Proposal: Consolidating Ansible discussion platforms

Project Discussions
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22

I think we have to define more clearly what “Remove most references to Matrix” means. I interpreted it was “stop plastering Matrix links/references all over the place, and only add them where they really make sense”. Which would be in line with @gotmax23’s “It should be up to individual groups to decide which mode of communication they prefer or if they use both, like the Steering Committee does.”. (Also collections can link or not link to Matrix in their communication channels, using docs/docsite/links.yml as they please.)

Is anyone interpreting “Remove most references to Matrix” who is in favor of it differently?

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23

@felixfontein the intention is explained in Proposal: Consolidating Ansible discussion platforms - #21 by Andersson007 and we’ve already updated the communication guide just leaving there general Matrix channels.

There have never supposed to be a ban on individual projects (including collections) maintained by the community to use whatever they want for communication. And there’s no ban on Matrix/whatever in the collection requirements AFAIK and even is not planned to be proposed :slightly_smiling_face: , just a recommendation to use Forum + less than more other platforms to reduce fragmentation.

No actions required on stop using anything community collections/projects want.

@gundalow should the proposal description of this topic be updated correspondingly? or maybe i need some corrections in expressing the intentions?

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24

One thing I’m noticing is that a lot of things that are part of this proposal are already implemented. But this is still a proposal, not anything that has been decided on. Is that correct?

25

@felixfontein what is exactly meant by deciding?

At least as I see it and already expressed in my previous comment, this is “default” and not mandatory if maintainers disagree.
I don’t think it should be a mandatory policy of sort and IRC or whatever else except the forum to get officially forbidden.
If the maintainers/communities of specific projects still want to use IRC, I think it’s up to them.

Maybe I misunderstood the intention, @gundalow ? If we are going to forbid IRC and make the forum mandatory at policy level within the community projects I don’t know how to handle this and whether it’s worth doing whatsoever:)

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26

Hi folks,

This initiative is all about reducing fragmentation and getting rid of the various ghost towns (channels) we have, it’s a terrible experience for somebody to look at one of our repos, join the listed IRC channel, say hello and get no response.

I know there’s a lot of related implementation details in this forum post. This is my understanding of where we are up to.

On a different topic (and I don’t want to pollute this discussion), we might want to think about “idea we have” vs “thing that needs a formal vote”. Though let’s setup a new forum topic for that.

Google Groups

Confirmed: Google Groups will become readonly in 2 weeks, see the announcement
In addition to archiving the Google Groups, we will bulk imported (project, devel, awx) into the Forum.
Google Groups just isn’t working for us. Nobody seems to have complained about this.

IRC

Confirmed: IRC references are been removed.

It’s clear that the libera.chat ↔ Matrix bridge isn’t going to be fixed.
Nobody seems to object to this

Though can see that #ansible on libera.chat is still used (so like Reddit’s r/ansible) that should likely still exist. We will likely set the other channels to redirect into #ansible. I’m sure if we want to keep #ansible-devel

Reddit

Not actually in this forum post, though related

It’s fairly likely r/awx (reddit) will become readonly, and we will direct people to r/ansible proposal.
In an ideal world, I’ve much prefer for people to use The Forum, though there is a lot of good discussion and critical mass on Reddit.

The Forum is working well, and that’s where we want the default place to be

Matrix

Notice we haven’t haven’t use the words “required” or “only” when talking about Matrix above. If there is an active use of a channel on Matrix, then it should stay. If a working group grows and wants to have a Matrix channel, we will hapilly setup an official Ansible Matrix channel for you.

Similarly, the Zabbix Collection WG uses Gitter (also available via Matrix). They are active there. No reason to change that.

Gitter

Not previously discussed in the original proposal. Though we’ve got various channels that aren’t used. We will make these readonly and redirect to the main Users Help Matrix channel. Matrix & Gitter are correctly bridged.

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27

I’m totally fine with doing this, but what I’m wondering is whether we should make it more official by actually voting on this proposal (and first trying to figure out whether community or SC members still have objections). There are now PRs in collections to remove references to #ansible on IRC as well (for example links.yml: remove IRC and ML by Andersson007 · Pull Request #76 · ansible-collections/collection_template · GitHub or links.yml: remove IRC by Andersson007 · Pull Request #960 · ansible-collections/community.docker · GitHub). If we all agree these should be removed I’m fine with removing them (I’m personally in favor of it).

28

How about starting just a general poll here “Do you support this proposal (a link to gundalow’s comment)? yes/no/neutral” w/o splitting into SC/community as it’s broader then just collections and we’re not forcing anybody.
Then will give it a week to see. Thoughts?

If you prefer another format/scope/question of the poll, please suggest (or just start it right away).

29

I’d probably split this up into multiple polls:

  1. IRC references: a) remove all, b) keep references to #ansible or other active channels when appropriate, c) keep all
  2. Matrix references: a) remove all, b) keep references for real-time chat and specific (active) rooms, c) keep all
  3. Order of communication channels: a) I don’t care, b) forum first, then Matrix, then others, c) Matrix first, then forum, then others, d) something else
  4. What about other platforms (Gitter, Reddit, …): a) I don’t care, b) keep as-is for projects that actively use them, c) deprecate and try to move to forum if possible, d) get rid of them as fast as possible.

I didn’t add something about Google Groups / mailing lists since their end has been decided and is coming up soon.

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30

Considering the intention expressed in this description of the topic + a summary in the comment, we would appreciate your feedback. Please read the proposals carefully and vote in all the polls:

IRC references
  • remove all
  • keep references to ansible or other active channels when appropriate
  • replace references to ansible or other active channels with their Matrix channels equivalents
  • keep all
  • I don’t care
0 voters
Matrix references
  • remove all
  • keep references to specific (active) rooms
  • keep all
  • I don’t care
0 voters
Order of communication channels
  • I don’t care
  • forum first, then Matrix, then others
  • Matrix first, then forum, then others
  • something else (I’ll say in a comment)
0 voters
What about other platforms (Gitter, Reddit, …)
  • I don’t care
  • keep as-is for projects that actively use them
  • deprecate and try to move to forum if possible
  • get rid of them as fast as possible
0 voters

I’ll close the poll in ~1 weeks. Thanks!

31

These polls should be advertised on Bullhorn, IRC, Matrix, and probably other places (like Reddit), if they haven’t been (and they should stay open some time after being published there). Otherwise we’re missing input from larger parts of the community.

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32

@felixfontein FYI I think @Andersson007 has informed @newsbot about the poll in order to get it into Bullhorn. It’s just not released yet.

And I’ve just mentioned it in the Ansible Community Working Group room on Matrix. I’m not sure what other Matrix rooms we should mention it in, or where on IRC or other places. But it’s a start.

33

I think we should keep a secondary reference to Matrix if a room exists or the community room if it actually applies to the project in question and the maintainers are active in it.

I chose other, as I think it should depend on the project. Some projects may heavily use the forum and others may prefer Matrix. I’m not sure this is something we should dictate.

I guess my main conclusion from all the talk about discussion platforms is that we should prefer the Forum as the main asynchronous place of discussion and Matrix as the main synchronous place of discussion. I don’t think we should necessarily place one above the other, as they both fulfill different purposes, but we should push adoption of at least one for Ansible projects.

I prefer to avoid promoting platforms like Reddit, Discord, or Slack for OSS projects, but if that’s where people are at, I think we need to respect that and not fracture existing communities (if they are actually active), while still encouraging adoption of the official discussion platforms.

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34

The Bullhorn has been released yesterday, and I pasted the links on IRC yesterday as well, so we should really keep the poll open for at least another week to give folks a chance to comment. (I also don’t know if someone spread this on Reddit already (I don’t have an account) or other platforms.)

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35

I don’t think the intention is to dictate it for all projects. (At least it’s not my intention.) My understanding is that this is mainly about the main Ansible documentation pages (like Ansible Documentation — Ansible Community Documentation), and for other Ansible-related projects these are more guidelines (except maybe mentioning the forum). If your project does not have preferences, stick to the the guidelines. If you have a preferred way of communication, and for some reason(s) don’t want to change it to the forum or matrix (depending on sync/async), you can keep it. But you should at least think a bit about maybe changing it and consider arguments for and against it.

I fully agree.

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36

Hi,
The Ansible Google Groups are now readonly.

The bulk-import of ansible-devel, ansible-project and awx-project will happen mid-October.

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37

Regarding Reddit

I’d previously announced this Forum topic 3 months ago on r/ansible.
I’ve just posted an update to r/ansible and linked to the vote

Seems like people are OK with making r/awx readonly (and redirecting people to r/ansible)

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38

I’ve just closed the polls.

Winners:

  • IRC: IMO no clear winner between Remove all 37% and Keep references to active channels when appropriate 33%
  • Matrix: keep references to specific (active) rooms 67%
  • Order of communication channels: forum first, then Matrix, then others 83%
  • What about other platforms (Gitter, Reddit, …): deprecate and try to move to forum if possible 62%
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39

Re IRC I agree there was no clear winner (4%, aka one vote, is pretty close). But since one option is ‘remove everything’ what will be recommended? I’m assuming ‘Keep references to active channels’ as its the less disruptive option but hoping you can confirm one way or the other.

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