Should there be a Qubes OS forum?

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi all,

Over the years, it's often been suggested that Qubes have a forum in
addition to the mailing lists. Someone has approached us and offered
to host such a forum. (IIRC, others have also made similar offers over
the years.) Before we make any final decision about this, we'd like to
ask for feedback and advice from the community. Here are the main
questions we're wondering about:

1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
currently being met in other ways?
2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?
3. If there were a Qubes forum, should it be official (i.e., run by
us) or unofficial (i.e., run by a third party)?
4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way to
implement it?

To clarify the first question, note that the following already exist:

* The qubes-users and qubes-devel Google Groups (which Google describe
as fora)
* GitHub: https://github.com/QubesOS
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/QubesOS/
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QubesOS/
* Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/

(We currently don't have a StackExchange site, but I've created a
proposal for one here: https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/98519/
It'll require more followers and questions to move on to the next
phase, so if you think that it should exist, consider following it and
adding questions of your own.)

The question is: What benefits would a forum provide that these other
sites don't or can't?

I realize that this is a broad issue, but please try to keep the
discussion on topic. Our goal here is to get feedback from the
community that will help us make a decision about whether to create
(or endorse the creation of) a forum and, if so, what kind.

Best,
Andrew

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=VaYk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Peter M]

The advantage of a forum is it would allow for the creation of structure to guide the discussion.
Eg Installation, Windows HVM, Whoinix, Newbie

It would be a little friendlier to new users. If Qubes OS is to get more mainstream, it would really help getting input from a broader selection of users. On a lot of privacy forums I hang around on Qubes OS is bought up a lot but many potential users do not know where to start.

I am personally also not a fan of google, reddit, facebook and twitter due to privacy concerns. Given that Qubes OS does attract people who place a high importance on privacy it would be good to have a forum that did not involve a major social media platform.

[Marc de Bruin]

On 05/11/2016 04:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
> 1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
> currently being met in other ways?
> 2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?

Personally, I love a mailing lists. With mailing lists, I don't have to
log on and provide an identity. With mailing lists, I can use my
favorite e-mail reader with all my automated rules which I tend to run
every day, always. I never "forget" to check mailings lists, they are
right in front of me. I can even access them while being
off-line/traveling. I have been following qubes-users now for over a
year and searching through the history is very useful to me.

With a forum, I always feel myself trapped in a GUI in a web browser. I
would have to bookmark them and not forget about them. I would have to
come up with yet another username/password combination to
remember/administer. And if the forum would use a "points rewarded"
system, I would have to update my Greasemonkey scripts to filter it out,
because I don't like that at all.

To me, moving from messages from a mailing list to messages on a forum
feels about the same as moving from files on a file server to files in
Sharepoint. Yes, it may look slick, but boy, what a colossal waste of
resources to manage it (hardware, software, people), what a colossal
amount of extra functionality that I won't be using, and in the end,
what a colossal drop in productivity.

Greetz,
Marc.

[Jeremy Rand]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Definitely agree. I currently never forget to read the mailing list;
I would almost certainly forget to check the forum unless the forum
exposes an email interface (if I could read messages and reply to them
from my email client, then I don't really care whether the backend is
Google Groups or a forum).

A mailing list also improves decentralization, because if a moderator
deletes a message, people who received the email still have a copy.
Mailing lists are also good for security, because it's much more
common to use PGP signatures on emails than for forums.

I can see that there might be a theoretical benefit in searchability
to having the threads in categories (which forums make easier than
mailing lists), but in practice I can't recall ever having trouble
finding an old thread via the Google Groups search mechanism. Maybe
some people also only want to subscribe to certain categories, but
again, in practice the volume on qubes-users is small enough that I
have no trouble ignoring the messages that I don't care about.

So yeah, bottom line is that I really like having an email interface
(for both sending and receiving). If a forum other than Google Groups
can provide that, and has better searchability and categorization as
well, then I'm not strongly opposed.

Peter M:

> The advantage of a forum is it would allow for the creation of
> structure to guide the discussion. Eg Installation, Windows HVM,
> Whoinix, Newbie

If categorization is a primary concern, would it be feasible to split
the qubes-users Google Group into a few different groups, so that
people can choose to subscribe to a subset of categories? @Peter
would that solve your concern about categorization?

Peter M:

> I am personally also not a fan of google, reddit, facebook and
> twitter due to privacy concerns. Given that Qubes OS does attract
> people who place a high importance on privacy it would be good to
> have a forum that did not involve a major social media platform.

AFAIK Google Groups don't require a Google account; they only require
a valid email address. I don't claim to be an expert on private
email, but I'm under the impression that there are email providers out
there that allow signup via Tor without identity verification. That
addresses the metadata issue, I think. In terms of content data, it's
a public mailing list, so Google (and their NSA buddies) can scrape
that data equally well regardless of who hosts it.

That's just my 0.02 BTC.

Cheers,
- -Jeremy
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=E3Zx
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Drew White]

On Wednesday, 11 May 2016 12:04:17 UTC+10, Andrew David Wong wrote:

1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
currently being met in other ways?

This would satisfy all communities needs, IF it's on their OWN server, NOT in the cloud.

2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?

None, they can be accessed via email/mailing groups, RSS feeds for topics and posts.
So many ways of accessing the forums these days.

3. If there were a Qubes forum, should it be official (i.e., run by
us) or unofficial (i.e., run by a third party)?

Run by Qubes. Otherwise there would be privacy concerns. Ref 1.

4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way to
implement it?

 Put it on a server.

To clarify the first question, note that the following already exist:

* The qubes-users and qubes-devel Google Groups (which Google describe
as fora)
* GitHub: https://github.com/QubesOS
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/QubesOS/
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QubesOS/
* Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/

All these may exist, but they are primarily on insecure places such as google and github and twitter and facebook and reddit.
For a secure system to be using all the insecure media it can is a bit of a catch-22.

If you want the entire thing to be secure like Qubes, don't have it "in the cloud". Having qubes "in the cloud" on GitHub means that anyone can see the code, anyone can find the holes, anyone can break into a system that runs qubes.

If it was privatly hosted, and each programmer was verified and then and only then permitted to get and see the code, THEN the system would be more secure.
But as it stands, anyone can see the code and the holes in the security.

Other things that would be a good idea (hosted on Qubes) would be IRC Chat. Rather than having it on FreeNode, have it on Qubes servers. That way you can have all your rooms and set things up properly, with a real way for people to communicate. Because the unofficial way on FreeNode, if it was more popular, it would solve many more issues,and people could actually discuss the things, rather than using "Google Groups", where communication is slow and you never get anywhere because not many people actually know what they are talking about or able to help them.

Well, I think I'll end my informational rant there, I think that 1% of the issues is enough to deal with to start.

[Jeremy Rand]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 05/11/2016 12:13 AM, Drew White wrote:
> If you want the entire thing to be secure like Qubes, don't have it
> "in the cloud". Having qubes "in the cloud" on GitHub means that
> anyone can see the code, anyone can find the holes, anyone can
> break into a system that runs qubes.
>
> If it was privatly hosted, and each programmer was verified and
> then and only then permitted to get and see the code, THEN the
> system would be more secure. But as it stands, anyone can see the
> code and the holes in the security.

Long ago I stopped paying attention to Drew's comments, but this one
is too funny not to notice.

I'm not sure why Drew uses GNU/Linux (or other libre) systems at all,
given his belief in the cult of security by obscurity. Drew seems
like he'd be better off using OS X or Windows.

> communication is slow and you never get anywhere because not many
> people actually know what they are talking about or able to help
> them.

/me chortles.

> Well, I think I'll end my informational rant there, I think that 1%
> of the issues is enough to deal with to start.

That's probably best. I wouldn't want to have 100x more comedy
delivered to my inbox; I'd never get anything useful done.

- -Jeremy
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=7MiA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 2016-05-10 22:02, Jeremy Rand wrote:
> On 05/10/2016 11:34 PM, Marc de Bruin wrote:
>> On 05/11/2016 04:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
>>> 1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that
>>> are not currently being met in other ways? 2. What would be
>>> the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?
>>

>> [...]

>>
>> To me, moving from messages from a mailing list to messages on a

>> forum [...]

>
> Definitely agree. I currently never forget to read the mailing
> list; I would almost certainly forget to check the forum unless the
> forum exposes an email interface (if I could read messages and
> reply to them from my email client, then I don't really care
> whether the backend is Google Groups or a forum).
>

> [...]

>
> So yeah, bottom line is that I really like having an email
> interface (for both sending and receiving). If a forum other than
> Google Groups can provide that, and has better searchability and
> categorization as well, then I'm not strongly opposed.
>

> [...]

Just to clarify a couple of points:

1. The suggestion under discussion is not to *replace* the Google
Groups-based mailing lists with a forum. Rather (as I mentioned in the
first sentence of my post), the suggestion is to have a forum *in
addition* to the current mailing lists.

2. The new forum would (of course) be completely optional. No one
would be asked (much less compelled) to use it if they didn't want to.
If a forum were to be created, you could simply ignore it and carry on
as usual with this list (and qubes-devel). In fact, we all could do
so, and the vast majority of us may in fact do so, which is why we're
attempting to gauge the community's interest in such a forum before
anyone goes to the trouble of setting one up.

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

iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJXMt1SAAoJENtN07w5UDAw+GYP/iQ+r2MUGPmzpiZql8m93rRG
6C5W/NrattYrjWUmtTtsgJFbDjJggy5yYMPHrCAT6ztMAVg79q6ZPuUPlrZc31sX
JfAH9ubCZdyrTKU3UsDbPG9JAhaerx2HkYjnwBieJJy3BqN0UKGSYmgyBbppPUsm
YDkIAy6pmkmZZCM5Eq7l6f6jgzJqK+YGwODpAPqMY5Rscss0G4ybD1jjTzgbe9pk
yza9RZe+ZfO+1v1XIpkX9XXJg7qhngSTiA1tDdU/elfC73gTNvKM2sECNI8uqXo2
jjxzX2p5CXywLURsC1h2WaQ5lxZaIQF1k0VALhkFkyPLeJC6IH2C4AVVXDR286gB
D+XKqPlMDpyQKrfZzPjHbWyqrZ6x3J8LiAQEp/31CcfDM/uxFLGs+b766xvCypnS
t2sEFG2d9CYoJfTTFE2Xx+VnXWFFyNt8Vxzv98LR4t0zpywdTx+AocWaArP140mA
S1vxEr2vnhuk9AHNLMDNZTngtziLATrpx2UCaRV3a8ShlVwA4wU88Jy5pc432wzI
TLmAW7OXC3btP74akr4nuyS0wA/tXx4zrd6Kh9/hk+gE+C55gFMaXucTaArxXGwE
98BUx/pUrzV5k/Ljrr+0H6/Nol8MXlteclED7yCPfa8sggSpzCMyYUN7wQFDbFDB
Wu7x+3KLeAXQKnzvT9tH
=pFpV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Alex]

What about some decentralized/anonymized forums (i.e. syndie.i2p2.de)?
I've never actually used that, but it may help overcome
security/centralization challenges.

--
Alex

[Franz]

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 11:04 PM, Andrew David Wong <a...@qubes-os.org> wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi all,

Over the years, it's often been suggested that Qubes have a forum in
addition to the mailing lists. Someone has approached us and offered
to host such a forum. (IIRC, others have also made similar offers over
the years.) Before we make any final decision about this, we'd like to
ask for feedback and advice from the community. Here are the main
questions we're wondering about:

1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
currently being met in other ways?

Problem with mailing lists is that they require a lot of time and most people do NOT have this time to dedicate just to Qubes. A forum requires less time, because you can check it perhaps only once in a month or when you have time and look for ONLY what you are interested in, perhaps security issues, or any news regarding a specific item of particular interest etc. All this is getting harder now that this ML is more populated and I receive lots of emails every day. So as I wrote here many times the real question is: Which is Qubes desired market? Only developers? If yes then a mailing list is more than enough. If you want a broader audience you need to understand the needs of this broader audience, that obviously are:

easy of use

low time/study requirements

use of a computer as an appliance

An intermediate solution would be:

a mailing list only for security issues with a couple of emails per month which may include such general  themes as USB security news, special  Joanna events etc.,

a forum for all general discussion well organized into different sections: installation, hardware, audio, video, etc and

of course the present MLs that can go on as usual. Perhaps if there are  interesting or important or recurrent discussions on this ML a link can be placed on the forum. This would be a way to archive this ML with more order.

 

2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?

the time required to have it running
 

3. If there were a Qubes forum, should it be official (i.e., run by
us) or unofficial (i.e., run by a third party)?

It depend on resources, if Qubes resources are limited and not enough for that why not use a third party?
 

4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way to
implement it?

To divide it in many subcategories. Qubes is so general and so wide in purpose that a proper subdivision is critical

 

To clarify the first question, note that the following already exist:

* The qubes-users and qubes-devel Google Groups (which Google describe
as fora)
* GitHub: https://github.com/QubesOS

this one is too cryptic and useless for the non-developer
 

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/QubesOS/
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QubesOS/
* Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/

Social networks require a lot of time and non-developers spend this time with friends not with operative systems
 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/7ebb869e-0a3d-6525-30f5-951fd7e18bc4%40qubes-os.org.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

the great thing about these mailing lists is, that the qubes developers
are here.

Adding a forum where this isnt the case wouldnt add any value to me,
though I've learned that some people really like forums, though *I* do
much prefer mailing lists. (And I also don't agree that forums can be
read as mailing lists.)

Personally, I'd rather miss a qubes developer IRC channel, though I can
see how IRC can become even more of a time sink than mail already is.

(And how much worse this can be as a time sink if IRC is also used for
user support. If IRC, I think those topics should be much stricter
seperated. With mail, it's easy to ignore user threads on the developer
lists. This is harder with irc.)


--
cheers,
Holger

[Achim Patzner]

On 05/11/2016 04:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:

> 1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
> currently being met in other ways?

A collaborative documentation tool that is not as clumsy as git. Call it
wiki if you like.

> 2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?

Web-based nonsense is wasting time and bandwidth. Personally I'd even
like some process that rejects top-postings and messages that consist of
more than 60% of included text. I'm traveling a lot lately and have to
pay dearly for volume AND bandwidth.

> 3. If there were a Qubes forum, should it be official (i.e., run by
> us) or unofficial (i.e., run by a third party)?

Not using it I could not care less. 8-)

> 4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way to
> implement it?

In a way that keeps important information available on other channels, too.

> To clarify the first question, note that the following already exist:
>
> * The qubes-users and qubes-devel Google Groups (which Google describe
> as fora)

They are as there is a web-based interface to them (just nobody really
likes using it). If need arises someone could create some more mailing
lists.

> * GitHub: https://github.com/QubesOS
> * Twitter: https://twitter.com/QubesOS/
> * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QubesOS/
> * Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/
>
> (We currently don't have a StackExchange site

What would this site provide beside even more dispersion of important
information? I'm sick and tired of having to look up knowledge in so
many corners (not really made easier by bad labeling/indexing) so
getting one more place to look at won't make me any happier. I'd also
close/disregard the reddit. Facebook? For visibility, yes, for anything
else rather not. Only sheep use that kind of thing. And Twitter is for
birds.


Achim

[Achim Patzner]

On 05/11/2016 09:20 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
> 1. The suggestion under discussion is not to *replace* the Google
> Groups-based mailing lists with a forum. Rather (as I mentioned in the
> first sentence of my post), the suggestion is to have a forum *in
> addition* to the current mailing lists.

That's even worse.

> If a forum were to be created, you could simply ignore it and carry on
> as usual with this list (and qubes-devel).

Really? How? Who is deciding that things there are important, who would
be responsible for putting them in a place where non-users would be able
to find them? Yll you're gaining would be further dispersion of
knowledge. Rather spend time on summarizing imprtant stuff from the
mailing lists and put them into a central archive if you have too much
time...


Achim

[Achim Patzner]

On 05/11/2016 07:13 AM, Drew White wrote:

> If you want the entire thing to be secure like Qubes, don't have it
> "in the cloud". Having qubes "in the cloud" on GitHub means that
> anyone can see the code, anyone can find the holes, anyone can break
> into a system that runs qubes.

Whatever you're smoking: Change the brand. It's not healthy.

> If it was privatly hosted, and each programmer was verified and then
> and only then permitted to get and see the code, THEN the system would
> be more secure.

Verified by you, I suppose. Whom else could you trust? [I'm refraining
from posting a canonical list of German jokes about Polish and asking
Marek for a similar list of jokes about Germans.]

> But as it stands, anyone can see the code and the holes in the security.

And so f*ing what? That's intended. It's called "peer review".

> Other things that would be a good idea (hosted on Qubes) would be IRC
> Chat. Rather than having it on FreeNode, have it on Qubes servers.

IRC is the Gods message to humans that they have too much time and too
little to do. [Besides: The basic idea of IRC is having _one_ virtual
network connecting all the servers; after all it was a copy of the ideas
of the BitNET RELAY. The current use is... embarrassing. If you want a
stand-alone chat system, use something better.]

> That way you can have all your rooms

You know... They are called channels. Also for historical reasons...

> Well, I think I'll end my informational rant there

It might have been a good idea to add some information to it.


Achim

[Marc de Bruin]

On 05/11/2016 12:20 PM, Achim Patzner wrote:
> On 05/11/2016 09:20 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
>> 1. The suggestion under discussion is not to *replace* the Google
>> Groups-based mailing lists with a forum. Rather (as I mentioned in the
>> first sentence of my post), the suggestion is to have a forum *in
>> addition* to the current mailing lists.
> That's even worse.
>

Full quote, can't agree more.

Having two places where discussions are taking place would result in
half of the discussions at one place and the other half ...

Don't. Please.

Greetz,
Marc.

[Chris Laprise]

This is the main reason I would frequent a Qubes forum: It could draw in
even more users, I think, because the interface is more accessible, more
organized *and* more expressive. Even if the devs aren't present,
knowledgeable admins and users could make it a platform to show their
acumen (and the structure allows people to focus on their specialties).

Think about what the Ubuntu community would be like without the forums
and the wiki... with just a few mailing lists.

I'm also reminded of a certain automotive forum I have relied on over
the years: If it were a mailing list, then the number of participants
would be 1/20th and I couldn't have found much of the info that has
helped me.

>
> An intermediate solution would be:
>
> a mailing list only for security issues with a couple of emails per
> month which may include such general themes as USB security news,
> special Joanna events etc.,
>
> a forum for all general discussion well organized into different
> sections: installation, hardware, audio, video, etc and

More than this, sections can be added to the forum to send a message to
the community that certain topics (e.g. other hypervisors, microkernels)
have a "home" within Qubes.

Perhaps the Qubes community is not yet ready for a full-blown forum. But
we will eventually have to have one or something like it in order to thrive.

Chris

[Drew White]

On Wednesday, 11 May 2016 16:23:46 UTC+10, Jeremy Rand wrote:

Long ago I stopped paying attention to Drew's comments, but this one
is too funny not to notice.

If you stopped paying attention then you wouldn't have seen this or read
it. So you do not actually pay no attention.
Saying it's too funny to notice means that you paid attention to it in the
first place to notice that it was funny by reading it.
 

I'm not sure why Drew uses GNU/Linux (or other libre) systems at all,
given his belief in the cult of security by obscurity.  Drew seems
like he'd be better off using OS X or Windows.

I have no belief in such a cult. I'm just paranoid about security.
I use Linux because I can secure it better than Windows . And
OS X is Apple, and I trust Apple only 1% more than I trust Microsoft.
I trust Linux to a degree of 80%.
Microsoft I trust maybe 1%, Apple only 2%.

[Drew White]

On Wednesday, 11 May 2016 20:28:45 UTC+10, Achim Patzner wrote:

Whatever you're smoking: Change the brand. It's not healthy.

I don't smoke, so to change brand I'd have to first start.

Verified by you, I suppose. Whom else could you trust? [I'm refraining
from posting a canonical list of German jokes about Polish and asking
Marek for a similar list of jokes about Germans.]

By me, no, I'm not a person at the top of Qubes. I wouldn't leave that up to me because
I don't have my security certificate IV to be permitted to handle such data (yet). 

 

And so f*ing what? That's intended. It's called "peer review".

If people had to register to be able to view the code, then fine, but they don't.

IRC is the Gods message to humans that they have too much time and too
little to do. [Besides: The basic idea of IRC is having _one_ virtual
network connecting all the servers; after all it was a copy of the ideas
of the BitNET RELAY. The current use is... embarrassing. If you want a
stand-alone chat system, use something better.]

That is true, but I do find it a good resource for finding out things and having a conversation
one sentence at a time between many people, rather than posting a heap of text, having it
read, and having 5 replies to it hand then having to reply to each one.
 

You know... They are called channels. Also for historical reasons...

Yes, for historical reasons we can use channels, but I was more speaking and relating to the way people
have it today and use the terminology today so as not to confuse the younger new generation.

It might have been a good idea to add some information to it.

If you found no information in it, then perhaps I was not saying it right for you to fully understand and
comprehend. There are times when things I say are just straight out of the brain without any
correlation to the areas they should be in and sometimes they don't fully make sense. I do know that
that is a fault that I am working on as myself, and I apologise for any inconvenience that it may cause.

[Chris Laprise]

Now Grasshopper, contemplate the underlying reasons WHY.

Why do so very many Windows technical queries on the web terminate with
crickets chirping: There are few-to-no experts below a certain
functional level on Windows. In open source systems, there is a
gradation of available expertise that allows people to keep digging
deeper until they get a definite answer (even if that answer is "No" or
"Not yet").

Chris

[pixel fairy]

Im pretty happy with the discussions here seeding the qubes docs. id be fine with the mailing list hosted elswhere, but i actually like this web gui. im sure there are other mailing list managers with web guis you can look at too.

i do like the idea of different topics. if your going to stick to google, g+ has this.

it is google collecting yet more data about us. but if thats a concern, nows your chance to practice opsec.

[Achim Patzner]

> Am 12.05.2016 um 04:27 schrieb Chris Laprise <tas...@openmailbox.org>:
> Perhaps the Qubes community is not yet ready for a full-blown forum. But we will eventually have to have one or something like it in order to thrive.

Why?

FreeBSD has all its important discussions on mailing lists (although there are quite a few more with higher volume (high enough for digests being useful)) and it’s far from stagnation.


Achim

[Achim Patzner]

> Am 12.05.2016 um 05:05 schrieb Drew White <drew....@gmail.com>:
>> And so f*ing what? That's intended. It's called "peer review".
>
> If people had to register to be able to view the code, then fine, but they don't.

That’s not paranoid, that’s fascist. Besides being completely useless.


Achim

[Franz]

Well lots of resistance  to the idea of a forum and I understand it. Geeks love mailing lists and in fact here we have only geeks. But there may be a solution to keep geeks happy and to open Qubes to a broader audience. If you google "Forum mailing list sync" there are some solutions. I have no idea if it is possible to sync a Google mailing list, but for example this one claims to be able to syncs a forum and a mailing list keeping threads intact:
https://doc.tiki.org/Forum+and+Mailing+List+Synchronization

Look that I am no fanatic of opening Qubes to less dedicated users. For me it can go on forever as it is now and I am only happy and grateful. It is only that this project survives on Joanna ability to generously finance it. Can this go on forever? I do not know.  But obviously a broader diffusion will help and is critical to finance it. So I urge everybody to make an effort and go a little bit beyond our own immediate convenience and look at the needs of a broader audience who has less time and patience for computers, but the same can firmly appreciate more security.

Best

Fran

[don...@riseup.net]

On 2016-05-12 14:53, Franz wrote:
> Well lots of resistance to the idea of a forum and I understand it.
> Geeks
> love mailing lists and in fact here we have only geeks. But there may
> be a
> solution to keep geeks happy and to open Qubes to a broader audience.

It is interesting that a distribution more geek than Qubes like
AlpineLinux
has a forum http://forum.alpinelinux.org/forum . If you look, most posts
are
from new users, also it has pretty few activity but is not dead :)

I also like and prefer the mail list but for a lot of users without
experience using them, a forum could be a better solution.

What is the problem? Decentralization of information... Well, if you
want a big
distribution it has to happen sooner or later and I do not think it must
to be
bad. Maybe some kind of questions/topics go to the forum and another to
the mail
list just for the type of users who write them.

Whonix also has forum https://forums.whonix.org/ ! Maybe Patrick
Schleizer has
a good view of this.

Qubes has a great potential with "normal" users, with some luck you can
install
and use it without type any command. I saw some guys on irc coming from
Windows
without any Linux experience (and probably without any mail list
experience too).

Regards.

[raah...@gmail.com]

To me this is the forum. I log in through the web browser and treat it like a forum. I don't use my google mail for anything, except to sign into youtube etc... so I don't care about it getting spammed with qubes-users mail cause i've only ever checked it once or twice in years..lol

But I understand for most people it is not the same thing as a forum I guess. (even though i refer to it as a forum on irc) I think alot of people who dont' use google groups don't because they are paranoid about privacy and security issues or they are too lazy. Privacy conscious people definitely don't like google or social media sites. So you would definitely have to come up with something they would feel is private and secure, meaning run and moderated by qubes themselves. which I think is what Drew is trying to imply. Look at the most popular distro forum sites that have been hacked in the past like ubuntu and mint which come to mind. If run by some 3rd party or too time consuming would a breach even get noticed?

Also You have to make sure you have a full time moderator. I believe Marek moderates the google groups already. Or else you will have to get really fascist and require phone number registration like google already does. Which is another benefit of google groups as well as ddos protection.

But all that being said I think its a good idea to have something else besides google accounts to post with. Cause i'm sure there is many qubes users who absolutely distrust google and refuse to use the google "mailing list/forums".

[Achim Patzner]

Am 12. Mai 2016 6:01:49 nachm. schrieb don...@riseup.net:
> On 2016-05-12 14:53, Franz wrote:
>> But there may be a
>> solution to keep geeks happy and to open Qubes to a broader audience.

Yes: Avoid using things tha make geeks unhappy or you won't have any to
take care of what they refer to as "unwashed masses". And who else should
do all the work? Marek?

> It is interesting that a distribution more geek than Qubes like AlpineLinux
> has a forum http://forum.alpinelinux.org/forum . If you look, most posts
> are from new users, also it has pretty few activity but is not dead :)

"The blind shell lead the blind."

> I also like and prefer the mail list but for a lot of users without
> experience using them, a forum could be a better solution.

Solutions usually solve problems instead of creating them.


Achim

[Chris Laprise]

On 05/12/2016 03:02 PM, Achim Patzner wrote:
> Am 12. Mai 2016 6:01:49 nachm. schrieb don...@riseup.net:
>> On 2016-05-12 14:53, Franz wrote:
>>> But there may be a
>>> solution to keep geeks happy and to open Qubes to a broader audience.
>
> Yes: Avoid using things tha make geeks unhappy or you won't have any
> to take care of what they refer to as "unwashed masses". And who else
> should do all the work? Marek?

Yet, its possible we need them more than they need us.

And I'll even volunteer to run it, at least until the volume outstrips
qubes-users by a factor of ten... Then recruiting a couple section
admins may be necessary.

The only questions are what to do with qubes-users in that case, and how
to make it as painless as possible for devs to address difficult queries
in-forum.

Chris

[donoban]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 12/05/16 21:02, Achim Patzner wrote:
>> I also like and prefer the mail list but for a lot of users
>> without experience using them, a forum could be a better
>> solution.
>
> Solutions usually solve problems instead of creating them.
>

Leave your strong and right mind and stop thinking exclusively in
terms of "solutions" and "problems".

Now you are a young Windows/Mac user who read something about an
extremely secure OS called Qubes... you investigate it and discover a
mail list archive with some interesting messages (which you do not
understand) from some serious guys who does not like to waste time.
You feel pretty scared to talk there... (you do not even considered
seriously installing that OS yet...)

Now you see it also has a forum, there the ambient is pretty
different. It has avatars and pretty nice interface, you can see the
posts of the users and the day they joined. You also see cool things
on their names like, "elite hacker", "NSA conspiranoid", "Qubes
Ruler"... You see some sticked posts being kept updated with a lot of
responses, it has some screenshots on the same page of the post and
nice emoticons...

The forum has its own idiosyncrasy. You do not need it, you do not
like it. Ok, I probably do not like too... But it can be an
interesting and useful thing for the project. It has some backwards,
like decentralizing the information and discussions, but also has
advantages, like bringing more people and connecting it with a more
familiar and flexible interface ^_^

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=ajfD
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Bill Wether]

It's not obvious to me that there's enough traffic for both.
Cheers

BillW

[Patrick Schleizer]

don...@riseup.net:

> Whonix also has forum https://forums.whonix.org/ ! Maybe Patrick
> Schleizer has
> a good view of this.

You bet! :)

TLDR:

- make Qubes users mailing list read-only
- get a discourse forum and use that for everything

Long:

Mailing lists are mostly used by geeks.

Whonix has it all, developers and user mailing list and forums. The
developers mailing list gets used sometimes. It's primarily useful to cc
the list when talking to other developers that are best reachable by
mailing lists or as cc for bug trackers and so forth but that is about it.

The only reason to keep qubes-devel mailing list would be if the Qubes
core developers prefer it over forums.

Users rarely want to use mailing lists. It's not worth having a mailing
list for user support at all at this stage.

Whonix's discourse forum https://forums.whonix.org works awesome for us.
We use it for user support as well as development discussions. I
subscribed to the whole forum, meaning each and every forum post will
end up in my mail inbox. Reply by mail is also supported.

The usability and search function of discourse is much better than
mailing lists. I am afraid to catch myself over and over again, reading
more Whonix forums than Qubes mailing lists because of the usability issues.

Brennan Novak, Qubes developer, working on user experience, if I
remember right, also prefers and likes discourse forums.

FYI, more on my views on website, user support, etc.:

- Summary: "In an ideal world, mailing lists, forums, issue trackers,
blog posts, blog comments would all share the same database and would
just be different presentations of the same data." ... More opinion and
practice:
- https://www.whonix.org/blog/future-goals-for-whonixs-website
- https://www.whonix.org/blog/blogging-is-fun-automatically

Cheers,
Patrick

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 10:55:47PM +0000, Patrick Schleizer wrote:
> don...@riseup.net:
> > Whonix also has forum https://forums.whonix.org/ ! Maybe Patrick
> > Schleizer has
> > a good view of this.
>
> You bet! :)
>
> TLDR:
>
> - make Qubes users mailing list read-only
> - get a discourse forum and use that for everything
>
> Long:
>
> Mailing lists are mostly used by geeks.
>
> Whonix has it all, developers and user mailing list and forums. The
> developers mailing list gets used sometimes. It's primarily useful to cc
> the list when talking to other developers that are best reachable by
> mailing lists or as cc for bug trackers and so forth but that is about it.
>
> The only reason to keep qubes-devel mailing list would be if the Qubes
> core developers prefer it over forums.

This is the case, at least for me.

> Users rarely want to use mailing lists. It's not worth having a mailing
> list for user support at all at this stage.
>
> Whonix's discourse forum https://forums.whonix.org works awesome for us.
> We use it for user support as well as development discussions. I
> subscribed to the whole forum, meaning each and every forum post will
> end up in my mail inbox. Reply by mail is also supported.

For me, personally, anything that will be usable via email is ok. There
are some advantages of mailing list, like preserving pgp signatures, or
easily including anyone in the conversation (not only list members).
In any case, I'm not exactly the most representative qubes-users target. If
having a forum instead/in addition to mailing list would attract more
users, lets be it.

> The usability and search function of discourse is much better than
> mailing lists. I am afraid to catch myself over and over again, reading
> more Whonix forums than Qubes mailing lists because of the usability issues.

For me good usability here means: a single place to check for new
messages. And a good search. Both are satisfied by my email setup. But
as mentioned earlier - that's just me, it may not work equally well for
everyone.

> Brennan Novak, Qubes developer, working on user experience, if I
> remember right, also prefers and likes discourse forums.
>
> FYI, more on my views on website, user support, etc.:
>
> - Summary: "In an ideal world, mailing lists, forums, issue trackers,
> blog posts, blog comments would all share the same database and would
> just be different presentations of the same data." ... More opinion and
> practice:
> - https://www.whonix.org/blog/future-goals-for-whonixs-website
> - https://www.whonix.org/blog/blogging-is-fun-automatically
>
> Cheers,
> Patrick
>

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJXNR+xAAoJENuP0xzK19csFSIH/3xXhooJTcBR6Q61c7XsWILl
Sg14w+LMiNXiwBYn9WxsuZbFf7yG9OGQH7XKsaxpjCtvRwbsIomAqwOkTVTKRRWv
dLfasKWgnASTmazKoz9yPSlDC+OPBLu2Gfik2U9kiBESxgMmltY3kgKEyTt9toPy
1zLjxFlsrObj0lQ2Htz91mpcwdTzsVvFB1kIutA+2Gzsqm8bA4AAbZz2b9JuZGYU
7TknFD5HLvzqZGLrARQduXaioZ3QCA1eLw1aj4MWows76izHksuRlQsHOQ7q40XJ
LsqIS6ZUaxwxRl5L9D0b3cC3BYgyOqrOTPTc4nKHoJJvUSAl4ZKfBDX/IF4F5jQ=
=OsVU
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Franz]

Awesome Patrick, you nailed it, thanks, and Whonix is much more geek in nature than Qubes because Qubes is about security, which is for everybody, while Whonix is about anonimity which is a much more specialized interest.

Best

Fran

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/573509F3.10703%40riseup.net.

[raah...@gmail.com]

I should add this is the first time i ever used a "mailing list". To me it makes no difference, but I do think a forum would bring people who don't want to register a google account.

[Holger Levsen]

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 07:53:07PM -0700, raah...@gmail.com wrote:
> I should add this is the first time i ever used a "mailing list". To me it makes no difference, but I do think a forum would bring people who don't want to register a google account.

as several people said in this thread that one needs a google account to
read+write to these mailing lists currently: this is not true. I dont
have a google account, yet I'm reading and writing here.

It's also documented below every mail:

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.

--
cheers,
Holger

[donoban]

They mean for posting on Google Groups as a forum. For example using this:

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/20160513101818.GA6076%40matrix.athome

[Holger Levsen]

On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 12:51:36PM +0200, donoban wrote:
> They mean for posting on Google Groups as a forum.

ah. thanks for explaining. It never occurred to me to want to do that,
but now I understand this discussion here a lot better. Some people want
a forum, but dislike google.


--
cheers,
Holger

[Chris Laprise]

I'd be happy to admin a Qubes forum site and find a way to integrate it
with email. However, I don't have hosting capacity available so that
would have to be allocated at ITL or a hosting provider.

Chris

[Jeremy Rand]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 05/12/2016 05:55 PM, Patrick Schleizer wrote:
> - get a discourse forum and use that for everything

Discourse, in its current state, is unusable for users who have
Javascript disabled. Given that a lot of security/privacy-conscious
users have Javascript disabled, this is problematic.

Some related links:

https://try.discourse.org/ (disable Javascript and then visit here to
see how unusable it is).

https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=javascript%20disabled

https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-for-darknets/31222

https://meta.discourse.org/t/style-is-lost-if-javascript-is-disabled/367
78

https://meta.discourse.org/t/search-engines-screen-readers-etc-should-we
- -still-support-clients-which-have-js-disabled/1733

Unless/until these issues are resolved, I would not be particularly
happy with Discourse being the primary method of getting help with Qubes
.

Just my 0.02 BTC.

Cheers,
- -Jeremy

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=44lA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Franz]

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 12:50 AM, Jeremy Rand <bioli...@gmail.com> wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 05/12/2016 05:55 PM, Patrick Schleizer wrote:
> - get a discourse forum and use that for everything

Discourse, in its current state, is unusable for users who have
Javascript disabled.  Given that a lot of security/privacy-conscious
users have Javascript disabled, this is problematic.

Some related links:

https://try.discourse.org/ (disable Javascript and then visit here to
see how unusable it is).

https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=javascript%20disabled

https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-for-darknets/31222

https://meta.discourse.org/t/style-is-lost-if-javascript-is-disabled/367
78

https://meta.discourse.org/t/search-engines-screen-readers-etc-should-we
- -still-support-clients-which-have-js-disabled/1733

Unless/until these issues are resolved, I would not be particularly
happy with Discourse being the primary method of getting help with Qubes
.

Just my 0.02 BTC.

Cheers,
- -Jeremy

Qubes strength is the ability to use even Javascript in a red VM on in a dispVM without any risk of compromising the system security.

Best

Fran

 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJXN/H7AAoJEAHN/EbZ1y06AbYP/0PzwDCDDSw5LU7Mod1khPKL
Zw75WpIxqliffF5VkNFHeWnz34BcCfsbePK9ptPtS5EMT9h//ubIVZuZTc28kGPB
we9Q9/5BJZdTSzNEK10Ut0njxdlTsuvds2s8b/qvPwdABI5DnPu8pOTfBOOhhhQv
G0oK4TaQcrC0uQ+fY208AGhVbAlsYU590ERnJWdKjLclWV9u7Ynym3TKCr4G5VtB
FDHaH4LxNhIkzjemWN24mTcn9KXVW+wyJTkFQGkUu7sksxkzHBTQVZTxYn2C8oNQ
SEy3AH6BSYFv2djnm2aYtRKGD0yJ9p0PzbGAq47Lfh4uV9zyEnfSjHklUIMX/PBn
2P4skPPwDvZMdsKpXva2lX+0aosIaC8mVJ4xvONRy9bLY6KBStWGb/Vbbd7uk4vT
EOEsnb5x3/pO0wQvoExNiiQTQ9ZM9sjrpnZjALK/ETSVF51ysGIFnuRu8KeSlqqz
65kluHoL7QtcPVeJIgGIW4eGNdISX0psOyymP/rR/GUFmAOaUF8RZhiSngqr4/hf
tf0HiCJLIR0BBnV/EF7mCwxRBrwZAmcJviIFhjDrgB61Sl1DxoId3NDf7X8+FWX8
A2HDjynfOLXuCxo5eNd2nq/iXV1jx+Wc+GCEFD3DWtKKFVkTPP1jxlsM7YG4U/OQ
7p8crGb8X8CDzw25JwdO
=44lA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/aeb276c4-d03d-8a59-a5a4-50d948c7a9ed%40gmail.com.

[Iestyn Best]

Hi All,

My personal thought is that more important than setting up a forum at the moment is to present a good clear documentation system. Many different development groups use a wiki system to organise and allow contribution to their documentation. Arch Linux has done well with this and so has many other distributions and feature rich software.

Someone else here mentioned Tiki Wiki as having the capability to sync mailing list into the forums. I have seen this package used in many different scenarios and it has provided a good rich framework to develop not only a Wiki system but it can be used for thinks like Forums, Blogs, Newsletters and more that can be used to improve the distribution of information for Qubes-OS.

With Qubes-OS using Git to provide the web interface could be a bit limiting (I am not sure as I do not know the capabilities of the Git hosting) but my experience with Tiki Wiki has shown a lot of potential. I know some intelligence specialist who use Tiki Wiki for a way of storing their information with lots of cross-referencing.

These are just my thoughts, but I think Qubes-OS development team needs to decide what there focus is at the moment. If we can get a good structure to the documentation, we can send people to it more often to be able to solve their problems. This would hopefully reduce the need for a forum.

I just did a quick search and GitHub supports implementing a wiki system (https://help.github.com/articles/about-github-wikis/). This may be a good spot to move the documentation.

Regards,

Iestyn Best

[Achim Patzner]

> Am 16.05.2016 um 06:16 schrieb Iestyn Best <vfre...@gmail.com>:
>
> My personal thought is that more important than setting up a forum at the moment is to present a good clear documentation system.

!.

> Many different development groups use a wiki system to organise and allow contribution to their documentation.

!!!.

> Someone else here mentioned Tiki Wiki as having the capability to sync mailing list into the forums.

Atlassian Confluence would offer even more options and it should be possible to get a license for this using https://www.atlassian.com/software/views/community-license-request. The rest of their tools is interesting, too.


Achim

[loga...@gmail.com]

I doubt the point of a forum when we already have a Reddit channel, since forum functions can be used in Reddit fairly easily, and we get its voting-based sorting for free.

I actually think Reddit is a better discussion platform than mailing list, since digression can be limited much more efficiently. Attention is scarce and Reddit is the best at managing it with a community IMO. The current Qubes OS Reddit channel is far from its full potential. For an example of tech-related Reddit community, https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin .

Plus, Reddit is much more far-reaching (/ mainstream) than a forum. It is another block for potential user to register a new account. With the popularity of Reddit it's less a concern.

[Franz]

Never seen Reddit before. At a first look I do not see any way to subdivide and categorize information in different sections, which is one of the most important features to have order in forums. Is it available?
 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/4ae868e0-b281-4c68-85aa-bcd9c370f4d5%40googlegroups.com.

[Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)]

On 05/11/2016 02:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Over the years, it's often been suggested that Qubes have a forum in
> addition to the mailing lists.

We already have such a forum:

https://reddit.com/r/QubesOS

Nobody posts there. A bit of publicity could fix that.

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

[loga...@gmail.com]

Francesco於 2016年5月16日星期一 UTC+8下午9時39分07秒寫道：

> On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 8:34 AM, <loga...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I doubt the point of a forum when we already have a Reddit channel, since forum functions can be used in Reddit fairly easily, and we get its voting-based sorting for free.
>
>
>
> I actually think Reddit is a better discussion platform than mailing list, since digression can be limited much more efficiently. Attention is scarce and Reddit is the best at managing it with a community IMO. The current Qubes OS Reddit channel is far from its full potential. For an example of tech-related Reddit community, https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin .
>
>
>
> Plus, Reddit is much more far-reaching (/ mainstream) than a forum. It is another block for potential user to register a new account. With the popularity of Reddit it's less a concern.
>
>
>
>
>
> Never seen Reddit before. At a first look I do not see any way to subdivide and categorize information in different sections, which is one of the most important features to have order in forums. Is it available?
>  
>
> --

It is possible to use flair to categorize stuff. Not every subreddit does it but here is an example: https://www.reddit.com/r/science

[Chris Laprise]

Isn't it customary for technical reddits to proclaim that they're not to
be used for support?

Chris

[loga...@gmail.com]

Chris Laprise於 2016年5月17日星期二 UTC+8上午5時19分31秒寫道：

I have not been to enough technical (or rather product) subreddits to answer this, but I think it's our freedom to use functions offered by reddit however we want. Note that reddit itself has /r/help and /r/bugs

[Jeremy Rand]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 05/15/2016 10:34 PM, Franz wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 12:50 AM, Jeremy Rand
> <bioli...@gmail.com <mailto:bioli...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> On 05/12/2016 05:55 PM, Patrick Schleizer wrote:
>> - get a discourse forum and use that for everything
>
> Discourse, in its current state, is unusable for users who have
> Javascript disabled. Given that a lot of
> security/privacy-conscious users have Javascript disabled, this is
> problematic.
>
> Some related links:
>

[snip]

>
> Unless/until these issues are resolved, I would not be particularly
> happy with Discourse being the primary method of getting help with
> Qubes .
>
> Just my 0.02 BTC.
>

> Cheers, -Jeremy

>
>
>> Qubes strength is the ability to use even Javascript in a red VM
>> on in a dispVM without any risk of compromising the system
>> security. Best Fran

Three points here:

1. Defense in depth is a reasonable practice. Xen has had security
issues in the past; and will have some in the future. Nothing wrong
with decreasing attack surface and forcing adversaries to work
somewhat harder and/or spend somewhat more money on exploits.

2. Many people who would visit a Qubes forum are high-risk users who
don't yet have Qubes installed and are looking for help getting it up
and running. These users have a very good reason to have Javascript
enabled, and their needs shouldn't be ignored.

3. There are reasons to disable Javascript other than security. For
example, some accessibility software has trouble with Javascript.
Excluding users who use such software doesn't make sense.

As a side note, Google Groups's web interface is also pretty much
unusable with Tor Browser's "Medium-High" security setting. Discourse
only becomes unusable at "High". This doesn't imply that Discourse is
good, but it does mean that Google Groups is even worse. So if Google
doesn't fix this, then it would definitely make sense to migrate to
some other platform. I don't have a strong opinion on what that
platform would be.

Cheers,
- -Jeremy

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=y0FS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)]

Nah. Some communities do, others do not.

With a proper CSS, a bot that lets people add flair (categories) to
their posts, and someone from this community modding the subreddit, I
bet it can become a great place to discuss and accumulate information,
as well as to provide a platform for people to *comment* on new
developments and announcements.

But of course someone needs to do the CSS and supply the modbot
(automoderator is usually the standard choice).

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

[Iestyn Best]

Have you used their products previously? I have not used it myself but I have heard from some companies that use it and don't like it. 

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 2016-05-16 10:16, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:
> On 05/11/2016 02:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Over the years, it's often been suggested that Qubes have a
>> forum in addition to the mailing lists.
>
> We already have such a forum:
>
> https://reddit.com/r/QubesOS
>
> Nobody posts there. A bit of publicity could fix that.
>

Well, I post there, and I linked to it in the message to which you're
replying. :)

But you're right; more publicity could help boost traffic there.

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=Lcry
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Achim Patzner]

> Am 17.05.2016 um 06:00 schrieb Andrew David Wong <a...@qubes-os.org>:
[reddit.com]
> boost traffic there.

What would be your expected result? Visibility? Use Facebook. Recruiting developers? Not in a million years.


Achim

[Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)]

On 05/17/2016 06:27 PM, Achim Patzner wrote:
>> Am 17.05.2016 um 06:00 schrieb Andrew David Wong <a...@qubes-os.org>:
> [reddit.com]
>> boost traffic there.
> What would be your expected result? Visibility? Use Facebook.

Then you'd have to use Facebook. facebook.net tracks you everywhere you
go. Not so with Reddit.

Facebook is for mothers and fathers to check up on their kids, not for
community building. Facebook is retarded.

> Recruiting developers? Not in a million years.

Not the goal. The goal is to serve the user base by giving them the
ability to form a community with categories, votes, and helping each
other out, as well as to post announcements pertinent to our user base,
without forcing them to use email.

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

[Laszlo Zrubecz]

On 05/11/2016 04:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote:

> 1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
> currently being met in other ways?

Mailing list are great for a short term talks, but sucks when we want to
moderate the content.

Why we would need any moderated content?

Because in a public mailing list,

- all can post any "seems to be valid" info. Or completely wrong info.
Then the new users how should decide which info is reliable and or up to
date?

- no way to edit an already sent mail.

- some people can't follow threads. Some just break those by mistake.
Some mailing clients are just creating unacceptable shit instead of mails.

- mass quoting hides the real content.

- Qubes is growing rapidly. the development is really fast. Most of the
things on the mailing list are outdated.

- as the list volume is rising not all member be able to follow it. In a
forum we can split all the threads in categories, and users can chose to
follow one or more - but not forced to read all the thing he don't even
care.

- some user would prefer to read things coming only from valuable
members/developers (so reputation feature is a must in a technical forum)


> 2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?

- it will be never be more secure or more private that the current
google groups. Instead it will be always depends on the hosting
provider + the OS admins + the forum admins.


- handling the legal things related to running a
public forum can be a pain. see #3


> 3. If there were a Qubes forum, should it be official (i.e., run by
> us) or unofficial (i.e., run by a third party)?

I think it should run by a 3rd party for various reasons, but the
content should be managed by moderators from the community.


> 4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way to
> implement it?

This should be a feature list? or what?


--
Laszlo Zrubecz

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 2016-05-24 04:29, Laszlo Zrubecz wrote:
> On 05/11/2016 04:04 AM, Andrew David Wong wrote: [...]

>> 4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way
>> to implement it?
>
> This should be a feature list? or what?
>

It could be a feature list, or it could be a suggestion about
particular software to use, a particular host to use, or even just a
general procedure or set of best practices. The question is
intentionally open-ended in an effort to get more feedback. ("We don't
know what we don't know.")

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=EsPV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Vegard Pettersen]

My vote is "YAY".

On Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at 4:04:17 AM UTC+2, Andrew David Wong wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi all,

Over the years, it's often been suggested that Qubes have a forum in

addition to the mailing lists. Someone has approached us and offered
to host such a forum. (IIRC, others have also made similar offers over
the years.) Before we make any final decision about this, we'd like to
ask for feedback and advice from the community. Here are the main
questions we're wondering about:

1. Which coummunity needs (if any) would a forum satisfy that are not
currently being met in other ways?

2. What would be the disadvantages (if any) of having a forum?

3. If there were a Qubes forum, should it be official (i.e., run by
us) or unofficial (i.e., run by a third party)?

4. If we decided to create a forum, what would be the best way to
implement it?

To clarify the first question, note that the following already exist:

* The qubes-users and qubes-devel Google Groups (which Google describe
as fora)
* GitHub: https://github.com/QubesOS
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/QubesOS/
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QubesOS/
* Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/

(We currently don't have a StackExchange site, but I've created a
proposal for one here: https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/98519/
It'll require more followers and questions to move on to the next
phase, so if you think that it should exist, consider following it and
adding questions of your own.)

The question is: What benefits would a forum provide that these other
sites don't or can't?

I realize that this is a broad issue, but please try to keep the
discussion on topic. Our goal here is to get feedback from the
community that will help us make a decision about whether to create
(or endorse the creation of) a forum and, if so, what kind.

Best,
Andrew

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=VaYk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi everyone,

After much deliberation, we have decided not to create an official Qubes
forum (though we do not discourage any members of the community from
creating an unofficial forum).

The team never reached a consensus on whether an official forum would be
in the best interest of the Qubes community, so an executive decision
was made not to proceed, mainly for the following reasons:

1. There would be too many places where Qubes is discussed, and this
might make it more difficult for people to find information.

2. It would create an additional burden on members of the team. (For
example, Marek would probably have to spend time reading and answering
questions on the forum.)

Again, I want to emphasize that we are not trying to discourage any
members of the community from creating an unofficial Qubes forum, if
that's what they want to do.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let me
know.

Best,
Andrew

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=DK4p
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Bill Wether]

The nntp mirror at gmane.org is a good solution.

Cheers

BillW

[Patrick Bouldin]

On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 12:05:01 AM UTC-5, Chris Laprise wrote:

On 05/11/2016 10:43 PM, Drew White wrote:
>
>
> On Wednesday, 11 May 2016 16:23:46 UTC+10, Jeremy Rand wrote:
>
>     Long ago I stopped paying attention to Drew's comments, but this one
>     is too funny not to notice.
>
> If you stopped paying attention then you wouldn't have seen this or read
> it. So you do not actually pay no attention.
> Saying it's too funny to notice means that you paid attention to it in the
> first place to notice that it was funny by reading it.
>
>
>     I'm not sure why Drew uses GNU/Linux (or other libre) systems at all,
>     given his belief in the cult of security by obscurity.  Drew seems
>     like he'd be better off using OS X or Windows.
>
>
> I have no belief in such a cult. I'm just paranoid about security.
> I use Linux because I can secure it better than Windows . And
> OS X is Apple, and I trust Apple only 1% more than I trust Microsoft.
> I trust Linux to a degree of 80%.
> Microsoft I trust maybe 1%, Apple only 2%.

Now Grasshopper, contemplate the underlying reasons WHY.

Why do so very many Windows technical queries on the web terminate with
crickets chirping: There are few-to-no experts below a certain
functional level on Windows. In open source systems, there is a
gradation of available expertise that allows people to keep digging
deeper until they get a definite answer (even if that answer is "No" or
"Not yet").

Chris

Chris, I agree with your points.

I am a medium tech type, definitely Windows background and trying (out of "learner" interest) to gear up on Linux and derivations. When I first heard of Qubes I was very excited because it would finally solve a lot of problems I've experienced with my previous windows systems. And, since I have begun to do things on Linux the idea of having the Qubes framework seemed awesome and simple. 

If find however that reproducing my day to day paradigm is an extremely difficult journey. My paradigm includes a lot of technical, and also musician interest. Just getting to the basics of playing mp3s or running what I normally run in windows seems like a battle.

I have a need to be "learner" on the Linux systems, but still flip to Windows on my day to day routine. I have to swap monitors and go to trouble right now switching - it concerns me that it's this hard. I want to learn, but getting answers is also difficult. I do understand the mantra on here about teaching people to help themselves. But, if the goal is to achieve wide spread adoption of Qubes then something else needs to happen.

On the forum question specifically - I frankly like the idea. I also share the concern expressed that all the info is not in one place. For what it's worth, my vote would be to dump everything except the forum, take this to the next level.

Thanks,.

Patrick 

[J. Eppler]

Hello Andrew,

I think it would be nice to have a easy to search forum for user questions. I don't think the qubes-devel list needs a forum.

Best regards
  J. Eppler

[09821'034918'0324981'0293481'092348'01943]

Hi Andrew,

the prob is, if you talk seriously about security, will be anonymity...

From the usability effect, I was happy with the thebrain forum, because it is quite friendly and helpful and has a pre-structuring, which helps to keep this many topics together.

http://forums.thebrain.com/

And for future features they have additional the very kind UserVoice, which has the focus to weight the community ideas, so that continuously new functions and features get implemented...

https://thebrain.uservoice.com/forums/4597-thebrain-feature-suggestions

But I don't know, which framework is needed for some similar look & feel.

Kind Regards