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Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2023 22:41:16 +0300
Message-ID: <CAL0xaBFD4_bDrigsQV3LyA9LxbE9MEbEJ7HBfWCom+4n2Figug@mail.gmail.com>
To: tag Knife <fenniclog@gmail.com>
Cc: Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>, internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Moving PHP internals to GitHub
From: arvids.godjuks@gmail.com (Arvids Godjuks)

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On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 at 22:07, tag Knife <fenniclog@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 at 19:42, Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Which brings me back to my earlier point: I wonder how much of the
> > reaction is really about e-mail itself, and how much is just the
> > documentation and sign-up forms you encounter *before* you hit the list=
.
> > Because if it's the latter, migrating the entire community to a new
> > platform won't help - we'll still suck at introducing anyone to that
> > platform - and most of what we need is someone who's good with words to
> > update some website copy.
> >
>
> I also see a lot of user about the signup process just not working (which
> was also mentioned in this thread),
> users may understand how to signup, but upon doing so, don't get signed u=
p
> at all.
>
> I think a move to github discussions would be better than a mailing list,
> benefits include
>
>    1. Choosing discussions to take part in, mailing lists are just an all
>    or nothing deal.
>    2. XPosting between issues, PRs and discussions.
>    3. You can reply to discussions, PRs, issues via email for those who
>    want to keep doing that.
>    4. Contrary to this mailing lists belief, a lot more PHP devs who are
>    wanting to contribute to PHP
>    have a github account already versus access to the mailing list.
>    5. Discussion categories
>    6. General QoC, including code blocks, markdown, clean web interface a=
nd
>    choosing what discussions
>    you want to take part in and not get notifications for disicussions yo=
u
>    dont care about.
>    7. Moderation, What would happen if a user decided to spam or flame th=
e
>    maillist?
>    Once the email is sent you cant delete it from everyone's inbox,
>    everyone would get it,
>    and how long would the response to ban the user be?
>
> The only downside i can think of is threading, github only does level-2
> threading.
>

Here's a question: Who is going to be in charge of maintaining the GitHub
org and administrating it?
As someone who does community management for a long long time, I forsee
someone needing that to be their life for a project of this scale. Probably
multiple people. Paid for their work, I might add.

While we can't really say for sure how it would turn out, drawing on my
experience with online communities of all sorts and seeing what others had
to deal with on Github, things can get our of control fast.
GitHub is also not a suitable space to have RFC discussions and all that -
it's just not the right medium for that. Feedback - yes, gaging a wider
community for some feedback - sure. And maybe some of the PHP's mailing
lists can be moved to Github, since there are many.

But internal development lists need to stay where they are. These lists are
not meant for the general public to drive by and throw in a question or
two. The noise-to-signal ratio already at times is too high on this list,
now imagine 10-20-30x the activity that Github will bring. It will become
unmanageable. You are also required to police your org.
You also ignore the biggest thing: Github is owned by Microsoft, and
Microsoft is an American company. It abides by US laws, politics and so on.
That has consequences and puts PHP project under the same umbrella, which
the mailing list is not under. Github (Microsoft) can't decide to ban
someone or ask for someone to be removed as a core developer from the
mailing list. On Github - they can.

If people want to mirror internals to GitHub and manage it all and then
feed back the information into the list with links and feedback -
personally be my guest. But let's get one thing clear - email has been and
is the most critical communication tool out there and that is not going to
change. All those Slacks, Discords, Githubs, Microsoft Teams (why MS sucks
at making any type of messaging platform so badly?) in the end do not
replace email at all. Your email client cannot go offline just because
Amazon US-WEST-1 has died again (yes, it dying is basically a meme now). Or
because your provider had a major outage, so now you can't open Github. Or
someone misconfigured a BGP route and took down half the internet with it.
You can't have a copy of github on your phone, laptop, desktop or any other
device stored locally on each one of them giving you resiliency not to lose
all that data. What if github gets hacked and someone goes and nukes a
bunch of data? Or some DMCA takedown gets claimed against the org and
Github is required to comply by law? It does not matter that it might have
been bogus or frivolous - unless you have the funds to hire a lawyer and
defend yourself in court from which jurisdiction the DMCA came, you are
stuffed as a Thanksgiving turkey.
--=20

Arv=C4=ABds Godjuks
+371 26 851 664
arvids.godjuks@gmail.com
Telegram: @psihius https://t.me/psihius

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