a Discourse forum, to see how it
goes,
and then maybe switching over? Or a parallel Discourse forum that
people could use.
I personally am a fan of function over form. Which means email over
"modern". I have a young friend who recently said that she had
forgotten that she even had an email account. She texted someone to
give me a message rather than emailing me directly, even though
she and
I have emailed at times. I wonder if that generation will survive.
Jon
On 1/23/2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
This discussion thread, and the "modern forum" discussion thread
from December, both began with a request to switch to Discourse.
Some OpenSCAD users want a forum that "looks and feels modern",
and while I don't know what that means, it seems that Discourse
satisfies the requirement. So let's consider Discourse.
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write
"General" category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that
is synced with the mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of
two groups of people: those who won't use a mailing list, and
those who won't use a forum. Mirroring the mailing list in
Discourse provides a nicer web UI for browsing the archives than
what we currently have.
Although this is a compromise, I feel it is better than getting
rid of the mailing list, which is what some people are suggesting.
_______________________________________________
OpenSCAD mailing list
Discuss@lists.openscad.org <mailto:Discuss@lists.openscad.org>
http://lists.openscad.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.openscad.org
<http://lists.openscad.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.openscad.org>
OpenSCAD mailing list
Discuss@lists.openscad.org
http://lists.openscad.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.openscad.org
I believe part of the concern about the future of this mailing list / forum
is that the existing forum platform is expected to go away, so keeping
things "just the way they are" is probably impossible. We will have to
migrate to an alternative at some point.
Michele Denber wrote
On 01-23-2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
...
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write "General"
category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that is synced with
the mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of two groups of people:
those who won't use a mailing list, and those who won't use a forum.
Unless the mailing-list people want to write something. Personally, I
like things just the way they are.. Just because something is "modern"
doesn't necessarily make it better (IMNSHO).
- Michele
OpenSCAD mailing list
Discuss@.openscad
--
Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/
I am suggesting to run the Discourse forum and the mailing list in parallel indefinitely, and see how it goes. Use Discourse as the web interface for reading and searching both discussion lists. Keep the mailing list running until nobody uses it anymore, but then still keep the archives online. And if nobody uses the Discourse forum, or it falls into disuse, then we didn't actually need it.
It's not my first choice. I'd prefer a forum that is better than Nabble and has excellent mailing list integration, so that we don't split our participants into two different universes. The forum should be isomorphic to the mailing list, just two different interfaces to the same data. However, I don't know if such a solution would satisfy the people who want a "modern" forum. For example, Discourse has social features: if your posts get enough "likes" then you earn "badges". I think this is horrible, and anyway it won't work over a mailing list. But maybe this kind of thing is part of what the people requesting a "modern" forum are asking for?
It's hard to find an open source solution that is both an excellent forum and an excellent mailing list. Maybe there is a shortage of developers who value both interfaces, to work on such a thing? The people who develop Discourse are upfront about their hatred of email, and lack of interest in spending developer time on better mailing list integration. The people who develop Mailman characterize HyperKitty as "awesome" and "highly recommended" but even I can see that it sucks compared to Discourse.
So I'm suggesting a hybrid solution.
On Sat, Jan 23, 2021, at 4:19 PM, jon wrote:
Doug:
Are you suggesting a trial run of a Discourse forum, to see how it goes,
and then maybe switching over? Or a parallel Discourse forum that
people could use.
I personally am a fan of function over form. Which means email over
"modern". I have a young friend who recently said that she had
forgotten that she even had an email account. She texted someone to
give me a message rather than emailing me directly, even though she and
I have emailed at times. I wonder if that generation will survive.
Jon
On 1/23/2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
This discussion thread, and the "modern forum" discussion thread from December, both began with a request to switch to Discourse. Some OpenSCAD users want a forum that "looks and feels modern", and while I don't know what that means, it seems that Discourse satisfies the requirement. So let's consider Discourse.
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write "General" category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that is synced with the mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of two groups of people: those who won't use a mailing list, and those who won't use a forum. Mirroring the mailing list in Discourse provides a nicer web UI for browsing the archives than what we currently have.
Although this is a compromise, I feel it is better than getting rid of the mailing list, which is what some people are suggesting.
Troberg wrote
Face it, mailing lists, while they do work, they aren't really modern,
and,
most importantly, they don't feel modern. I can promise you that if I
asked
my kids (26 and 24) what a mailing list is, they wouldn't know. When a new
potential user pops in to see what OpenSCAD is, if he/she doesn't
understand
what a mailing list is, chances are that we've lost him/her before even
trying the program.
This perfectly illustrates why I decided to post this thread. In my opinion,
OpenSCAD needs to capture the attention of new users... which would mainly
be "millennials" or even younger. I´m pretty sure they would identify this
forum as old. For example, there may be tons of young people (students of
engineering, applied sciences, informatics, etc) that buy their new 3D
printers and want to create new stuff. OpenSCAD should be as amenable to
them as possible, don´t you think?
In addition, there may be many users that do not interact just because of
the more than 10 steps one has to follow to configure current mailing list
and forum. Also they may think this would become soon obsolete in favor of
other non-coding approaches to create parametric objects.
doug.moen wrote
This discussion thread, and the "modern forum" discussion thread from
December, both began with a request to switch to Discourse. Some OpenSCAD
users want a forum that "looks and feels modern", and while I don't know
what that means, it seems that Discourse satisfies the requirement. So
let's consider Discourse.
You´re right... what is modern forum? This is not a very clear concept :-)
Perhaps this example would help to illustrate what it looks like:
https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/angular-cross-sections-in-karamba/102476/2 As
you can see, images are seamlessly integrated within the posts and shared
links have a counter that indicates how many times it has been accessed, and
some other fancy things that facilitate the communication (which as you know
it is not that easy using plain email text).
In this respect, I think that McNeel company has taken their time to
carefully select Discourse as their Forums platform. Note that thousands of
users of Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, and many FEA and CAD plugins for
parametric engineering and architecture actively contribute via such forum
platform. I think this is a quite clear indicative about where to go next.
But of course, this is just my minority opinion.
But please, do not misunderstand me. I fully respect the preferences and
opinion of the majority, which undoubtedly prefers a mailing list
https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-LK6WQBX57/ (thanks
a lot JordanBrown!). However, these results may be biased by the fact that
only votes who reads this mailing list and forum. We do not know what
potential and long-term users would prefer. Only a detailed survey, that it
is out of our scope, would adequately answer this question.
An important thing to take into account in this discussion are OpenSCAD
alternatives. The competence interest, for example in FreeCAD is raising
compared to OpenSCAD, at least as judged by Google Trends:
http://forum.openscad.org/file/t3088/Interest_Trends_in_OpenSCAD_vs_FreeCAD.png
Are the OpenSCAD number of downloads and/or the number of new
forum/mail-list users also decreasing? If so, improving community
interaction would contribute favorably to increase usage and participation.
Perhaps some monthly or yearly figures about this would shed some light to
select the best way to go.
--
Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/
If having a "modern" place for the younger folks and an email place for
the older folks is feasible, then I think that would be great.
Jon
On 1/23/2021 5:38 PM, Vigardo wrote:
Troberg wrote
Face it, mailing lists, while they do work, they aren't really modern,
and,
most importantly, they don't feel modern. I can promise you that if I
asked
my kids (26 and 24) what a mailing list is, they wouldn't know. When a new
potential user pops in to see what OpenSCAD is, if he/she doesn't
understand
what a mailing list is, chances are that we've lost him/her before even
trying the program.
This perfectly illustrates why I decided to post this thread. In my opinion,
OpenSCAD needs to capture the attention of new users... which would mainly
be "millennials" or even younger. I´m pretty sure they would identify this
forum as old. For example, there may be tons of young people (students of
engineering, applied sciences, informatics, etc) that buy their new 3D
printers and want to create new stuff. OpenSCAD should be as amenable to
them as possible, don´t you think?
In addition, there may be many users that do not interact just because of
the more than 10 steps one has to follow to configure current mailing list
and forum. Also they may think this would become soon obsolete in favor of
other non-coding approaches to create parametric objects.
doug.moen wrote
This discussion thread, and the "modern forum" discussion thread from
December, both began with a request to switch to Discourse. Some OpenSCAD
users want a forum that "looks and feels modern", and while I don't know
what that means, it seems that Discourse satisfies the requirement. So
let's consider Discourse.
You´re right... what is modern forum? This is not a very clear concept :-)
Perhaps this example would help to illustrate what it looks like:
https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/angular-cross-sections-in-karamba/102476/2 As
you can see, images are seamlessly integrated within the posts and shared
links have a counter that indicates how many times it has been accessed, and
some other fancy things that facilitate the communication (which as you know
it is not that easy using plain email text).
In this respect, I think that McNeel company has taken their time to
carefully select Discourse as their Forums platform. Note that thousands of
users of Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, and many FEA and CAD plugins for
parametric engineering and architecture actively contribute via such forum
platform. I think this is a quite clear indicative about where to go next.
But of course, this is just my minority opinion.
But please, do not misunderstand me. I fully respect the preferences and
opinion of the majority, which undoubtedly prefers a mailing list
https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-LK6WQBX57/ (thanks
a lot JordanBrown!). However, these results may be biased by the fact that
only votes who reads this mailing list and forum. We do not know what
potential and long-term users would prefer. Only a detailed survey, that it
is out of our scope, would adequately answer this question.
An important thing to take into account in this discussion are OpenSCAD
alternatives. The competence interest, for example in FreeCAD is raising
compared to OpenSCAD, at least as judged by Google Trends:
http://forum.openscad.org/file/t3088/Interest_Trends_in_OpenSCAD_vs_FreeCAD.png
Are the OpenSCAD number of downloads and/or the number of new
forum/mail-list users also decreasing? If so, improving community
interaction would contribute favorably to increase usage and participation.
Perhaps some monthly or yearly figures about this would shed some light to
select the best way to go.
--
Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/
OpenSCAD mailing list
Discuss@lists.openscad.org
http://lists.openscad.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.openscad.org
doug.moen wrote
I am suggesting to run the Discourse forum and the mailing list in
parallel indefinitely, and see how it goes. Use Discourse as the web
interface for reading and searching both discussion lists. Keep the
mailing list running until nobody uses it anymore, but then still keep the
archives online. And if nobody uses the Discourse forum, or it falls into
disuse, then we didn't actually need it.
I think this is more or less what happened with Grasshopper forum before it
was integrated into McNeel´s Discourse. This is the old version that remains
as source of knowledge: https://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum
doug.moen wrote
Discourse has social features: if your posts get enough "likes" then you
earn "badges". I think this is horrible, and anyway it won't work over a
mailing list. But maybe this kind of thing is part of what the people
requesting a "modern" forum are asking for?
You´re right, but a "modern" forum also offers other much more useful stuff.
For example, as you type a new subject in a new post, it automatically
searches for coincidences in the database to avoid duplicates (as I did
creating a new thread that overlapped the December´s discussion :-) It also
alerts you when you´ve unread messages and keeps everything tidy without any
effort.
--
Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/
On Sat, Jan 23, 2021, at 4:44 PM, Michele Denber wrote:
On 01-23-2021 4:03 PM, Doug Moen wrote:
Somebody could create a Discourse forum with a read-write "General" category, plus a read-only "Mailing-List" category that is synced with the mailing list. This would satisfy the needs of two groups of people: those who won't use a mailing list, and those who won't use a forum.
Unless the mailing-list people want to write something.
No, the proposal is to leave the mailing list in place exactly as it is, and mirror the content onto the Discourse server. The Discourse server can be ignored by people who only want to interact with the mailing list.
There would, in addition, be a Discourse forum that is separate from the mailing list. So you won't see that content on the mailing list, just as you don't see the OpenSCAD discussions on Reddit or Thingiverse unless you visit those web forums (or use RSS I guess).