Using the forum as the main discussion platform for tagging

Hungerburg · 2022-09-25T20:12:37.010Z

Thank you @davidoskky for inviting me by ping. Do contributors to the other topic, that this one is said to be split off get a notice too? How can I tell, that both this and the other topic relate, here or there?

This piece Web Discussions: Flat by Design from Jeff Atwood fame should be mentioned here too. I am a bit uncertain, if the message by @nukeador in the other topic did quote it right: In stackoverflow, replies to a message do not appear in the posts-roll, but appear below the post they replied to. It has one level of threading, visible by some indentation and smaller print. I agree, this minimal nesting should do it. Discourse has no threading at all. Perfectly fine for brainstorming.

I should say, IMO, multiple topics for a proposal RfC seem to best meet the requirements of decently structured discussion. That is also the gist of the discourse thread nukeador linked to, if I understand fully. Even the most simple proposal will give rise to distinct issues. Intermingling talk on several of those in a single topic will make staying up to date a chore. So yeah, go for multiple topics! @Cartographer10 WDYT?

davidoskky · 2022-09-25T22:21:09.048Z

Hello @Hungerburg,
thank you for taking part in this discussion.

Hungerburg:

Do contributors to the other topic, that this one is said to be split off get a notice too?

I’m not sure about this, I would hope this is the default behavior or that at least it’s some kind of option that can be enabled.

Hungerburg:

How can I tell, that both this and the other topic relate, here or there?

You can tell that this topic is related to the other one by the first link in my post; that was automatically inserted by the system.
As far as I can see, there is no other indication available of this and it definitely is not clear from the list of topics.

From the other topic, the only indication that this is related is under the post I was replying to; a small insert appears linking to this topic as you can see in this image.
I do agree that it would be better to also show it at the beginning of the other topic, so that all related topics can easily be retrieved; possibly nearby the popular links listing.
In fact, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have a listing of popular links and not a listing of related topics.

image740×593 86.8 KB

Hungerburg:

In stackoverflow, replies to a message do not appear in the posts-roll, but appear below the post they replied to. It has one level of threading, visible by some indentation and smaller print. I agree, this minimal nesting should do it.

Agreed, this would probably be a better solution; but I believe there is no way to provide such functionality to this forum.

Hungerburg:

multiple topics for a proposal RfC seem to best meet the requirements of decently structured discussion.

I agree, multiple topics appears the best way to go; discussing everything in the same topic does look chaotic.
At this point it has to be made clear how difficult it would be to retrieve all related topics.
If the only way to retrieve related topics is the small link under the reply, this gets quite difficult as people might overlook it.
If that is the case, I feel that the best option would be to delegate to the author of the original topic the duty of curating a list of all other related topics into the original message, so that everyone can easily retrieve all conversations. This is far from ideal, since this should be automated by the system.

Mateusz_Konieczny · 2022-09-26T00:30:46.636Z

davidoskky:

No external tools required

tagging mailing list is also not requiring external tools, both can be accessed by opening a website (webmail or forum)

nowadays free decent webmail like gmail (has some problems but they do not apply for mailing lists) or tutanota or Proton Mail and many other are readily accessible

On the other hand ability to inline images (we can do it here, right?) can be nice

davidoskky · 2022-09-26T06:58:22.242Z

Mateusz_Konieczny:

tagging mailing list is also not requiring external tools, both can be accessed by opening a website (webmail or forum)

Yes, you’re right.
I was referring to the navigation of messages and threads, it’s been mentioned that external tools are a good way to navigate the mailing list.

Moving to the new forum for proposals and voting

I was refering to the public archives. Locally you can do any search and ordering you like, but only of those messages that are available. with services like gmane you can access via NNTP

Mateusz_Konieczny:

On the other hand ability to inline images (we can do it here, right?) can be nice

Yes, images can be easily added to posts.

Mateusz_Konieczny · 2022-09-26T11:24:39.265Z

davidoskky:

I was referring to the navigation of messages and threads, it’s been mentioned that external tools are a good way to navigate the mailing list.

in this case there is no real difference in strength as Discourse is also exposing API (IIRC)

ezekielf · 2022-09-26T12:58:15.701Z

Mateusz_Konieczny:

tagging mailing list is also not requiring external tools, both can be accessed by opening a website (webmail or forum)

I’d say the mailing list does require an external tool: an email address and client. Most likely everyone already has this, but it is still an external tool. With the forum, a new user can follow a link, sign in, and immediately reply to a thread right on the same platform where they read it. With the mailing list a new user follows a link to the archive page and they can read the thread there, but not reply. In order to reply they must move to a different platform (email client) instead of the original place where they read the conversation (list archive).

woodpeck · 2022-09-26T13:14:53.560Z

This discussion is taking a hilarious turn. If you do not have an email address you cannot sign up to OSM and if you cannot sign up to OSM then you cannot participate in this forum. If you use a throwaway email address you will not receive messages when people comment on your mapping and you will rightly be kicked out for not being a good OSM citizen. Having people who are not good OSM citizens have a say in what tags OSM is using is ridiculous. No email - no service.

ezekielf · 2022-09-26T13:23:25.177Z

As someone who has been subscribed to the mailing lists for a very long time, I’m sure it sounds ridiculous to you, but please consider what it’s like for someone who is not yet subscribed, or does not wish to subscribe, to the mailing list. Of course they have an email address, but subscribing to the mailing list is a separate process than signing up for OSM. The point is that if I send a link to this mailing list thread to another mapper who is not subscribed, they can’t reply at the link I sent them. With a link to the forum, they can. It’s very simple.

nukeador · 2022-09-26T14:07:15.734Z

I feel that focusing this discussion on mailings lists vs discourse is probably not going far, individuals will keep having their own personal preferences.

Instead, as I suggested, I would frame a small test (one or two tags only) to validate if these forums can productively host a tagging discussion and see and present the outcomes to everyone, based on data, not only opinions or preferences.

Cheers,

davidoskky · 2022-09-26T15:58:25.530Z

Agreed, though the focus here is not in and of itself forcing users to switch to discourse, but finding advantages and disadvantages; so that it will become easier for people to decide whether to use the forum or not and it’ll be clear to everyone what are the problems with the forum in order to find some workarounds.

We are not sure about how discourse behaves in particular situations; could you please address these points?

When a new topic is created from an existing one, are all the participants noticed about it? (here)
Is it possible to easily understand which topics are related to each other? (here)
Are users participating in the discussion notified about edits to previous posts? (here)

Knowing how the forum works will make it easier to find a good way to utilize it.

nukeador · 2022-09-26T16:03:22.714Z

davidoskky:

When a new topic is created from an existing one, are all the participants noticed about it? (here)

Original topic owner is notified.

davidoskky:

Is it possible to easily understand which topics are related to each other? (here)

Replies created as new topics will appear as link to the original topic message. I’d suggest appending a unique tag to all topics to keep them searchable.

davidoskky:

Are users participating in the discussion notified about edits to previous posts? (here)

People is notified if the original message has been edited or a message you replied or liked was edited.

I think trying to anticipate every use case (or if they are blockers for most people or not) is very time consuming, that’s why a simple test will help people understand if there are any other additional gaps through the process.

Richard · 2022-09-26T17:38:42.858Z

As the admin of the tagging@ mailing list I’ve long anticipated that tagging discussions will move here in time.

The list format is not particularly conducive to participation by subject experts, because the prime way of interacting with it is by subscribing to the list; unless you use an email client/provider with significant threading and filtering capabilities, that means your inbox ends up bombarded with tagging discussions, most of which you will have no interest in. The result is that the tagging@ list is primarily composed of “people who like talking about tagging” which is not a great outcome.

However, community.openstreetmap.org is still effectively in setup mode and there is a lot of ‘meta’ talk, so the time is not yet.

I wouldn’t anticipate that the wiki “voting” procedure needs to move here. If people want to vote on what particular words appear on a wiki page (which is all the voting procedure is), it makes sense to keep that on the wiki.

nukeador · 2022-09-26T18:01:06.731Z

2 posts were split to a new topic: Edit messages time limitation

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-26T18:01:15.967Z

Hungerburg:

I should say, IMO, multiple topics for a proposal RfC seem to best meet the requirements of decently structured discussion. That is also the gist of the discourse thread nukeador linked to, if I understand fully. Even the most simple proposal will give rise to distinct issues. Intermingling talk on several of those in a single topic will make staying up to date a chore. So yeah, go for multiple topics! @Cartographer10 WDYT?

True, but smaller discussion can also happen in one post. See this and original post. The original topic has over 50 comments already. Several small things were covered in a single topic which went fine

nukeador · 2022-09-26T18:04:49.172Z

Have you noticed that now the original topic offers a summary of messages? It will pick the 10% most relevant ones (likes and replies).

Multiple replies to one message can be expanded from the original message, allowing one level of threading some people was asking about.

Cartographer10 · 2022-09-26T18:09:42.623Z

Sweet. That is indeed an useful feature.

dieterdreist · 2022-09-26T19:19:37.165Z

Zeke Farwell:

I’d say the mailing list does require an external tool: an email address and client.

this is relatively new though, before you could use nabble to read and post, but they are not there any more (AFAIK)

rmikke · 2022-09-27T08:06:39.343Z

Why not move the whole proposal process here?

I mean, create proposal as wiki post, have discussions and voting on Discourse and then copy the final version of wiki post to wiki, with a link to proposal (and discussion and voting) in Discourse?

Pedja · 2022-09-27T08:13:47.237Z

Whole proposal process should be dealt in one place. It does not matter which one as long it is one place.

davidoskky · 2022-09-27T08:32:05.679Z

davidoskky:

I feel that the best option would be to delegate to the author of the original topic the duty of curating a list of all other related topics into the original message, so that everyone can easily retrieve all conversations. This is far from ideal, since this should be automated by the system.

There are some complications to this.
As explained here (Edit messages time limitation) the creator of the topic cannot edit the post for as long as he wants.
Uses with trust level 0 and 1 can edit posts only during the 24 hours following the post creation; while users with trust level 2 can edit post for one month.
Attaining level 2 should not be too complicated, but it still requires the user to log in the forum in 15 different days; thus requiring at least half a month before they can manage such a discussion.

30 days to initiate and conclude a discussion looks like a good amount of time, however the approval of any feature requires at least one month to be concluded: the voting on the proposal has to be started at least 2 weeks after the RfC and the voting itself has to last two weeks.
Thus, one month to maintain the discussion could not be enough.
Under these circumstances this solution might not be appropriate to deal with this kind of discussions.
Some other possible solutions to keep the discussions ordered have been proposed:

Turn a topic into wiki mode where anyone with TL1 can edit. (here)
Append tags to a topic and all the related ones to make the easy to search and to subscribe to the topic (here)
Increase the edit time limit or remove the limitation completely (here)