<div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">Dear developers,</span><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">In the last summit in Oslo, we discussed a possibility of having a Q&A forum in stackexchange style.</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">Many people were enthusiastic, and, thanks to University of Washington staff, we were able to set up a forum powered by Discourse:</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><b><a href="https://delphinqa.ling.washington.edu/" target="_blank">https://delphinqa.ling.washington.edu/</a></b><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33)"><span style="font-size:13px">I would like to invite each of you to create an account and try it out! </span></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33)"><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33)"><span style="font-size:13px">The forum was created very recently, but at this point, there should not be too many hiccups.</span> 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.</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">A few notes, for those inclined to read them :).</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">1) <b>The primary purpose</b> of this forum is <b>to accumulate concrete solutions to technical problems and make them easily discoverable</b>. 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. </div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">**(Some people <b>oppose this style</b> 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.)<br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">2) I will be the <b>admin</b> 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.</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">3) You <b>do not need to monitor the forum</b> 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.</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">4) Some developers expressed <b>concern</b> that we are thus<b> fragmenting our support platforms</b>. I understand this concern and would like to address it by both making an effort to <b>import the email archives</b> 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.*** </div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">***(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.)</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">5) The forum is <b>hosted</b> by the University of Washington, so, there is no danger of some external host interfering in our affairs. Discourse is <b>open-source</b> software. It is also a very flexible system already, with various plugins etc. We can customize it as we like.</div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px"><div>If you would like to discuss any of this, we can do it here over email or on the forum; <b>there is already a topic <span class="m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-gr_ m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-gr_4392 m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-gr-alert m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-gr_spell m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-gr_inline_cards m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-gr_run_anim m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-ContextualSpelling m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-ins-del" id="m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-4392" style="display:inline;border-bottom:2px solid transparent;background-repeat:no-repeat;color:inherit;font-size:inherit">there regarding the email archives</span></b>: <a href="https://delphinqa.ling.washington.edu/t/importing-email-archives/28/5" target="_blank">https://delphinqa.ling.washington.edu/t/importing-email-archives/28/5</a> In particular, that topic invites you to <b>participate in a poll.</b></div><div><br></div><div>Thank you for considering,</div><div><br></div><div>Olga</div><br class="m_6346412109901723282m_-3533226130243710111inbox-inbox-m_5882178779392374125inbox-inbox-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div style="color:rgb(33,33,33);font-size:13px">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, <b>this is all in the testing stage</b>. For example, if we do decide to import the mailing list archives, we may need to purge the existing content. </div></div>