Retiring this group and use Github Issues instead

[Laura Dreyer]

I wanted to raise the option of retiring this google group. There has already been some discussion about this on the Github issue: https://github.com/SciTools/iris/issues/3860

Unfortunately this group is not often monitored by Iris core developers and so many questions raised don't get a response. In comparison, issues raised on Github, which is actively being monitored, usually get a response farily quickly.

Would there be any objections to closing this group and instead encouraging users to raise questions on Github issues?

[Peter W]

This group is partly used to ask questions about how to accomplish things in iris, which is not the same as raising issues - would it be accepted for people to do that on the iris issues page? The current options for creating new issues on the Github page don't include one for asking questions - could one be added for that? Else I think some people, especially new users, won't know that that is the place to ask questions.

[Laura Dreyer]

Hi Peter,

That is a good point about issues. We are now planning to point people who wish to ask questions in the direction of the Q&A category of Github discussions. 

I have just made a change so that when someone tries to create a new issue one of the templates "Usage questions" now links to the Q&A discussions section (see https://github.com/SciTools/iris/pull/4962).

So all future questions should be raised there, which means that we can retire this group.