Announcement: New community forum for Qubes OS users!

[Andrew David Wong]

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Dear Qubes community,

We're pleased to announce the launch of a new forum for Qubes OS users:

https://qubes-os.discourse.group

This is an official user forum where you can ask questions, get help,
share tips and experiences, and more! For a long time, members of our
community have sought a privacy-respecting forum experience with modern
features that traditional mailing lists do not support. The open-source
Discourse [1] platform fills this need for us, as it does for many other
open-source projects. Thanks to their generous free hosting for open
source projects [2], we're pleased to be able to create this space for
our community.


Why create a forum now?
=======================

Previously, the only option for a forum-like experience was to interact
with our mailing lists via Google Groups, but we understand all too well
that the privacy implications and user experience were unacceptable for
many members of our community, especially with the recent addition of a
sign-in requirement to view threads. Many of you value the lower barrier
to entry, organization, ease-of-use, and modern social features that
today's forums support. Moreover, Discourse features email integration
for those who still prefer the traditional mailing list format.


How is this different from our mailing lists?
=============================================

To be clear, this is *not* a replacement for our mailing lists [3] (such
as qubes-users and qubes-devel), which will continue on as they are.
This new forum is simply an *additional* place for discussion. Certain
types of discussions naturally lend themselves more to mailing lists or
to forums, and different types of users prefer different venues. We've
heard from some users who find the mailing lists to be a bit
intimidating or who may feel that their message isn't important enough
to merit creating a new email that lands in thousands of inboxes. Others
want more selective control over topic notifications. Some users simply
appreciate the ability to add a "reaction" to a message instead of
having to add an entirely new reply. Whatever your reasons, it's up to
you to decide where and how you want to join the conversation.


Will this split the community?
==============================

Many open-source projects (such as Fedora and Debian) have both mailing
lists and forums (and additional discussion venues). In fact, Qubes
already has non-mailing-list discussion venues such as IRC [4] and
Reddit [5]. We believe that this additional venue will foster the
continued growth of community participation and improve everyone's
experience. In addition, we fully expect that many community members --
especially the most active ones -- will choose to participate in both
venues. (Again, for those who still prefer interacting via email,
Discourse supports that too!)

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Special thanks to Michael Carbone for spearheading the creation of this
forum and to deeplow who, as our first forum administrator, has done
much of the legwork to help get it looking good and working well!


[1] https://www.discourse.org/
[2] https://blog.discourse.org/2018/11/free-hosting-for-open-source-v2/
[3] https://www.qubes-os.org/support/
[4] https://www.qubes-os.org/support/#unofficial-chat-channels
[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/

This announcement is also available on the Qubes website:
https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2020/08/20/new-community-forum-for-qubes-os-users/

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Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org

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