In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:
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Miah Johnsonreplied to Doggie :neofox_snug: :therian: last edited by
@lunareclipse @jwildeboer IRC doesn't need history, it's not a documentation service its a place to hold discussions. You don't walk into a discussion with people and request that they give you a log of past discussions. It's ephemeral on purpose. If something important happens it can be logged and made into documentation or a issue etc.
IRC is also perfectly usable on mobile, the problem lies in frequent disconnects but let's admit that mobile users ignore irc 99% of the time anyway.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to 🔗 David Sommerseth last edited by
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It's not just young people. I'm 56 and I don't care for the "submit patches only by email" rule either.
I've done it, but I don't like it.
The one project I follow that had that rule got a Github mirror, that's the only thing I use now.
They like their plaintext email; they can have it. I will happily live in *this* century.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Larry Clapp last edited by
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Larry Clappreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
I apologize, I didn't think you meant that.
I don't know if @0leil thought you did, either; they just brought it up, talking about "young people", and I offered a data point from an old fart.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
Seeing how quite some commenters (want to?) take the wrong conclusions from my thread: I am all for the GitHub/gitlab/forgejo/codeberg based approach of managing issues, PRs, releases in "modern" ways. It made drive-by contributions so much easier! I am however not sure if discord et al are better for asynchronous communication and feel that mailing lists with public archives were a superior approach that we gave up on prematurely. HTH! 6/6
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Miah Johnsonreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer IRC wins for discussions by not requiring anything. You want to chat? Click the JavaScript client link and chat. You can install a optional client if you plan to chat often. You don't need to register or provide any personal details.
Matrix/Discord etc all fail with onboarding and high hardware requirements for a client. I can sign into IRC using any computer with networking, even obsolete hardware. NetBSD on a Apple llc, IRC on a palm pilot. Take your pick.
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tessaraktreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer What about an issue tracker?
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to tessarakt last edited by
@tessarakt Many (smaller) projects didn't have one. It was often handled on the mailing lists. Setting up a full-blown bugzilla was quite a task. Sorceforge was (like GitHub nowadays) another solution to that.
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Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊replied to Miah Johnson last edited by
@miah @lunareclipse @jwildeboer yes but once you've answered the same question for the 500th time you do kinda want full chat search & history
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊 last edited by
@tay It's called an FAQ and should be publicly available on the homepage of the project, IMHO @miah @lunareclipse
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Miah Johnsonreplied to Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊 last edited by
@tay @lunareclipse @jwildeboer There is this advanced technology called a "FAQ" and posting the link in the channel topic, or presenting it to the chatter who needs it bypasses this issue.
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Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊replied to Miah Johnson last edited by
@miah @lunareclipse @jwildeboer It 100% does NOT bypass the issue. I've placed error messages in an application where I put the instructions to resolve the issue in the message box body.
I still got hundreds of emails with the title of the message box copied and pasted in. If a lot of users aren't going to read the 2 lines of text in a modal box, they're not going out of their way to read the FAQ.
You need to give users every possible reason to not resort to messaging you, and chat history is one of them.
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feldreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by@jwildeboer counterpoint: when you force people to use IRC, you're excluding a *LOT MORE* potential contributors because so many people do not like or want to learn IRC, especially younger folks. They want a nice app, rich chat features, and limited friction to sign up / connect.
The IRC crowd is old now. A lot of investment needs to be made into making IRC "comfy" for people. I don't know how to solve this. I've worked on several teams where we used IRC and when new people came onboard they were absolutely horrified and confused about IRC. They did not like it and mostly abstained from using it. -
Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊replied to Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊 last edited by
@miah @lunareclipse @jwildeboer And the other problem with FAQs is in the name. *Frequently* asked questions. Countless times I've had an issue and ctrl+f'ed the issue and found one other person having the same issue 2 years ago.
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Miah Johnsonreplied to Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊 last edited by
@tay @lunareclipse @jwildeboer FAQs can also store the answers to infrequent , but common questions.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to feld last edited by
@feld I don't even think of using IRC that much. I am describing what we did in the past and how all of that had one thing in common: being open and accessible. Compare that to having to have accounts on two or three external (proprietary) services *per project* you are interested in. THAT's my point.
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Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊replied to Miah Johnson last edited by
@miah @lunareclipse @jwildeboer
a) what maintainer is going to put the answer to every single question they've been asked on a FAQ
b) who's going to read a FAQ with a 200 lines TOC
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Proxfox Virtual Environment 🦊 last edited by
@tay I get it, no matter what we say, you will come back with a "yes, but". I will mute this thread now and concentrate on the more productive parts @miah @lunareclipse
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feldreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by@jwildeboer What is our best option to replace those services, though?
I think we're basically looking at Gitter, Mattermost, and RocketChat with Gitter being the most open option (no enterprise/proprietary features // "open core" junk)