Moving to the new forum for proposals and voting

nukeador · 2022-09-25T10:50:25.246Z

Although I used to be a defender of threaded conversations in the past because that was what some sites implemented by default, I started to question myself when I was never able to follow a “discussion” on reddit and its multi-level threaded view.

This reaffirmation and question from Jeff Artwood again about if there are really discussions happening on these sites or not, brings an insightful reponse from someone who has been studying and creating discussion software for decades (stack overflow, stack exchange… and now discourse)

Discourse Meta – 23 May 17

Threaded discussion is ultimately too complex to survive on the public Internet?

No, I would not. For the record I am not against one (and only one) level of threading, but even that causes temporal and spatial problems with the discussion. Also, are Imgur (?) , Reddit, and Facebook really discussion systems? Reddit is a...

Hungerburg · 2022-09-25T12:05:35.290Z

Personally, I am very happy that most of discussion happens here, in a single topic or in several topics, the ML, any number of other places, and NOT on the wiki talk page. So the talk page can serve to keep record of eminent talking points, issues and solutions. I still think, a change in the wording in the proposal process on where to discuss might be out of scope of this proposal here. Have to heart post above now

Mateusz_Konieczny · 2022-09-25T13:05:36.947Z

nukeador:

if there are really discussions happening on these sites or not

Reddit used to have an actual discussions in the past, and still maybe have them on less overrun subreddits and among people using old.reddit interface.

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-25T14:35:44.267Z

Great, I will see how to change the wording in the proposal. Good that you mention that it is not clear, I think it also caused some of the confusion others have. Glad we understand each other now.

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-25T18:11:39.592Z

I made some changes to: Proposed features/Require proposal announcements to be made on the new forum instead of the mailing list - OpenStreetMap Wiki

I tried to clarify that I only want to change the place where we announce RFC and votes. Like in the current proposal process. The wiki talk page is the main discussion platform. Discussion on the tagging mailing list and the forum are currently optional and will remain optional until somebody make another proposal to change that.

If it is still now clear let me know

Adam_Franco · 2022-09-27T13:26:17.217Z

I just tried to watch the tagging tag in the General category and found that this isn’t possible, tags look to only be watched/subscribed/notified globally throughout Discourse. Looking at the global usage of tagging tag, many of those threads are much more “how to” than RFCs and proposals. In contrast the rfc tag is much more scoped, but not necessarily limited to tagging-related RFCs.

I’m not sure that there is an actual problem here, but as this forum becomes more heavily used it would be handy to be able to watch/get-notified-on a more-specific tag to reliably track proposal discussions without wading through all of the how-to posts.

Discostu36 · 2022-09-27T14:48:20.337Z

How about using a more specific tag, like tagging-rfc?

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-27T17:50:45.438Z

I noticed that too. That is why in the the proposal I propose to use the tag wiki-proposal. A tag for rfc and vote announcements

@Discostu36 Proposals on wiki are not always about tagging, see my proposal for example. Also, do you then also want to introduce tagging-vote for vote announcements? The advance of a single, multi purpose tag like wiki-proposal is that people only need to follow a single tag.

Discostu36 · 2022-09-27T18:10:42.258Z

But not all proposals are about tagging. So maybe tagging-proposal?

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-27T18:14:45.090Z

So you want tagging-proposal for proposals about tagging and for example meta-proposal for other wiki proposals? Or do I understand wrong?

Discostu36 · 2022-09-27T18:26:36.406Z

You understand correctly. Well, I don’t “want” it, it’s just an idea.

Peter_Elderson · 2022-09-27T18:51:39.000Z

If I reply or follow-up to a post having a #[discourse-tag], does the reply or follow-up inherit the #discourse-tag?

nukeador · 2022-09-27T19:57:30.246Z

The tags apply to the whole topic.

rmikke · 2022-09-27T21:19:05.938Z

What would be the advantage of separating tagging proposals from other proposals with different tag? Wouldn’t one tag (like wiki-proposal) be more convenient? And for more finegrained separation, we could add a second tag. We can have more than one tag for a topic, can’t we?

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-28T18:01:22.307Z

Yes we can and that is what the proposal currently says. I also had a discussion on the talk page about that. For both rfc and vote announcements we can use the tag wiki-proposal. Additionally I can ad rfc and vote to the respective announcement templates.

RicoElectrico · 2022-09-28T22:33:06.597Z

Mxdanger:

The wiki is not a barrier of entry,

I would also say that as I find it reasonably easy, but it seems that regular users often have trouble with it. On top of that, the anti-spam filter doesn’t allow registration from a whole lot of IP ranges (like in Poland - T-Mobile). The latter is embarrassing.

Casey_boy · 2022-10-10T09:51:50.448Z

This needs to be treated as a transition rather than an immediate swap. My suggestion:

Stage 1:
Immediate (after a proposal, using current rules, for this process has been accepted)

Set up proposals sub-community
Keep mailing list as mandatory place to announce proposals, but add forum as additionally recommended in proposal process.

Stage 2:
After 3-6 months, and assuming the new sub-community is gaining traction.

Set proposal sub-community to automatically send notification email to tagging mailing list when new topic is posted in that forum (but not follow up replies though to avoid duplications). Edit template to clearly show the proposal has come from the forum (to allow people to find initial/main discussion).
Change proposal process rules to allow posting of proposals on forum only, but keep the mailing list as the required, default option. Since 2.1 is in place, posting on the forum now counts as posting on mailing list.

Stage 3:
After 6-12 months, and assuming the new sub-community has gaining significant traction amongst community and any significant issues are resolved.

Set the forum as the required place for posting proposal announcements. Still allow discussions on tagging mailing list but proposals must be announce in the forum.

nukeador · 2022-10-10T10:12:58.041Z

Just FYI, there is an open question about having a tagging-only space in these forums where potentially this proposal (and others) could be tested. Currently it would need a group of people willing to moderate the category and make the request:

Is there a need for a tagging-only space? This Site Feedback

From my observations, a good amount of new topics under #general are about #tagging, it’s even more in the #help-and-support one. The difference is discussions about tagging and support and help request about it. Is there already a need for “Tagging” to have it’s own (sub)category? What should and shouldn’t it include? Cheers.

Cartographer10 · 2022-10-10T16:59:04.302Z

Do you think wiki (tag) proposals can go under this tagging category? If we use a distinct tag for wiki proposals only, people can follow that without us having the request a new sub community for proposals/votes

nukeador · 2022-10-10T17:30:40.738Z

That’s up to the community to decide, I personally don’t have a strong opinion.

In general it’s always recommended to start with tags and then create subcategories if traffic is high.