[developers] DELPH-IN Discourse (Q&A)

Sat Nov 18 11:32:42 CET 2017

My apologies, I had thought they weren't but clearly they are.

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 6:10 PM, Stephan Oepen <oe at ifi.uio.no> wrote:

> thanks for the reminder, francis.
>
> i believe someone voiced the impression at the summit already that the
> DELPH-IN wiki is not indexed by search engines.  i admit i never looked
> into interactions with search engines specifically, but i would be very
> surprised if there were any settings on the oslo DELPH-IN servers that
> would scare off search engines.
>
> why do you believe we are not indexed?  i just did a quick test, which
> seems to give the result one would expect (see below).
>
> all best, oe
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 at 10:08 Francis Bond <bond at ieee.org> wrote:
>
>> Thank you for taking the initiative Olga!   I hope that this make
>> information flow even better.
>>
>> I think one of the problems with the wiki is that it does not seem to
>> be indexed by, e.g. google.   Stephan: is there a setting you can
>> change to get it indexed?   I think this would make the information
>> there a lot more discoverable, ...
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 7:02 AM, Olga Zamaraeva <olzama at uw.edu> wrote:
>> > Dear developers,
>> >
>> > In the last summit in Oslo, we discussed a possibility of having a Q&A
>> forum
>> > in stackexchange style.
>> >
>> > Many people were enthusiastic, and, thanks to University of Washington
>> > staff, we were able to set up a forum powered by Discourse:
>> >
>> > https://delphinqa.ling.washington.edu/
>> >
>> > I would like to invite each of you to create an account and try it out!
>> >
>> > The forum was created very recently, but at this point, there should
>> not be
>> > too many hiccups. We need to decide a few things soon (see below), so,
>> we
>> > want to involve the entire community at this point, even if we are still
>> > testing the forum.
>> >
>> > A few notes, for those inclined to read them :).
>> >
>> > 1) The primary purpose of this forum is to accumulate concrete
>> solutions to
>> > technical problems and make them easily discoverable. So the primary
>> > scenario is for one to encounter an error message, and, instead of
>> trying to
>> > locate the answer somewhere on the wiki or in the email archives and
>> ending
>> > up emailing the list for the 100th time anyway, one would query the
>> forum
>> > (using e.g. the text of the error message). If their question was
>> already
>> > answered, the assumption is they will be able to immediately find out
>> what
>> > the working solution is. This is, in my opinion, the most important
>> feature
>> > of stackexchange Q&A style, and one that other types of support lack.**
>> > Moreover, the forum is also a fine platform for open-ended discussions,
>> with
>> > a nice addition of the upvote button which makes better, clearer posts
>> more
>> > salient in the thread.
>> >
>> > **(Some people oppose this style since, in their opinion, finding the
>> right
>> > solution "too easily" leads to lack of understanding of why the right
>> answer
>> > is the right answer. I agree  that there may be some truth to that but I
>> > also think that this ultimately depends on the user and how much and in
>> what
>> > style they are willing to learn; there is also a question of priorities:
>> > sometimes what is needed the most is to fix the problem asap.)
>> >
>> > 2) I will be the admin of the forum for now. This means I am the person
>> to
>> > whom you can complain about things if something is not working for you.
>> It
>> > also means I can do various things for you, such as create/merge
>> categories
>> > and so forth. If you would like to also be an admin or a moderator, let
>> me
>> > know. It will probably help to have more admins, especially in other
>> time
>> > zones.
>> >
>> > 3) You do not need to monitor the forum or anything like that, unless
>> you
>> > would like to. Instead, you can subscribe to categories or tags, and the
>> > forum will email you when a new post is created in the category or with
>> that
>> > tag. You can choose whether you will be notified about the first post
>> only
>> > or each reply.
>> >
>> > 4) Some developers expressed concern that we are thus fragmenting our
>> > support platforms. I understand this concern and would like to address
>> it by
>> > both making an effort to import the email archives into the new forum
>> > (unless it proves too messy) and by pointing out that the email+wiki do
>> not
>> > and cannot really serve the purpose that I think this forum will serve.
>> It
>> > seems that the wiki, the email list, and the forum can very happily
>> coexist,
>> > just like python documentation and python-related sections of
>> stackoverflow
>> > (and presumably some people exchange emails about python when they want
>> to
>> > discuss something in a manner they don't think the general public will
>> > necessarily benefit from). Obviously, the wiki should be linked to from
>> the
>> > forum (and vice versa) and instructions on the wiki can be updated
>> whenever
>> > it makes sense to do so.***
>> >
>> > ***(Note however that it can be rather impractical to try and
>> incorporate
>> > every single detail into the wiki, especially if the detail only makes
>> sense
>> > in the context of a concrete question. In fact, every time one adds
>> > something to the wiki, one in a way is adding a new dimension to the
>> space
>> > in which people will be searching for solutions... without adding a
>> starting
>> > point for the search, necessarily.)
>> >
>> > 5) The forum is hosted by the University of Washington, so, there is no
>> > danger of some external host interfering in our affairs. Discourse is
>> > open-source software. It is also a very flexible system already, with
>> > various plugins etc. We can customize it as we like.
>> >
>> > If you would like to discuss any of this, we can do it here over email
>> or on
>> > the forum; there is already a topic there regarding the email archives:
>> > https://delphinqa.ling.washington.edu/t/importing-email-archives/28/5
>> In
>> > particular, that topic invites you to participate in a poll.
>> >
>> > Thank you for considering,
>> >
>> > Olga
>> >
>> > P.S.: You will see that there are already some users and topics; I
>> hadn't
>> > advertised the forum here earlier because it was not yet working in a
>> stable
>> > fashion, but it should be now :). Note also that for now, this is all
>> in the
>> > testing stage. For example, if we do decide to import the mailing list
>> > archives, we may need to purge the existing content.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Francis Bond <http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/fcbond/>
>> Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
>> Nanyang Technological University
>>
>

-- 
Francis Bond <http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/fcbond/>
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
Nanyang Technological University
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