Migrate mailing lists to Discourse

[Ricardo Pinho]

Dear Dan and Artefactual Team,

Several free software user communities that I'm part of, is migrating it's mailings lists to Discourse:
https://discourse.osgeo.org/

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/

I believe Discourse brings more dynamic and user involving and allows continuing using the email.

So I come to suggest the migration of current AtoM/Archivematic GG Groups to Discourse, and ask Artefactual team to evaluate and consider this improvement.

For further information you can read:

https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrate-a-mailing-list-to-discourse-mbox-listserv-google-groups-etc/79773

  https://discourse.osgeo.org/t/migration-of-mailman2-mailing-lists-to-discourse-osgeo-org/58

Cheers,

Ricardo Pinho

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Ricardo, 

Thank you for this suggestion. It's a great idea, and it does look like Discourse could be an excellent platform for the AtoM User Forum. That said, it is unlikely to happen soon for a couple reasons. 

First, we do not want to have to self-host the forum software. Our previous attempts to self-host third-party tools we want to use at scale, that are outside of our primary domain and expertise, have not gone well - Weblate, Redmine, and more were messes that caused a lot of internal headaches, and regularly took effort and time AWAY from improvements to our applications, in favor of needing to maintain and troubleshoot these tools. In those two examples - with Weblate we ended up having to move to a paid hosted version; with Redmine we ultimately abandoned the tool in favor of GitHub issues. While we are happy to pay for services such as hosting to companies aligned with our vision and mission when possible, we are rather limited in this capacity. 

Second, we are still in a sort of transition period for AtoM, as our team structures change internally and we continue to try to find ways to focus on new software development.  Due to some good related project funding opportunities, we have chosen to start our focus with Enduro, which we hope may evolve into (and beyond) a replacement for Archivematica. We have learned that new application development is expensive and slow when you do not have a ton of development capital or outside investment, meaning we cannot focus on more than one such project at a time, and need to take very small steps as we go, while continuing to maintain our existing products and services. 

This has also impacted our internal structure, as we have tried to shift away from sales-led development (i.e. just building whatever institutions will sponsor - which has lead to some of the maintenance challenges that AtoM and Archivematica face), and to something more product-driven, with a vision in minda nd guided by real input from our clients and partners. I am currently focused primarily on Eduro related work, while we have introduced the Maintainers team to help with the ongoing maintenance and improvement of AtoM. However, one gap this has left is the community management aspect of the AtoM project. 

As you can see, I continue to cover this work as I am able, but it is not my primary role. Trying to manage a large-scale forum migration at this time will not be possible, as we are not in a good position to focus on such tasks at present. Nevertheless, we will keep this suggestion in mind for the future, and revisit it when we are able to give it the consideration and exploration it deserves. 

Cheers, 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

he / him

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[Ricardo Pinho]

Hi Dan,

You are welcome, I' always glad to help.

And thank you for your detailed reply and news!

I understand that you lack resources to self-host Discourse.

In that case, you have the enterprise option!

https://discourse.org/pricing#plans-features

Cheers,

Ricrdo

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ica-atom-users/CAC1FhZ%2BS3kP5Nb8FUKsOYkveW3AiripE84H2WoOkB%2BX-gXLQ9w%40mail.gmail.com.

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Ricardo Pinho