Sasi Olin wrote:

On Sa, Mai 21 2022 at 18:45:22 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

...

I honestly don't know what the most common ways are, although I expect code is certainly one.

When I was first developing the new www, that is still very early in development, because I just don't have the time to focus on it,

Sorry, I was not aware it is work in progress - please only take my comment as a comment, nothing more.

there was a group of people that was planning to adjust asknot-ng for openSUSE needs, under contribute.opensuse.org domain, but that fizzled out. It's probably the easiest way to get a website that mentions the ways to contribute to the project. https://github.com/fedora-infra/asknot-ng

Somehow it has to be something that is inviting/open/inclusive for the largest group of people. The teaser has to be attractive to get them through the door :-) I figure "hardware" has to be one of the least popular. I would relegate "hardware" to https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:How_to_participate -- Per Jessen, Zürich (26.8°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

On 23/05/2022 08:31, Lubos Kocman wrote:

Agreed about the teaser,

perhaps that contribute-o-o sounds like a good idea. And yes it has to be catchy. I believe that this is something that SUSE Branding team could help us with as part of "ALP Teaser". Since we have quite some headstart for ALP, I think that it could work out.

We could allow individuals easily enlist cases that need some help or are easy to start it. It should be mixture, of docs, artwork, branding, infra (get-o-o/software-o-o) and packaging.

We used to have a place to enter feature requests and I have always thought that a to-do list could be helpful as an inspiration. However, the difficult thing is "expectation setting" - when people put something on a list, they expect something to get done about it :-) A largely unattended list that just keeps growing longer and longer is discouraging. iow, I think such a list could easily backfire. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.2°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

Emily wrote:

It's interesting to note that https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels doesn't mention Discord, Matrix, Telegram, or the Bar (which doesn't appear at all) till the very, very bottom... They all are listed as mere 'Other methods' - as afterthoughts as it were, though they have become some of the main ways that people chat today. Perhaps we should move them closer to the top. IRC, while still used, is hardly the most popular form of communication that it once was, and it is still listed as though it continues to be...

Which methods are popular and which are less popular is a matter of one's perspective, I would suggest. Many times the best method depends on who you want to talk to. You want to talk to me, I'm on mailing lists and IRC :-) -- Per Jessen, Zürich (22.6°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

* Emily [05-23-22 07:47]:

OK. But if we're talking about/to new users and contributors, people who are just trying to get involved and/or find help and support, IRC is not likely to get you the fastest responses. Discord, Telegram and Matrix are all far more active than IRC is today.

On Mon, May 23, 2022 at 7:27 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...

Emily wrote:

...

It's interesting to note that https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels doesn't mention Discord, Matrix, Telegram, or the Bar (which doesn't appear at all) till the very, very bottom... They all are listed as mere 'Other methods' - as afterthoughts as it were, though they have become some of the main ways that people chat today. Perhaps we should move them closer to the top. IRC, while still used, is hardly the most popular form of communication that it once was, and it is still listed as though it continues to be...

Which methods are popular and which are less popular is a matter of one's perspective, I would suggest. Many times the best method depends on who you want to talk to. You want to talk to me, I'm on mailing lists and IRC :-)

but, discord, telegram and matrix are all merely window dressing for irc channels. their "discussions" take place on/over irc. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

Emily wrote:

OK. But if we're talking about/to new users and contributors, people who are just trying to get involved and/or find help and support, IRC is not likely to get you the fastest responses. Discord, Telegram and Matrix are all far more active than IRC is today.

Oh, I'm sure of that - IRC is just a useful tool in certain situations, usually real-time. I guess the wiki merely documents our various communications channels. If some methods need better or more detailed description, any member is free to update the wiki, of course. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.2°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

Thanks Simon, that looks great! I had looked at attempting to update the wiki and indeed found it locked... On Tue, May 24, 2022 at 7:07 AM Simon Lees wrote:

Hi,

On 5/23/22 21:15, Emily wrote:

...

OK. But if we're talking about/to new users and contributors, people who are just trying to get involved and/or find help and support, IRC is not likely to get you the fastest responses. Discord, Telegram and Matrix are all far more active than IRC is today.

Discord is more active but there is still a number of new users asking questions on IRC the culture between the two places is very different so it doesn't supprise me that some poeple prefer one and others the other. So maybe IRC is less active but its certainly not or close to Dead. (As someone who's a regular in both).

I'm guessing the state of https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels is mostly from historical reasons, that change was done back in 2018 back then the Discord presence was much smaller.

Since it is an admin locked wiki page and I have access I have reworked the Instant Chat section to include our common platforms as far as i'm aware. There is still an extra paragraph on IRC if anyone would like to suggest similar paragraphs for other platforms or further changes feel free to let me know.

Thanks

Simon

...

On Mon, May 23, 2022 at 7:27 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...

Emily wrote:

...

It's interesting to note that https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels doesn't mention Discord, Matrix, Telegram, or the Bar (which doesn't appear at all) till the very, very bottom... They all are listed as mere 'Other methods' - as afterthoughts as it were, though they have become some of the main ways that people chat today. Perhaps we should move them closer to the top. IRC, while still used, is hardly the most popular form of communication that it once was, and it is still listed as though it continues to be...

Which methods are popular and which are less popular is a matter of one's perspective, I would suggest. Many times the best method depends on who you want to talk to. You want to talk to me, I'm on mailing lists and IRC :-)

-- Per Jessen, Zürich (22.6°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

-- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net

Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

-- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe

On Mon, 2022-05-23 at 07:45 -0400, Emily wrote:

OK. But if we're talking about/to new users and contributors, people who are just trying to get involved and/or find help and support, IRC is not likely to get you the fastest responses. Discord, Telegram and Matrix are all far more active than IRC is today.

I fully agree with Emily, just check the trafic on telegram channel. Not even mentioning internal #discuss-opensuse channel on SUSE's slack ... we should just forward all to telegram.

On Mon, May 23, 2022 at 7:27 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...

Emily wrote:

...

It's interesting to note that https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels doesn't mention Discord, Matrix, Telegram, or the Bar (which doesn't appear at all) till the very, very bottom... They all are listed as mere 'Other methods' - as afterthoughts as it were, though they have become some of the main ways that people chat today. Perhaps we should move them closer to the top. IRC, while still used, is hardly the most popular form of communication that it once was, and it is still listed as though it continues to be...

Which methods are popular and which are less popular is a matter of one's perspective, I would suggest.  Many times the best method depends on who you want to talk to.   You want to talk to me, I'm on mailing lists and IRC :-)

-- Per Jessen, Zürich (22.6°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

Am 25. Mai 2022 20:28:44 MESZ schrieb Patrick Shanahan :

and what about those who do not use ?telegram? but still use irc

is this going the same way as text email to pretty pictures and graphics instead of old-fashioned text?

Feel free to request a bridge of any channel you may want to access from irc at admin@opensuse.org LCP [Sasi] https://lcp.world/

On Mi, Mai 25 2022 at 15:44:18 -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

since irc WAS the standard and supported, why would one have to "request a bridge"?

would you expect someone to "request a bridge" if they closed a road and there was no other access to a popular destination?

Contributors in the project are free to use whatever communication platform they damn please to start subprojects within the project. It's not up to me, it's not up to you, it's only up to them. The role of the bridges is allowing more people to be able to take part in the project. No road is being closed here either, new subprojects show up in the project all the time, created by a large array of new contributors in various different places, and have for years. We do not want you to be left out of it, as much as you seem to want to believe it to be the case, every contributor matters in the project. The alternative of having to use 5 different platforms to contribute to openSUSE just doesn't seem like the answer to me, you are free to try it out if you would like, but it might just be easier to email us with your bridge request. There is also the option not to contribute at all, but I would assume we are too cool of a community to want to give us up :P

ps: your email does not wrap to <80 chars one the screen.

It looks like k-9 mail on android doesn't support it indeed, sorry about that. There aren't exactly many good clients on the platform LCP [Sasi] https://lcp.world/

On Mi, Mai 25 2022 at 22:13:36 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Sasi Olin wrote:

...

The alternative of having to use 5 different platforms to contribute to openSUSE just doesn't seem like the answer to me, you are free to try it out if you would like, but it might just be easier to email us with your bridge request.

Being a mailing list type of person, I have not seen much bridging happening to email :-)

I would love to, and to some degree I think we could. I have been looking into how well discourse supports email for example, and we were looking into using discourse itself for comments under posts on news-o-o, to make us utilize as little different software for this kind of stuff as possible. I think there's some potential here. I do like email though and I do want to make it still be a great way to contribute to the project LCP [Sasi] https://lcp.world/

Le 25/05/2022 à 22:51, Knurpht-openSUSE a écrit :

to take part in the same discussions. That is different from forums, MLs etc that were never connected in real time.

of course they are jdd -- http://dodin.org http://valeriedodin.com

On Wed, 25 May 2022 22:13:36 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

It is however a pity when this causes a fragmentation of communication, because that is also a fragmentation of the community. We have long had enough of that. (e.g. forums / mailing lists).

There are really two schools of thought about that - one is that you go where the users are, the other is that you require the users come to you. The latter used to work really well, but now with the proliferation of non-affiliated sites like stackoverflow, communities (and sub- communities) can self-organize wherever they want to. The onus is now less on the people in those communities to go to the 'official' venues; it's more now on the 'sponsor' (not quite the right word, but it'll suffice) to be aware of those venues and to incorporate them into their community plan (or not, and to just let those unofficial places organically grow). On the Facebook group, for example, we strongly encourage difficult/ complex technical questions go to the forums, where threading is easier to follow and there is more technical expertise. If it's a development- related question, we direct them to bugzilla and the MLs. But I'm always surprised at how many people insist "no, I asked here, don't send me somewhere else, just answer my question" - even when the expertise in the FB group just doesn't exist. Unfortunately, I don't see this trend reversing itself. Either we go where the users are, or we just don't talk to them until our community platforms entice them to come over to the 'official' spaces, and there's a lot of inertia to overcome in order for that to happen. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

On Thu, 26 May 2022 16:56:48 +0100, Administrator wrote:

...

On 26 May 2022, at 16:46, Jim Henderson wrote:

Unfortunately, I don't see this trend reversing itself. Either we go where the users are, or we just don't talk to them until our community platforms entice them to come over to the 'official' spaces, and there's a lot of inertia to overcome in order for that to happen.

I think it may be useful to look at things from the people’s perspective: they have dozens or hundreds of different bits of software / services which they’re using and trying to keep working. Going here / there everywhere for answers is very frustrating, and at a certain point one gets annoyed by “go there for an answer.”

But the same view holds from the developers / supporters perspective.

Where will the two tribes meet?

Absolutely. That's ultimately one of two challenges that exist in online support venues: 1. How do you get people to the place where the experts are who can answer their questions? 2. How do you get people to search for the information they're looking for before they ask a question? That second one would help with the first - but for many people, doing a 'fire and forget' question about something that Google can easily find and answer is *easier* than just doing the search yourself. That's been going on for decades, and it's getting worse. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

On 27 May 2022, at 06:01, Attila Pinter wrote:

Users on the other hand IMO shouldn't interact with developers directly. FOSS projects seen the issues with that and continue to suffer that burden. I would keep developer communications separate from user space, for example I wouldn't bridge the KDE IRC with the Telegram openSUSE group, but would bridge it with say the Discord or Telegram KDE group for contributors to easily interact with each other.

There’s a core problem here, which has been outlined by Jim: the userbase of linux systems has changed from tech-heads to normal people, and so the volume and type of problems / questions (issues) to be addressed is changing. Our processes for addressing user issues haven’t changed. If this flow of issues lands on the developers they get no or little development done. If non-devs answer then there are (occasional or frequent) defective or biassed explanations or fixes. If devs don’t get constant feedback from the users of their software, then the gap widens between what the devs think is good software (and so where they focus their limited time) and the users’ view of the same. If the process or organisation isn't clear then the outcome (for all) is totally unpredictable - self organisation only works when there is a shared view of goals / objective and values. One of the most powerful “learning experiences” of my early career was working for 2 years on what was, at the time, called first line support. My viewpoint and standards for “quality” software and services changed radically and permanently. The latest iteration of solutions to be adopted in the commercial world is DevOps, which only works, when there are non-expert or a high volume of users of a system or service, if there is a different group who interact directly with these users. This group can be other forum (or mailing list) members or a team of support people (often non-expert & following a script). Increasingly, larger organisations are trying to use automation (chat bots) + expert maintained FAQs to address this need from the less expert service users. What’s needed for this to work: 1. simplicity for the users of the software / service - inexpert people must know where to go to get an answer to their (often trivial) issues 2. efficient - low overhead for the devs while maintaining feedback - they need to know where they should spend their time to provide maximum value for them and the community 3. quick & accurate - people want a solution to their issue now, and first time. This is valuing their time as well as the devs’. 4. recognition - there is value to all of us in “someone” (aka volunteers) using their time to keep our users happy and taking a load from the devs (other volunteers). I don’t have an answer (if I did I’d be selling it through consultancy to big organisations :-) ) but I think we, the openSUSE community, have some mismatches between the outcome we want and the processes (informal or not) we’ve set up. [The technology we choose often implies a process and organisation.] This may look to be off topic or an over-elaborate answer to a simple question, but I think that we can’t answer the question without considering the underlying process and organisation. Just my $0.04 worth David

On Fri, 27 May 2022 08:35:44 +0100, Administrator wrote: [...]

This may look to be off topic or an over-elaborate answer to a simple question, but I think that we can’t answer the question without considering the underlying process and organisation.

Just my $0.04 worth David

This is a good summary, David. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

On Fri, 2022-05-27 at 10:36 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

Dne pátek 27. května 2022 7:01:24 CEST, Attila Pinter napsal(a):

...

...

Unfortunately, I don't see this trend reversing itself. Either we go where the users are, or we just don't talk to them until our community platforms entice them to come over to the 'official' spaces, and there's a lot of inertia to overcome in order for that to happen.

I think in terms of "Official" the other platforms listed on https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels should be considered official communication channels. Some channels has a larger user base in their community than registered members overall in the Project. Not every user wants to have an openSUSE account, or want to use the forums as David pointed it out, rightfully so. Developers in the project has been long relying on their choice of communication platforms so not much need to change that, and it is well within their right to pick the platform they see best fit their needs. Users on the other hand IMO shouldn't interact with developers directly. FOSS projects seen the issues with that and continue to suffer that burden. I would keep developer communications separate from user space, for example I wouldn't bridge the KDE IRC with the Telegram openSUSE group, but would bridge it with say the Discord or Telegram KDE group for contributors to easily interact with each other. This is up to the contributors or the project though, and not a decision that should be made by the anyone else. If X project decides to keep everything on IRC and doesn't care about other platforms that is fine, but they will be just walled of from new contributors who would be interested to help out, but doesn't know how to use IRC or simply doesn't want to. Bridges solving that. If developers wishes to also provide support or interact with the community of users they can pick the group to go to, but their space is not getting spammed by feature or support requests. Lastly Bugzilla ticket should only be opened when something is actually broken. The community support is actually pretty good at helping out with this one, and upgrading the forums would be a great service to further strengthen that effort. May have went a bit off their.. Anywho, it is possible that I see this matter a lot less gloomy since solutions do exist. Problem starts when the solution gets ignored ^_^ This would be a pretty good topic for a community meeting which we have twice a week.

I still don't understand why majority does not consider IRC + Mailing Lists just enough. Connecting to IRC is just easy as hitting alt+F2, write "konv" and hit enter... Also the UI seems much cleaner and easier to me. It's also faster and the UI is not overloaded, the network overhead is much smaller... Could be sufficient for a contributor with some existing knowledge of how things work, whom to contact, where to subscribe etc.

I did some "unexpected" experiment with Robert (in cc) from SUSE Community yesterday, and the barrier seems to be high for a new commer. Perhaps clear instruction how to communicate from home page would help. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels is good, but again you need to know what you're looking for.

But that's my personal view i guess. Truth is, if IRC stops being the "official" communication channel, i am not going to install Discord or anything, just for supporting users. All Open Source projects I contribute to are on IRC and i have never had problem finding right answers there, under one app. For announcements and anything more "official", the Mailing List is always the only right place IMHO.

Regards, Gryffus

On Fri, 2022-05-27 at 13:01 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

Dne pátek 27. května 2022 12:39:11 CEST, Lubos Kocman napsal(a):

...

On Fri, 2022-05-27 at 10:36 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

I still don't understand why majority does not consider IRC + Mailing Lists just enough. Connecting to IRC is just easy as hitting alt+F2, write "konv" and hit enter... Also the UI seems much cleaner and easier to me. It's also faster and the UI is not overloaded, the network overhead is much smaller...

Could be sufficient for a contributor with some existing knowledge of how things work, whom to contact, where to subscribe etc.

I did some "unexpected" experiment with Robert (in cc) from SUSE Community yesterday, and the barrier seems to be high for a new commer.

Perhaps clear instruction how to communicate from home page would help. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels is good, but again you need to know what you're looking for.

Well, when you start Konversation, it automatically connects you to libera.chat and joins #opensuse channel. There is one textbox for writing messages and a user list on the right and you can ask questions right away. You do not need to contact anyone specific or subscribe anywhere. Just start it and write. Where is the barrier here, also when compared to Discord, where you need invite link AFAIK and the UI is much "harder" to understand with those functions not really needed for asking a question, etc...? I am not trying to troll here or something, I just don't understand it.

I understand your point. I personally also find it "sufficient', as I'm bit curious by nature and mostly lookup stuff. But I'm aware of cross-platformers (our experiment) and cross-distro friends (e.g. a lot of fedora contributors, contribute to openSUSE as well) help who still want to help us with translations, artwork, marketing etc. So not in every case person starts on given platform. (Also don't forget about people who have problem to get openSUSE installed). Some people might be interested only in containers, wsl, etc and e.g. using Mac, so they'll never get in touch with openSUSE-branded konversation. I personally come from icq era, and I personally find it bit challenging to adopt (or perhaps better increase outreach) to communities on new communication channels as well :-)

Regards, Gryffus

Dne pátek 27. května 2022 14:17:13 CEST, Syds Bearda napsal(a):

I don't find IRC sufficient as it does not safe the answers when you're not connected to the server anymore.

How can you expect someone to login, ask the question and keep staying logged in till the question has been sufficiently answered or the conversation you were participating in has died out, to wait to logout again.

I've used ICQ (#28540010 if you want to message me :) as it still exists..), MSN messenger, IRC all in the early '00's, but I'm really happy that we just use Matrix, Telegram or Discord to keep track of the conversation when I'm not online.

Starting up and joining the server/channel is not the issue, keeping track of the conversation is.

/Syds

If you need an answer, you should just wait and learn something from the other questions asked in the meantime. Or do some googling in the meantime and often you will find the answer yourself - by which you also learn (to search correctly). Or just close the Konversation (or any other IRC client) to systray and let it notify you when there is a reply. Or do you ask a question and just turn off your computer, or leave in the middle of a "support" session with someone? That's not very polite, considering he does it at the expense of his own time, for free, isn't it? Also, you cannot expect anyone to just rush to his computer to be able to answer you as fast as he can. It's all about respect and choice. Linux is not free after all. It does not cost you money, but it costs you learning, so in the end, you save some money _AND_ learn something new - that is a double win IMHO :). Maybe for the impatient ones - what about setting up IRC logs like other projets do? For example Ubuntu [1], even if I hate giving Ubuntu as an example, they have this sorted out and it could help us improve the situation. But it is always still better to just wait, since the person that is trying to help you will ask you some questions most of the time and this is consistent across all networks. Or do you want him to wait for you to come online to help you? My ICQ is 163855469 and my Jabber is gryffus@jabber.hkfree.org, but i guess contacting me via IRC or email is just easier :) [1] https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/ Regards, Gryffus

Dne pátek 27. května 2022 14:20:04 CEST, jdd@dodin.org napsal(a):

Le 27/05/2022 à 13:01, Lukáš Krejza a écrit :

...

Well, when you start Konversation, it automatically connects you to libera.chat and joins #opensuse channel.

but you have to wait when people hit the keyboard. It's real time. very boring

with mail you post the question and do other thinks during the wait, you can read 1 hour later

That's why it's called Instant Messaging after all. For more complex questions one should use Mailing List, which is little harder, but not too much i think, given everyone using computer and Internet should be already knowledgeable enough with email. For smaller questions or when you need to actually discuss it in the realtime, IM is the right choice and IRC fulfills that enough - you don't need emoticons, animated gifs and streaming and whatever Discord offers in addition, when compared to IRC (and that insane memory footprint). When you ask question, you should stay online until someone replies. It is a question of politeness and respect I think. Just my 2c Regards, Gryffus

On 5/27/22 16:20, Syds Bearda wrote:

On Fri, 27 May 2022, at 15:22, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Dne pátek 27. května 2022 14:20:04 CEST, jdd@dodin.org napsal(a):

...

Le 27/05/2022 à 13:01, Lukáš Krejza a écrit :

...

Well, when you start Konversation, it automatically connects you to libera.chat and joins #opensuse channel.

but you have to wait when people hit the keyboard. It's real time. very boring

with mail you post the question and do other thinks during the wait, you can read 1 hour later

That's why it's called Instant Messaging after all. For more complex questions one should use Mailing List, which is little harder, but not too much i think, given everyone using computer and Internet should be already knowledgeable enough with email.

For smaller questions or when you need to actually discuss it in the realtime, IM is the right choice and IRC fulfills that enough - you don't need emoticons, animated gifs and streaming and whatever Discord offers in addition, when compared to IRC (and that insane memory footprint). When you ask question, you should stay online until someone replies. It is a question of politeness and respect I think.

why is it disrespectful to read a message later?

i’m usually on my laptop at different places and turn it off when i go somewhere else. even if i just closed the lid it would sleep and not connect to the internet anymore, so i’ll miss messages sent in that time.

FWIW, I agree with Gryffus. I agree it's not as convenient as some of the more "modern" solutions you mentioned, but that's mainly due to the IRC servers/networks not implementing any of the new features IRCv3 offers. If we'd have, for example, and Ergo IRCd server, people joining after being offline would receive message history, and a web chat like Gamja would allow connection without the installation of any software. All the while pleasing "regular" IRC users by still allowing the use of their terminal IRC clients (which definitely are less of a barrier resource wise). I understand some people prefer new solutions, but want to note that it's not IRC itself being "bad", just that most people only experience IRC on legacy networks, leave it at that, and go comparing it to Matrix.

also i find it very easy to read telegram/matrix/discord on my phone when i’m AFK. haven’t found a good IRC solution for my phone yet. that doesn’t cost me my batterylife

i did try a shells VM for a while to create a IRC server for myself. but it was painfully slow to use and didn’t want to spend 20 euro a month for something i wouldn’t really use that much anyway.

Off-topic: I do not understand your regard on expense and performance - I do not know about this "Shells Server", but I do know that you get performant VPS for 1-5€ and some communities even offer free IRC bouncers - why you would pay 20€ a month for an IRC server is beyond me. Not that that is in any way relevant however - given my before mentioned note.

/Syds

...

Just my 2c

Regards, Gryffus Attachments: * signature.asc

On 2022-05-27 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

Dne pátek 27. května 2022 12:39:11 CEST, Lubos Kocman napsal(a):

...

On Fri, 2022-05-27 at 10:36 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

Well, when you start Konversation, it automatically connects you to libera.chat and joins #opensuse channel. There is one textbox for writing messages and a user list on the right and you can ask questions right away.

I just tried, and it seems to be true, but it doesn't like my identity. [23:03] [Info] Looking for server irc.opensuse.org (port 8001)... [23:04] [Info] Server found, connecting... [23:04] [Info] Negotiating capabilities with server... [23:04] [Notice] -strontium.libera.chat- *** Checking Ident [23:04] [Notice] -strontium.libera.chat- *** Looking up your hostname... [23:04] [Notice] -strontium.libera.chat- *** Couldn't look up your hostname [23:04] [Notice] -strontium.libera.chat- *** No Ident response [23:04] [Info] Requesting capabilities: account-notify away-notify extended-join multi-prefix [23:04] [Info] Closing capabilities negotiation. [23:04] [Welcome] Welcome to the Libera.Chat Internet Relay Chat Network cer [23:04] [Welcome] Your host is strontium.libera.chat[204.225.96.123/8001], running version solanum-1.0-dev [23:04] [Welcome] This server was created Mon Mar 28 2022 at 03:46:49 UTC [23:04] [Welcome] Server strontium.libera.chat (Version solanum-1.0-dev), User modes: DGQRSZaghilopsuwz, Channel modes: CFILMPQSTbcefgijklmnopqrstuvz [23:04] [Support] cer MONITOR=100 CALLERID=g WHOX FNC ETRACE KNOCK SAFELIST ELIST=CMNTU CHANTYPES=# EXCEPTS INVEX CHANMODES=eIbq,k,flj,CFLMPQSTcgimnprstuz are supported by this server [23:04] [Support] cer CHANLIMIT=#:250 PREFIX=(ov)@+ MAXLIST=bqeI:100 MODES=4 NETWORK=Libera.Chat STATUSMSG=@+ CASEMAPPING=rfc1459 NICKLEN=16 MAXNICKLEN=16 CHANNELLEN=50 TOPICLEN=390 DEAF=D are supported by this server [23:04] [Support] cer TARGMAX=NAMES:1,LIST:1,KICK:1,WHOIS:1,PRIVMSG:4,NOTICE:4,ACCEPT:,MONITOR: EXTBAN=$,ajrxz are supported by this server [23:04] [Users] There are 70 users and 45143 invisible on 28 servers [23:04] [Users] 40 IRC Operators online [23:04] [Users] 5 unknown connection(s) [23:04] [Users] 22486 channels formed [23:04] [Users] I have 1746 clients and 1 servers [23:04] [Users] Current users on strontium.libera.chat: 1746, max 3218. [23:04] [Users] Current users on the network: 45213, max 48018 [23:04] [Users] Highest connection count: 3219 (3218 clients) (208435 connections received) [23:04] [MOTD] Message of the day: [23:04] [MOTD] - Welcome to Libera Chat, the IRC network for [23:04] [MOTD] - free & open-source software and peer directed projects. [23:04] [MOTD] - [23:04] [MOTD] - Use of Libera Chat is governed by our network policies. [23:04] [MOTD] - [23:04] [MOTD] - To reduce network abuses we perform open proxy checks [23:04] [MOTD] - on hosts at connection time. [23:04] [MOTD] - [23:04] [MOTD] - Please visit us in #libera for questions and support. [23:04] [MOTD] - [23:04] [MOTD] - Website and documentation: https://libera.chat [23:04] [MOTD] - Webchat: https://web.libera.chat [23:04] [MOTD] - Network policies: https://libera.chat/policies [23:04] [MOTD] - Email: support@libera.chat [23:04] [MOTD] End of message of the day [23:04] [Mode] You have set personal modes: +iw [23:04] [Notice] -NickServ- This nickname is registered. Please choose a different nickname, or identify via /msg NickServ IDENTIFY ayu <password> It is not clear to me, with the novice hat on, if I need to do something else. That's a lot of text. And, on the channel itself: [23:04] --> You (~cer@90.167.43.25) have joined the channel #opensuse. [23:04] *** The channel topic is "Welcome to #opensuse support | Rules: https://bit.ly/3lfN09u | openSUSE Leap 15.3 is out https://get.opensuse.org/leap | Search: http://search.opensuse.org | Services: https://status.opensuse.org/ | FAQ: https://bit.ly/3PqSmfQ | Off-topic: #opensuse-chat". [23:04] *** The topic was set by microchip_!~neutrino@user/microchip/x-0766185 on 16/05/2022 17.57. [23:04] *** Channel modes: no messages from outside, topic protection [23:04] *** This channel was created on 19/05/2021 16.11. [23:07] --> gaston1980 (~gaston@190.14.158.74) has joined this channel. [23:07] --> Starfoxxes (~Starfoxxe@2a02:8070:5390:d00:12bf:48ff:feb8:38c8) has joined this channel. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from Elesar, using openSUSE Leap 15.3)

On 2022-05-28 10:22, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

On 27.05.22 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Well, when you start Konversation,

what is this "Konversation" thing?

An IRC client that comes preconfigured on Leap, out of the box.

How can I scroll back in IRC to see what happened the last days? That's pretty crucial for a time-shifted (non realtime) communication channel.

You can't. It is instant messaging, not "non realtime" channel. Apparently there are new versions of the protocol that would allow it. Or, the log file can be posted at some URL by us. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from Elesar, using openSUSE Leap 15.3)

On 2022-05-28 11:44, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2022-05-28 10:22, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

On 27.05.22 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Well, when you start Konversation,

what is this "Konversation" thing?

An IRC client that comes preconfigured on Leap, out of the box.

...

How can I scroll back in IRC to see what happened the last days? That's pretty crucial for a time-shifted (non realtime) communication channel.

You can't.

If Konversation remains open, you can scroll back. I have just scrolled back to 17 May.

I can't. I see "now", and the text I got when I tested last night. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from Elesar, using openSUSE Leap 15.3)

On 28.05.22 11:44, Per Jessen wrote:

If Konversation remains open, you can scroll back. I have just scrolled back to 17 May.

during suspend / resume / reboot / switching to another machine? I guess I'm too old to ever go back to IRC after using matrix / element once ;-) -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman

Last message in this thread, I promise: On 28.05.22 16:26, Per Jessen wrote:

Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

On 28.05.22 11:44, Per Jessen wrote:

...

If Konversation remains open, you can scroll back. I have just scrolled back to 17 May.

during suspend / resume / reboot / switching to another machine?

"If Konversation remains open" :-)

It stays open during suspend, but the network connection might be non-responding for a few minutes / hours / days.

...

I guess I'm too old to ever go back to IRC after using matrix / element once ;-)

I just don't use IRC enough to worry either way.

Me too, I don't use it at all. I only learnt about Matrix when I started working with the kiwi developers again and found it a pleasant experience (both the kiwi developers and using Matrix, from a simple web browser). I never even had to install a specialized client program, I could just access it with a Web browser. I'm pretty sure someone has made a text-mode console client for it, but for my use, https://app.element.io (back then it was another host, doesn't matter) was enough until today. And I can access it from my work machine easily, too. Never looked back ;-) Now using telegram or discord with their proprietary clients (last time I looked at least) would never cross my mind. -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman

Dne sobota 28. května 2022 21:05:18 CEST, Stefan Seyfried napsal(a):

Last message in this thread, I promise:

On 28.05.22 16:26, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

On 28.05.22 11:44, Per Jessen wrote:

...

If Konversation remains open, you can scroll back. I have just scrolled back to 17 May.

during suspend / resume / reboot / switching to another machine?

"If Konversation remains open" :-)

It stays open during suspend, but the network connection might be non-responding for a few minutes / hours / days.

When you suspend your computer, you go offline, basically the same as if you would turn it off. When suspended/turned-off, you cannot reply to someone possibly waiting for your answer trying to help you. Personally, I would never support someone who asks a question and then quits. That's why i think it is a matter of politeness. Either you need answer as soon as possible (or you expect some instant/realtime conversation about the issue), so you use IRC and wait for a reply with computer turned on and IRC client turned on until someone replies, or you do not care so much for the speed of resolving, or the question could benefit others, so you use ML. Either way, i don't know why you would need any chat history from before your question was asked. And if you actually do not want to ask something and are just curious, you just read old ML posts and/or blog/news articles.

...

...

I guess I'm too old to ever go back to IRC after using matrix / element once ;-)

I just don't use IRC enough to worry either way.

Me too, I don't use it at all. I only learnt about Matrix when I started working with the kiwi developers again and found it a pleasant experience (both the kiwi developers and using Matrix, from a simple web browser). I never even had to install a specialized client program, I could just access it with a Web browser. I'm pretty sure someone has made a text-mode console client for it, but for my use, https://app.element.io (back then it was another host, doesn't matter) was enough until today. And I can access it from my work machine easily, too. Never looked back ;-)

Now using telegram or discord with their proprietary clients (last time I looked at least) would never cross my mind.

Yeah again, million people million tastes. Personally, i would have never used a memory-heavy browser for an Instant Messaging or e-mail. I like my messaging sitting in systray, using system theme, clean and with no graphics overhead. Regards, Gryffus

Am Samstag, 28. Mai 2022, 10:22:20 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried:

On 27.05.22 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Well, when you start Konversation,

what is this "Konversation" thing?

an IRC client that has been around since ... dunno, KDE4 or maybe even before?

How can I scroll back in IRC to see what happened the last days? That's pretty crucial for a time-shifted (non realtime) communication channel.

1. you can't unless you connect via a bouncer (BNC) 2. IRC is actually pretty close to realtime, much more so than a mailing list at least. cheers MH -- Mathias Homann Mathias.Homann@openSUSE.org Jabber (XMPP): lemmy@tuxonline.tech Matrix: @mathias:eregion.de IRC: [Lemmy] on freenode and ircnet (bouncer active) keybase: https://keybase.io/lemmy gpg key fingerprint: 8029 2240 F4DD 7776 E7D2 C042 6B8E 029E 13F2 C102

------ Original Message ------- On Saturday, May 28th, 2022 at 3:22 PM, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

On 27.05.22 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Well, when you start Konversation,

what is this "Konversation" thing?

How can I scroll back in IRC to see what happened the last days? That's pretty crucial for a time-shifted (non realtime) communication channel. -- Stefan Seyfried

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman

Use a Matrix client like Element as it supports IRC. I have it installed on my phone so I can save all the IRC history, although not big on IRC at all. -- Br, A.

None of these options are easily accomplished by a new user. Konversation is also only installed by default when you install KDE with openSUSE... which is not the case for many, many users. openSUSE is also run by many folks using GNOME, XFCE and other desktop environments. Accessing IRC via ssh on a remote server... and you call this 'easy to use'??? On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 9:12 AM Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Stefan Seyfried [05-28-22 09:01]:

...

On 27.05.22 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Well, when you start Konversation,

what is this "Konversation" thing?

How can I scroll back in IRC to see what happened the last days? That's pretty crucial for a time-shifted (non realtime) communication channel.

run Konversation on a box readily available that you seldom shut down and access konversation via ssh/vnc/... or run znc

I run weechat on my server and access it remotely/ssh. weechat/irssi are textmode irc clients as konversation is a graphic mode irc client.

-- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

-- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe

Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

Op zaterdag 28 mei 2022 16:24:09 CEST schreef Emily:

...

None of these options are easily accomplished by a new user. Konversation is also only installed by default when you install KDE with openSUSE... which is not the case for many, many users. openSUSE is also run by many folks using GNOME, XFCE and other desktop environments.

Accessing IRC via ssh on a remote server... and you call this 'easy to use'???

Fully agreed. And to add: Nobody in my circles still uses SMS texting on their phones, but rather Signal, Matrix, Telegram etc. ( which they can access on their other devices.

We're going even further off-topic - everyone in my circles uses SMS. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (20.1°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

On 2022-05-28 16:35, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

Op zaterdag 28 mei 2022 16:24:09 CEST schreef Emily:

...

None of these options are easily accomplished by a new user. Konversation is also only installed by default when you install KDE with openSUSE... which is not the case for many, many users. openSUSE is also run by many folks using GNOME, XFCE and other desktop environments.

Accessing IRC via ssh on a remote server... and you call this 'easy to use'??? Fully agreed. And to add: Nobody in my circles still uses SMS texting on their phones, but rather Signal, Matrix, Telegram etc. ( which they can access on their other devices.

Millions of people living in the USA or Canada use SMS texting.They are not even aware of whatsapp (for example) or why would they be using it. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from Elesar, using openSUSE Leap 15.3)

* Axel Braun [05-28-22 11:49]:

Am Samstag, 28. Mai 2022, 17:39:37 CEST schrieb Carlos E. R.:

...

On 2022-05-28 16:35, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

...

Op zaterdag 28 mei 2022 16:24:09 CEST schreef Emily:

Fully agreed. And to add: Nobody in my circles still uses SMS texting on their phones, but rather Signal, Matrix, Telegram etc. ( which they can access on their other devices. Millions of people living in the USA or Canada use SMS texting.They are not even aware of whatsapp (for example) or why would they be using it.

..because SMS was free of charge there. In Europe it was quite expensive to send text messages, which made messenger like WhatsApp popular. In between its the social 'pressure', not the quality of product or service, that keeps WA alive. Every other messenger has a better web or native client than WA. just as a sidenote.....

nothing is free (of charge) but hidden within (THE plan). but yes, sms does not incur *additional* charges on most accounts now, but did in the past. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

* Carlos E. R. [05-28-22 11:41]:

On 2022-05-28 16:35, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

...

Op zaterdag 28 mei 2022 16:24:09 CEST schreef Emily:

...

None of these options are easily accomplished by a new user. Konversation is also only installed by default when you install KDE with openSUSE... which is not the case for many, many users. openSUSE is also run by many folks using GNOME, XFCE and other desktop environments.

Accessing IRC via ssh on a remote server... and you call this 'easy to use'??? Fully agreed. And to add: Nobody in my circles still uses SMS texting on their phones, but rather Signal, Matrix, Telegram etc. ( which they can access on their other devices.

Millions of people living in the USA or Canada use SMS texting.They are not even aware of whatsapp (for example) or why would they be using it.

whatsapp is just another convulsion. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 28/05/2022 à 17:39, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

Millions of people living in the USA or Canada use SMS texting.They are not even aware of whatsapp (for example) or why would they be using it.

I don't believe that. They may not use whats'app, but they certainly know about it, as they know about facebook/messenger

Please everyone, this has gone _way_ off-topic. It is an interesting discussion, but it really does not belong on this list. (not specifically to you, jdd). May I suggest e.g. user@lists. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (19.0°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

No, I really can't. Due to my ISP, I cannot run a home server (to explain it simply, I am double-triple+ NAT'd depending on the day, and while I can access the web (obviously!), there is no way back through). I don't expect you to understand the situation, but that is the simple truth of the matter. Telling everyone to 'just keep a home server running 24/7/365 along with all the upkeep that requires in order to make IRC functional' is not practical. On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 10:38 AM Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Emily [05-28-22 10:27]:

...

None of these options are easily accomplished by a new user. Konversation is also only installed by default when you install KDE with openSUSE... which is not the case for many, many users. openSUSE is also run by many folks using GNOME, XFCE and other desktop environments.

Accessing IRC via ssh on a remote server... and you call this 'easy to use'???

On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 9:12 AM Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Stefan Seyfried [05-28-22 09:01]:

...

On 27.05.22 13:01, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Well, when you start Konversation,

what is this "Konversation" thing?

How can I scroll back in IRC to see what happened the last days? That's pretty crucial for a time-shifted (non realtime) communication channel.

run Konversation on a box readily available that you seldom shut down and access konversation via ssh/vnc/... or run znc

I run weechat on my server and access it remotely/ssh. weechat/irssi are textmode irc clients as konversation is a graphic mode irc client.

-- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

yes, easy to use. some simple steps required of a new user which are no harder than many other steps and easily discovered using mail lists, google, irc, ...

can you not do it?

it certainly is beyond many people but those same people expect to sit down at a computer and everything already be ready and available for them. ie: not needing to install any app or even going to another screen.

"user" is a very loooose term, and not one instilling confidence.

-- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

-- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe

* Attila Pinter [05-28-22 11:13]:

------- Original Message ------- On Saturday, May 28th, 2022 at 9:53 PM, Emily wrote:

...

No, I really can't. Due to my ISP, I cannot run a home server (to explain it simply, I am double-triple+ NAT'd depending on the day, and while I can access the web (obviously!), there is no way back through). I don't expect you to understand the situation, but that is the simple truth of the matter. Telling everyone to 'just keep a home server running 24/7/365 along with all the upkeep that requires in order to make IRC functional' is not practical.

And you're right. Nobody should have to run a home server for the sake of chat history. As I said - and before me Sasi already pointed out the existence of bridges - in previous mails the protocol at this point doesn't matter Most Matrix clients will support IRC as well (like NeoChat and Element), but seem like that is lost in all these messages. Anyhow this whole conversation really start to feel more like gatekeeping than an actual conversation on "way to contribute to openSUSE".

and I do not run a "home server" for the sake of chat history, but I do run a home server and chat history is easy to log in that case. ps: again, your sentences do not wrap. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

* Attila Pinter [05-28-22 11:57]:

------ Original Message ------- On Saturday, May 28th, 2022 at 10:49 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Attila Pinter adathor@protonmail.com [05-28-22 11:13]:

...

------- Original Message ------- On Saturday, May 28th, 2022 at 9:53 PM, Emily emilyyrose@gmail.com wrote:

...

No, I really can't. Due to my ISP, I cannot run a home server (to explain it simply, I am double-triple+ NAT'd depending on the day, and while I can access the web (obviously!), there is no way back through). I don't expect you to understand the situation, but that is the simple truth of the matter. Telling everyone to 'just keep a home server running 24/7/365 along with all the upkeep that requires in order to make IRC functional' is not practical.

And you're right. Nobody should have to run a home server for the sake of chat history. As I said - and before me Sasi already pointed out the existence of bridges - in previous mails the protocol at this point doesn't matter Most Matrix clients will support IRC as well (like NeoChat and Element), but seem like that is lost in all these messages. Anyhow this whole conversation really start to feel more like gatekeeping than an actual conversation on "way to contribute to openSUSE".

and I do not run a "home server" for the sake of chat history, but I do run a home server and chat history is easy to log in that case.

Great, that is you and your choice. Giving this kind of recommendation to any user is like recommending your neighbor who complains about their lawn to move to the desert cause there they wouldn't need to mow the lawn ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ See how absolutely idiotic that sounds?

...

ps: again, your sentences do not wrap.

Glad you get the important part of the message ;)

happy to oblige -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

Dne úterý 31. května 2022 20:02:50 CEST, Jim Henderson napsal(a):

On Fri, 27 May 2022 10:36:45 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

I still don't understand why majority does not consider IRC + Mailing Lists just enough.

Ultimately it's because not everyone's preferences are the same as yours. :)

Basically, users needing support should come where the maintainers and/or power users willing to help are. Not the other way around :) Or, there is google, wiki, documentation, manual, package changelogs, ....... Regards, Gryffus

Jim Henderson wrote:

On Wed, 01 Jun 2022 18:47:33 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

Dne úterý 31. května 2022 20:02:50 CEST, Jim Henderson napsal(a):

...

On Fri, 27 May 2022 10:36:45 +0200, Lukáš Krejza wrote:

...

I still don't understand why majority does not consider IRC + Mailing Lists just enough.

Ultimately it's because not everyone's preferences are the same as yours. :)

Basically, users needing support should come where the maintainers and/or power users willing to help are. Not the other way around :)

That's the old paradigm. Users now self-organize, and that's what causes the fragmentation.

ACK.

There is probably more expertise in the forums (for some topics) than on the MLs. Or in StackOverflow, for that matter.

I suspect so too, although it depends on which ML - looking outside openSUSE, and you will see even relatively new projects using mailing lists. Also ancient projects like e.g. postfix, where the knowledgeable hard core is found on the mailing list. Like Gryffus, I believe the old paradigm was better, and like you, I know things have changed. I just worry that they may not have changed for the better. Not that there is much anyone can do about it. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (17.0°C) Member, openSUSE Heroes

On Fri, 27 May 2022 05:01:24 +0000, Attila Pinter wrote:

...

The latter used to work really well, but now with the proliferation of non-affiliated sites like stackoverflow, communities (and sub- communities) can self-organize wherever they want to. The onus is now less on the people in those communities to go to the 'official' venues; it's more now on the 'sponsor' (not quite the right word, but it'll suffice) to be aware of those venues and to incorporate them into their community plan (or not, and to just let those unofficial places organically grow).

All true, however the brdiges are a great way to keep things connected and avoid fragmentation. With that said we should probably not connect the user base to the developers if we want to keep our volunteers sane.

I understand the desire to keep the developers 'insulated' from users, but a lot of times, having the volunteers act as the middleperson between the user and the developers is counterproductive.

...

On the Facebook group, for example, we strongly encourage difficult/ complex technical questions go to the forums, where threading is easier to follow and there is more technical expertise. If it's a development- related question, we direct them to bugzilla and the MLs. But I'm always surprised at how many people insist "no, I asked here, don't send me somewhere else, just answer my question" - even when the expertise in the FB group just doesn't exist.

This is true for most platforms I think, but for instance on Telegram, Discord and Matrix (all bridged) we do have the expertise to help with more complex things before opening a ticket on Bugzilla. This kind of community support is actually pretty good to also remove the added burden from the developers, maintainers.

It can, sure - and some people work better with immediate response. Others prefer the approach of asking a question and then waiting for an answer. It partially depends on the severity and impact of the problem, and partially on the personal preference of the person asking the question. While it seems that these days people don't tend to search first, a lot of people do (and it can be hard to know that if they don't say something), and forums tend to be better for that kind of searching.

The forums would be a much better place? Sure, but our forums are outdated in terms of UI/UX. I don't like to use it either which is said since - as you said it too - we do have the best expertise there, and the most amount of knowledge. I think the move to Discourse has been a long standing topic as well which I think would move to forums to a current, modern forum tech with a better UI/UX which would probably benefit everyone.

We've talked for years about migrating to Discourse, yes. We also used to have an NNTP gateway, but since SUSE was sold, the NNTP gateway has been shut down (the old NNTP server was a proprietary system that was licensed to run on a specific system, and the company that made it stopped selling it, so they couldn't get a replacement license to move to another server). I did a lot of testing with innd, but only ever used it for testing - I just don't have the time to devote to setting it up and securing it properly. But I know a lot of users (myself included) miss having an nntp server to connect to for the forums - that's something that can unify things like the MLs and forums - I access the MLs through gmane using pan; I just find web forums to be horribly inefficient if you're trying to keep up on hundreds of threads and keep an eye on everything going on. Discord had an NNTP gateway as well, but it's no longer maintained, so someone would have to pick it up and update it if we went back to providing that kind of functionality (which I think we should).

...

Unfortunately, I don't see this trend reversing itself. Either we go where the users are, or we just don't talk to them until our community platforms entice them to come over to the 'official' spaces, and there's a lot of inertia to overcome in order for that to happen.

I think in terms of "Official" the other platforms listed on https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels should be considered official communication channels. Some channels has a larger user base in their community than registered members overall in the Project. Not every user wants to have an openSUSE account, or want to use the forums as David pointed it out, rightfully so. Developers in the project has been long relying on their choice of communication platforms so not much need to change that, and it is well within their right to pick the platform they see best fit their needs.

Absolutely. But at the same time, that drives the fragmentation of the community.

Users on the other hand IMO shouldn't interact with developers directly.

I think ultimately that's up to the individual developers. Some developers really like talking to their users, and I think (having worked in the software industry for a couple decades) that there are benefits to having developers talk with users. Often times, developers develop something that suits their needs (especially in the OSS world, where that's a major driver), but users' needs can be (and often are) different, and driving adoption of OSS solutions depends on actually meeting users' needs. That said, I understand what you're saying here - and it's really no different than having sub-forums in a forums structure to keep discussions on-topic and focused. It's an organizational structure more than anything - we have a section in the forums for KDE apps (for example) and a section for network issues - and while *some* topics might cross both of those sections, the majority do not. A forum shouldn't just be one big container that holds *everything*, because finding things in that kind of space is difficult. But you can go overboard the other way and get too granular, which creates problems as well.

This would be a pretty good topic for a community meeting which we have twice a week.

It would be; unfortunately the timing hasn't worked out for where I'm based with my work schedule - as I recall, the meetings are pretty early in the morning my time (I'm on the US West Coast). -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

On 2022-05-31 20:55, Per Jessen wrote:

Jim Henderson wrote:

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On Fri, 27 May 2022 05:01:24 +0000, Attila Pinter wrote:

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The forums would be a much better place? Sure, but our forums are outdated in terms of UI/UX. I don't like to use it either which is said since

[For some reason I don't get Attila's postings directly, dunno why.]

There are reasons why our forums setup is a bit behind the times. In a nutshell, lack of resources. Whether it is for upgrading vBulletin or moving to another platform.

Lame bumper sticker: [openSUSE Heroes, actively recruiting!]

...

We also used to have an NNTP gateway, but since SUSE was sold, the NNTP gateway has been shut down (the old NNTP server was a proprietary system that was licensed to run on a specific system, and the company that made it stopped selling it, so they couldn't get a replacement license to move to another server). I did a lot of testing with innd, but only ever used it for testing - I just don't have the time to devote to setting it up and securing it properly.

IOW, more lack of resources. I _think_ the perception is that the demand for nntp access to forums hasn't been sufficient to warrant the effort. I know for a fact innd was investigated and that someone looked into running an instance. (an attempt to on-board another Hero).

The innd server exists, but it has to connect to the webforum somehow. We are stuck there. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from Elesar, using openSUSE Leap 15.3)

On Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:29:54 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On 2022-05-31 20:55, Per Jessen wrote:

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effort. I know for a fact innd was investigated and that someone looked into running an instance. (an attempt to on-board another Hero).

The innd server exists, but it has to connect to the webforum somehow. We are stuck there.

ISTR vBulletin having a standard config for that, but I have not looked at for quite some time.

It's an add-on, but it's one that's installed IIRC. But it's more than just hooking it all together - if authentication is to be used (if anything for spam prevention), that needs to be configured, and there are different user groups (like staff/public at a minimum) that should be defined with different access, since the private forums should also be gated to the NNTP server, but shouldn't be publicly visible. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

On Wed, 01 Jun 2022 21:26:26 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

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It's an add-on, but it's one that's installed IIRC.

I believe so too. I feel certain I have seen the config fields.

Yep, I just confirmed. It's there.

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But it's more than just hooking it all together - if authentication is to be used (if anything for spam prevention), that needs to be configured, and there are different user groups (like staff/public at a minimum) that should be defined with different access, since the private forums should also be gated to the NNTP server, but shouldn't be publicly visible.

Yes, that is pretty much the situation. It simply needs someone who wants to do it, take care of it, feed it. Like any other baby :-) I consider it to be relatively low-hanging fruit, hence a good place for getting someone new on board. We just need someone with the right itch.

And the time. I have the itch, but not the time. :) -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

Op woensdag 25 mei 2022 21:44:18 CEST schreef Patrick Shanahan:

* Sasi Olin [05-25-22 14:33]:

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Am 25. Mai 2022 20:28:44 MESZ schrieb Patrick Shanahan :

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and what about those who do not use ?telegram? but still use irc

is this going the same way as text email to pretty pictures and graphics instead of old-fashioned text?

Feel free to request a bridge of any channel you may want to access from irc at admin@opensuse.org since irc WAS the standard and supported, why would one have to "request a bridge"?

would you expect someone to "request a bridge" if they closed a road and there was no other access to a popular destination?

ps: your email does not wrap to <80 chars one the screen. So, you're telling people what and how to use ? You miss the point of the world developing as well.

-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board openSUSE Forums Team

------- Original Message ------- On Thursday, May 26th, 2022 at 3:40 AM, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

Op woensdag 25 mei 2022 18:54:10 CEST schreef Lubos Kocman:

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I fully agree with Emily, just check the trafic on telegram channel. Not even mentioning internal #discuss-opensuse channel on SUSE's slack ... we should just forward all to telegram.

Nope, we need to use Matrix, fully open and bridgeable to other platforms

Element also supports IRC so one can just use Element to connect to both Matrix, and IRC the same time. A bridge would be great to have the history from IRC so contributors would be able to go through missed messages. Anyhow, glad to see that most got this topic right again... -- Br, A.

On Mi, Mai 25 2022 at 22:18:20 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Actually one comment Sasi - when it is work in progress, why is it public? Surely that content belongs on a test-site until it is finished.

Nothing of the new www is in public yet, we are still using the landing page from 6 years ago. I'm just pointing out there is some work being done to correct this. LCP [Sasi] https://lcp.world/

Dne sobota 21. května 2022 19:09:42 CEST, Per Jessen napsal(a):

Sasi Olin wrote:

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On Sa, Mai 21 2022 at 18:45:22 +0200, Per Jessen

wrote:

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I honestly don't know what the most common ways are, although I expect code is certainly one.

When I was first developing the new www, that is still very early in development, because I just don't have the time to focus on it,

Sorry, I was not aware it is work in progress - please only take my comment as a comment, nothing more.

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there was a group of people that was planning to adjust asknot-ng for openSUSE needs, under contribute.opensuse.org domain, but that fizzled out. It's probably the easiest way to get a website that mentions the ways to contribute to the project. https://github.com/fedora-infra/asknot-ng

Somehow it has to be something that is inviting/open/inclusive for the largest group of people. The teaser has to be attractive to get them through the door :-) I figure "hardware" has to be one of the least popular. I would relegate "hardware" to https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:How_to_participate

Going back to topic, my 0.02€: - There should be OBS in the first place, since that (and YaST) is the biggest thing that distinguishes us from the rest of distributions - I would personally remove the "TO OPENSUSE" part, since OBS builds packages not only for *SUSE, but for many other distributions and not everyone knows it. Take [1] as an example. Contribute should be enough IMHO. Also, all open source projects benefit to/from others, so when you contribute to *SUSE, you contribute to whole open source ecosystem. - I think documentation writers and translators are the second most important things needed I would do it following: 1: CONTRIBUTE 2a: OBS | 2b: Documentation | 2c: Translation And maybe some free stickers for someone willing to open a *SUSE booth on some expos etc? That is also nice way to contribute :) [1] https://github.com/HamedMasafi/GitKlient/issues/6 Regards, Gryffus