[RFC] Feature Proposal - Announce proposals on the community forum

Hello everybody,

Based on the feedback, I updated the proposal to start using the new forum for proposal announcements.

I kindly request feedback on the proposal. Please discuss this proposal on its Wiki Talk page.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Start_moving_proposal_announcements_to_the_new_forum

3 Likes

Based on the feedback, I updated the proposal to start using the new forum for proposal announcements.

you are proposing the same thing (abandon the tagging ml as place to make tagging voting related announcements) and have added a 12 month transition period, or are there more changes proposed?

2 Likes

It is important to note that during the 12 month transition period, it is allowed for other to announce on the mailing list on behalf of the proposal author. The previous vote made clear that >50% would like to only post announcements on the new forum. Quite some pro ML users indicated they wished a transition period to adjust to the new forum. This way it should please both sides while still starting a transition.

Given the e-mail integration features of this forum, is it perhaps technically possible to have these announcement posts automatically forwarded to the mailing list?

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I don’t know this. Maybe this is possible via plugins. A quick search on the internet did not result in anything.

I will also add a section to the proposal to explain that you can post topics on discourse via email if people prefer using email.

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5 posts were merged into an existing topic: A Guide on using this site via email

@Cartographer10 I run a proposal, I did already ask for comments here. Now I want to send the proposal to vote. How to proceed:

  • Use existing topic, change title from “RfC: abc” to “Vote: abc; was RfC: abc”, add post that voting starts.

This might get me more audience than:

  • File a new topic: voting starts for proposal Vote: abc.

Any ideas? A proposal has a life-cycle. The wiki adapts quite fine.

@Hungerburg I would start a new topic using the title the proposal suggest. That way people who are following the tag get a new notification. I my self only get a notification about new topics, not comments for the comments in a topic.

Note that changing a topic is only possible for 1 month for Level 2 members. If your RFC takes longer than 1 month, you can no longer update it.

I feel this proposal would be much more likely to pass if the following changes were made:

  • Proposals should be announced on the new forum ([1]) instead of the as well as the tagging mailing list.

Using the word “instead” makes it sound like the proposal is to immediately stop having announcements on the tagging mailing list and is just asking for no votes. Better to avoid this wording.

  • A transition period of 12 months is proposed where the proposal author is required to also announce the proposal on the mailing. Post on behalf of the author will be allowed.
  • If the proposal author is not subscribed to the tagging mailing list, they should request that a subscriber cross post the announcement there for them.

The 12 month transition idea seems sensible at first, but again I think it’s just asking for no votes because some people think it should be 18 months or something. There is no need to propose something that is supposed to happen a year from now. Propose it in 11 months after people have had time to get used to proposal announcements on the new forum.

In the case you don’t want to also announce it on If you are not subscribed to the mailing list, add the following text to the topic body:

“In the case you don’t want to…” makes it sound like we are voting on making it optional to announce on the mailing list. As this is contradicted by other parts of the proposal, I think it would be best to change.

1 Like

I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned yet, but is there any way to standardize on the topic tagging for proposals? I see both wiki-proposal and proposal being used so it’s a bit hard to follow since there is not a dedicated category yet.

I’m neutral on whether or not there should be a 12 month transition period. Seems like there are a number of people who oppose shifting the announcements to the forum. It might also be the people who are already strongly oppose the transition disproportionately participated in the voting, because they are already comfortable with the existing process. Yet the existing process is not intuitive and it is cumbersome to setup. I believe over time more proposal discussion should shift to the forum and in turn may attract new participants who may shift the general opinion towards using the new forum

Thank you for your constructive suggestions. I copied them (and thus removed the transition period). I also received other feedback that the proposal is still to forcing. I think this would be a good compromise for both camps (ML users and those who don’t like it).

In fact there is one, and you’re in :grin: Tagging general discussion - OpenStreetMap Community Forum

Reminder for feedback if you haven’t given any. I hope that the current proposal addresses the issues from the previous vote.

As summary, I changed that other should be allowed to cross post announcements on behalf of the proposal author. I also removed the transition period.

Based on the feedback I have received I made some changes to the proposal:

  1. I added a small change in the proposal template to add notes as reminder that user adds the links of discussion on the forum and ML to the proposal.

  2. I removed the words “new forum” and replaced it with community forum since the forum has been in use for some time already.

  3. I added that it is always the proposal author’s responsibility to make sure announcements get cross posted if needed. The author needs to check the forum or the ML archive to see if the announcement has been cross posted.

  4. On the forum, there is a sub community for tagging discussion. Proposal announcements can be made there. People can follow the tag “wiki-proposal” to subscribe to new topics if they don’t want to follow the entire sub community. If the traffic increases, a special sub community for proposals can be requested (if enough moderators can be found).

I hope that with this I addressed everybody their concerns regarding this change.

Updated proposal link: Talk:Proposed features/Announce proposals on the community forum - OpenStreetMap Wiki

1 Like

FWIW, the actual proposal, in full, is:

Proposal
The following is proposed:
* Proposals should be announced on the community forum ([[1]](https://community.openstreetmap.org)) as well as the tagging mailing list.
* If the proposal author is not subscribed to the tagging mailing list or the forum, they should request that a subscriber cross post the announcement there for them.

That seems entirely reasonable, even though Discourse is still not quite the finished article yet and not really a great place for discussions - see the current kerfuffle about post flagging for one example of the problems.

Perhaps change the name of this thread from “Feature Proposal - Start moving proposal announcements to the new forum” to “Feature Proposal - Announce proposals on the community forum”, which is the actual name of the current proposal?

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I can’t change the proposal title anymore? Do you have those rights? If yes, feel free to change the title

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Done

(… extra text added to meet Discourse’s 10-character requirement …)

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You can use flags to notify admins for that, see Discourse New Users Guide - Actions and Reactions.

(… extra text added to meet Discourse’s 10-character requirement …)

it’s a pain in the anus…