Thread: Syndicating PostgreSQL mailing list to Discourse

On 05/25/2018 01:03 PM, Erlend Sogge Heggen wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I'm with the Discourse.org team and I'm just here to ask if anyone would 
> be interested in having a read-only Discourse mirror of the PostgreSQL 
> mailing list.
> 
> Since it's read-only it would only be used for things like:
> 
>   * Fast search with advanced filters (Discourse puts PostgreSQL full
>     text search to good use!)
>   * All active lists aggregated into one feed, but also available as
>     individual categories that can be tracked/watched.
>   * Single-page topics, easier to read on mobile for the young'uns.
> 
> If our mirror archive gets enough traction we'd like to make it possible 
> to sign up to the forum and seamlessly interact with the mailing list, 

Well 'seamlessly works' would be the important part. In the past when 
this was tried(can't remember the who) the posts lagged noticeably and 
content went missing.

> provided it's something the community actually wants of course. We're 
> doing a similar experiment with the ruby-talk mailing list, which you 
> can see being tested  at https://rubytalk.org/.
> 
> Lemme know if there's any interest, and thanks to everyone involved in 
> PostgreSQL for an outstanding piece of software!
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Erlend


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com> writes:
> On 05/25/2018 01:03 PM, Erlend Sogge Heggen wrote:
>> If our mirror archive gets enough traction we'd like to make it possible 
>> to sign up to the forum and seamlessly interact with the mailing list, 

> Well 'seamlessly works' would be the important part. In the past when 
> this was tried(can't remember the who) the posts lagged noticeably and 
> content went missing.

TBH, the existing services that try to do that provide a remarkably
unfriendly experience on this side, and haven't shown much interest in
improving that (I'm thinking of Nabble in particular).  So my initial
reaction is "thanks but no thanks, we don't need another of those".
But maybe you can do it a lot better than they have.

            regards, tom lane

On 2018-05-25 14:03, Adrian Klaver wrote:

> > If our mirror archive gets enough traction we'd like to make it
> > possible to sign up to the forum and seamlessly interact with the
> > mailing list,
> 
> Well 'seamlessly works' would be the important part. In the past when
> this was tried(can't remember the who) the posts lagged noticeably and
> content went missing.

Also (as with any kind of message gateway) please, Please, **PLEASE**
preserve the Message-ID when crossing the boundaries.  Otherwise
threading goes out of the window, despite the best efforts of those
among us who still care about it.

This is the reason why I stopped following gnu.* hierarchy (which is
joined two way with @gnu.org mailing lists by Mailman, and Mailman
violates this rule).  If you do it wrong, I'll stop following this list
too. 

-- 
Please don't Cc: me privately on mailing lists and Usenet,
if you also post the followup to the list or newsgroup.
To reply privately _only_ on Usenet and on broken lists
which rewrite From, fetch the TXT record for no-use.mooo.com.

Greetings,

* Erlend Sogge Heggen (e.soghe@gmail.com) wrote:
> Since it's read-only it would only be used for things like:
>
>    - Fast search with advanced filters (Discourse puts PostgreSQL full text
>    search to good use!)

While it might not be the case for other projects, we actually do use
PostgreSQL for our archives, including having FTS..

>    - All active lists aggregated into one feed, but also available as
>    individual categories that can be tracked/watched.

I'm curious what would be different here from what our archives provide.
We could certainly have a single "all lists" archive page but that seems
more likely to be just completely confusing than actually useful at all.

>    - Single-page topics, easier to read on mobile for the young'uns.

We've been working to make the mobile experience better for our
archives and we'd love to make the experience better for everyone, so
please make suggestions or even send in patches; all of the code running
the archives is open.

> If our mirror archive gets enough traction we'd like to make it possible to
> sign up to the forum and seamlessly interact with the mailing list,
> provided it's something the community actually wants of course. We're doing
> a similar experiment with the ruby-talk mailing list, which you can see
> being tested  at https://rubytalk.org/.

How do you plan to address the issues around DMARC/SPF/DKIM..?  If the
answer is "we don't plan to do anything" or "we are going to send email
from our own domain" then you're certainly not making it "seamless" for
us or for the user.  If you have a different solution, then I think
we're certainly curious to hear it, as it would be nice to change the
-bugs and -docs forms back to using the end user's email address when
sending to the list instead of having to have a 'noreply' address be
used.

Please do *not* start causing us trouble by sending what looks like
forged email through our mailing lists and causing bounces for us to
deal with.  We have more than enough of that already and if it becomes
an issue then we'll have to block, bounce, and/or unsubscribe whatever
is causing it.

Thanks!

Stephen

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:13 AM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> I'm curious what would be different here from what our archives provide.
> We could certainly have a single "all lists" archive page but that seems
> more likely to be just completely confusing than actually useful at all.

Any replacement to our own archives will need to provide access to
mail from over 20 years ago to be in any way usable. It's not uncommon
to have to go back that far.

Personally, I don't buy the idea that the need to use a mailing list
rather than a web forum is a notable obstacle for new contributors.
PGLister seems pretty slick to me. It has eliminated all of the
frustrations that I had. Maybe we need to do a better job when it
comes to communicating what the benefits of a mailing list are,
though.

There are real, practical reasons to prefer a mailing list; that
preference isn't just due to ingrained habit. I'm pleased that there
has been a drive to modernize some of the community's infrastructure
in recent years, but only because those changes turned out to be
unalloyed improvements (at least in my view). Besides, while mailing
lists may seem antiquated to a lot of people, aren't web forums almost
as antiquated? Sites like Stack Overflow are very clearly not designed
to work as discussion forums. They do not allow subjective questions,
and it's common for moderators to swiftly delete new threads. Stack
Overflow is popular because it provides the fastest possible access to
a crowdsourced answer, without requiring or even encouraging
participation.

--
Peter Geoghegan

Hello,

What you are proposing with https://rubytalk.org/ seems very interesting.

It offers a quick view on mobile of "latests posts for all sites" in one
click, 
and many other grouping /filtering options (that miss PostgreSQL website),
for users that don't use fat client mailling list system (like me).

This seems even better than nabble www.postgresql-archive.org, that is 
mobile friendly, and even *even* better as you don't include Ads.

As you can see Pg community members are very frightened by this option that 
would permit "seamlessly interact with the mailing list" (there are many
demands
to ask nabble to remove it,
https://www.postgresql-archive.org/postgresql-archive-org-td6035059i20.html#a6059185). 

Maybe you will have a better answer if you propose a pure Read-Only mailling
list system 
- without any possibility to reply from your site,
- promising NO Ads for ever (and explaining how you get the money for
running costs),
- ...

Are there any other mobile users here, to vote for this solution (maybe
adding other restrictions) ?

Regards
PAscal



--
Sent from: http://www.postgresql-archive.org/PostgreSQL-general-f1843780.html

On 11/21/18 6:53 AM, legrand legrand wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> What you are proposing with https://rubytalk.org/ seems very interesting.
> 
> It offers a quick view on mobile of "latests posts for all sites" in one
> click,
> and many other grouping /filtering options (that miss PostgreSQL website),
> for users that don't use fat client mailling list system (like me).
> 
> This seems even better than nabble www.postgresql-archive.org, that is
> mobile friendly, and even *even* better as you don't include Ads.
> 
> As you can see Pg community members are very frightened by this option that
> would permit "seamlessly interact with the mailing list" (there are many
> demands

That is overstating it. The concerns are based on past experiences and 
the mess they made of the mailing list.

> to ask nabble to remove it,
> https://www.postgresql-archive.org/postgresql-archive-org-td6035059i20.html#a6059185).
> 
> Maybe you will have a better answer if you propose a pure Read-Only mailling
> list system
> - without any possibility to reply from your site,
> - promising NO Ads for ever (and explaining how you get the money for
> running costs),
> - ...
> 
> Are there any other mobile users here, to vote for this solution (maybe
> adding other restrictions) ?
> 
> Regards
> PAscal
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Sent from: http://www.postgresql-archive.org/PostgreSQL-general-f1843780.html
> 
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

Hello,

What you are proposing with https://rubytalk.org/ seems very interesting.

It offers a quick view on mobile of "latests posts for all sites" in one
click,
and many other grouping /filtering options (that miss PostgreSQL website),
for users that don't use fat client mailling list system (like me).

This seems even better than nabble www.postgresql-archive.org, that is
mobile friendly, and even *even* better as you don't include Ads.

As you can see Pg community members are very frightened by this option that
would permit "seamlessly interact with the mailing list" (there are many
demands
to ask nabble to remove it,
https://www.postgresql-archive.org/postgresql-archive-org-td6035059i20.html#a6059185).

Maybe you will have a better answer if you propose a pure Read-Only mailling
list system
- without any possibility to reply from your site,
- promising NO Ads for ever (and explaining how you get the money for
running costs),
- ...

Are there any other mobile users here, to vote for this solution (maybe
adding other restrictions) ?

Regards
PAscal