As you may be aware from previous mails, YouTube content and the newsletter, we’ve been debating for about a month on moving to a forum for our community interaction. That debate has run it’s course, and the conclusion is clear - a move to Discourse is popular.
Accordingly, I am now setting in motion the plan for the migration. Today, I’m notifying all 3 lists that they will be switched to read-only on 31st Dec (3 weeks away).
What do I need to do?
Firstly, claim your Discourse account (if you haven’t yet) - if you’ve ever posted to the mailing list, then you already have an account, and can use the “Forgot Password” option on your email address to get logged in (or use GitHub login, if the email is the same there).
(If you’re a lurker and have never posted, then you’ll have to create the account yourself, sorry. Don’t be shy though, now’s a good time :P).
Once logged in there’s an FAQ banner at the top to help you get started (with links to more in-depth topics), and Discobot (the forum bot) will message you with some tips too. You can dismiss the banner with the “X” once you’re done with it.
Any questions, you can send a message to me on the forum and I’ll respond as soon as I can (using the forum helps me collect them into an FAQ). If you prefer, you can also post in the “Site Feedback” category.
What happens next?
During the next few weeks I’ll be tweaking Discourse to suit our needs (groups, tags, settings, etc) and writing docs to help orient new users. I’m very interested in hearing from the first few users who jump on about how easy to find the docs are, and how helpful.
I’ll also be updating the Google Groups web interface with a deprecation notice, and preparing PRs to the website to point new users at Discourse. If you spot anything where we can improve sign-posting for people, get in touch.
The lists will remain functional for now, but I would encourage people starting new threads to consider using the forum. The entire list archive will be merged to the forum, so nothing will be lost, but it means you get a head start on getting used to Discourse, we can help you get oriented, and you can test our docs (and thanks for that!).
Do hang tight, I’m sure something unexpected will come up - but we’re shooting for the quietest time of year, and once we’re up and running, I think this will be good for all of us. More updates will follow in due course :)