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GitHub Discussions Beta

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Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#61

Post by rolleiflex »

saagarjha wrote: post #10
mmahemoff wrote: post #5

Superb. Many open source projects still bounce you to Google Groups for discussion, which is archaic at this point. Even requires Google login just to read threads. Also it's often unclear what the policy is on raising questions in the issues tracker (smaller projects are usually fine with it, bigger projects get overwhelmed and don't want it). This will make it a much nicer separation for everyone and keep the issue…

One thing nice about Google Groups is that you can largely use it to its fullest extent from email.

Yup, use through email is huge, especially when combined with not having to create an account — just join the mailing list. I do have some personal experience with this: when we added the backwards compatibility to email to our team discussion tool (Aether Pro), the usage shot through the roof. To email users, it just looks and acts like a much better, 21st century version of Google Groups.

(We also offer it to open source communities for free as well: https://aether.app/email)

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#62

Post by andreareina »

treve wrote: post #35
kvark wrote: post #18

GitHub is slowly eating the surrounding cities. Github pages replaced our hosted sites. Projects replaced Trello/Waffle and friends. Actions replaced Travis/CircleCI. Sponsors is about to hit Patreon, and now Discussions aims for a piece of StackOverflow pie... I think they are doing great in terms of performance and UI, it's hard to resist the convenience of having everything linked together in a coherent way. But t…

I can't wait for stack overflow to fall out of favor. There's few places as beginner-hostile as SO. If you get enough points, you get the close button, which effectively is telling newcomers to RTFM in nicer words.

Anecdata: I have a question where I was calling super() incorrectly, and another where my reproduction was flawed, not showing what I thought it did. No closures or hostility. Maybe I've been lucky, maybe the advice for asking good questions works.

In any case the act of composing a question according to the guide has answered many more questions than I've actually posted -- some due to the rubber-ducking, others via the "check out these questions" feature.

(This is all orthogonal to the recent issues wrt moderators and community managers)

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#63

Post by chrisseaton »

kitd wrote: post #60

One feature that is missing with this, and with every discussion forum since usenet , is a tree-view of a thread. On my Thunderbird I still follow some usenet forums and it is so much clearer and quicker with a tree view to see who has replied at what point in the thread. Poring through reams of quoted replies just to find where in the thread the answer comes doesn't cut it.

Do you think this kind of deep-threading, or tree-nesting, encourages a forked conversation, with everyone in the discussion trying to respond to individual comments in an ever-growing tree, rather than responding to the current conversation as a whole? I find mailing list threads that are trees very hard to follow. It's probably a conscious decision.

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#65

Post by samatman »

balladeer wrote: post #54
kvark wrote: post #18

GitHub is slowly eating the surrounding cities. Github pages replaced our hosted sites. Projects replaced Trello/Waffle and friends. Actions replaced Travis/CircleCI. Sponsors is about to hit Patreon, and now Discussions aims for a piece of StackOverflow pie... I think they are doing great in terms of performance and UI, it's hard to resist the convenience of having everything linked together in a coherent way. But t…

I was wondering whether Github issues (and now discussions) are exportable? *Just found the answer: https://developer.github.com/v3/issues/

I find it maddening that git hasn't added a standard mechanism for metadata.

Commit comments are metadata. Tags are metadata. Why isn't there a general-purpose metadata plumbing so we can attach issues, merge and commit discussions, and wikis, in a portable way?

No, being able to export from one centralized repository and import into another isn't good enough.

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#66

Post by kodablah »

chrisseaton wrote: post #63
kitd wrote: post #60

One feature that is missing with this, and with every discussion forum since usenet , is a tree-view of a thread. On my Thunderbird I still follow some usenet forums and it is so much clearer and quicker with a tree view to see who has replied at what point in the thread. Poring through reams of quoted replies just to find where in the thread the answer comes doesn't cut it.

Do you think this kind of deep-threading, or tree-nesting, encourages a forked conversation, with everyone in the discussion trying to respond to individual comments in an ever-growing tree, rather than responding to the current conversation as a whole? I find mailing list threads that are trees very hard to follow. It's probably a conscious decision.

I've found trees encourage forked conversations in a good way. While I don't find them hard to follow, I do find revisiting them to be a bit difficult. While it can seem difficult to follow the overarching topic given a set of trees, it's near impossible to have any in-depth discussions about more than one thing in flat threads.

I have given these models lots of thought and have come to the conclusion that the success/failure of hierarchical conversations is determined solely by the presentation. Common mailing lists and email UIs leave the most to be desired, while HN, reddit, sbnation community sites, etc show a path forward. But nobody has implemented the view properly enough to let you see the forest and the trees at the same time (yet).

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#67

Post by threatofrain »

kitd wrote: post #60

One feature that is missing with this, and with every discussion forum since usenet , is a tree-view of a thread. On my Thunderbird I still follow some usenet forums and it is so much clearer and quicker with a tree view to see who has replied at what point in the thread. Poring through reams of quoted replies just to find where in the thread the answer comes doesn't cut it.

Also the problem with Twitter although the boundaries of distinct conversations there are different. Trying to follow any conversation there is like a game.

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#68

Post by julienbourdeau »

manigandham wrote: post #20
kvark wrote: post #18

GitHub is slowly eating the surrounding cities. Github pages replaced our hosted sites. Projects replaced Trello/Waffle and friends. Actions replaced Travis/CircleCI. Sponsors is about to hit Patreon, and now Discussions aims for a piece of StackOverflow pie... I think they are doing great in terms of performance and UI, it's hard to resist the convenience of having everything linked together in a coherent way. But t…

Why would it backfire? This centralized approach is the entire model for competitor Gitlab which has grown without issue so far.

Because Microsoft effectively building a monopoly on OSS. I'm happy now, because the product is amazing but it's always sain to have everything controlled by one company.

Re: GitHub Discussions Beta

#69

Post by chrisseaton »

kodablah wrote: post #66
chrisseaton wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this kind of deep-threading, or tree-nesting, encourages a forked conversation, with everyone in the discussion trying to respond to individual comments in an ever-growing tree, rather than responding to the current conversation as a whole? I find mailing list threads that are trees very hard to follow. It's probably a conscious decision.

I've found trees encourage forked conversations in a good way. While I don't find them hard to follow, I do find revisiting them to be a bit difficult. While it can seem difficult to follow the overarching topic given a set of trees, it's near impossible to have any in-depth discussions about more than one thing in flat threads. I have given these models lots of thought and have come to the conclusion that the succes…

Here's a concrete example where I think it goes wrong. You say something, and two people respond. There's one thing to say in response to both people - maybe they both misunderstood part of your point. Which comment do you respond to? On places like HN people seem to feel the need to respond to both branches, which causes exponential growth if it continues, compared to if you could respond to the two comments as one. Maybe we need a comment DAG instead? Responding to an arbitrary number of comments? Maybe comments that aren't even siblings?
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