Change forum to GitHub Discussions?

How does everyone feel about changing Espruino forums to GitHub discussions (example here)?

It would be a big change, but GitHub discussions actually look quite good. For example this is the ImageMagick one: https://github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/discussions

The main improvements as I see it are:

• Posts will be more 'Googleable'
  
• People can 'like' posts
  
• A post can be marked as the answer to a question
  
• It uses standard GitHub accounts
  
• Everything's in one place
  
• Adding more moderators should be easy
  
  

With a bit of luck I should be able to import the existing forum messages too, so we'd be able to retrospectively tag answers in existing posts.

does one need a GitHub account in order to join such a discussion?

Personally, I have one, of course, but not every user may want to register at GitHub just in order to participate in discussions around Espruino?

I support this 👍.

👍🏻

I support this!

AFAIK a GitHub Discussions is bound to a GitHub project: does this mean that there would be multiple GitHub Discussions (Espruino, Bangle Apps, EspruinoAppLoaderCore, etc.)?

I guess it can be an empty repository named Forum just for discussion

does one need a GitHub account in order to join such a discussion?

Yes, I think so. It's a good point, but given the issues we've had just making forum usernames based on emails, I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing :)

I think not requiring any account would cause too much of an issue with spam :(

AFAIK a GitHub Discussions is bound to a GitHub project: does this mean that there would be multiple GitHub Discussions

No, there'd just be one. As @MaBe says maybe a separate project just for the forum makes sense.

I think not requiring any account would cause too much of an issue with spam

Definitely agreed - my point was that asking questions about an Espruino device should not require a GitHub account (now managed by Microsoft and almost certainly not GDPR compliant...)

now managed by Microsoft and almost certainly not GDPR compliant...

I'm not a huge Microsoft fan (I can't even remember when I last touched a Windows PC) but personally I find their recent behaviour very hard to fault (GitHub/VS Code/WSL/etc). Given the sheer scale of Microsoft I find the relative lack of bad news pretty heartening.

There will definitely be people that complain, but I don't see those people lining up offering to set up an alternative and also maintain/host/de-spam it for the next 10 years :)

For GDPR - surely if there was a company that was going to be GDPR compliant it would be Microsoft. If they weren't they'd be facing lawsuits all over.

my point was that asking questions about an Espruino device should not require a GitHub account (now managed by Microsoft and almost certainly not GDPR compliant...)

Fully agree.

Of course everyone who published an app on the Espruino GitHub repository already has a GitHub account. And that may also be the majority of the current forum users.

But people who bought e.g. a Bangle.js 2 for privacy reasons (it doesn't share data with third parties) may not want to create a GitHub account. And they may also avoid the current forum due to the use of Google Analytics and therefore not give feedback in this thread.

It would be great to have a forum where privacy-conscious people are welcome, too.

I'm not a lawyer, but GitHub has published a lengthy data protection statement which mentions the GDPR several times. For the moment, this looks somewhat promising.

@Gordon I don't know the current regulations in the UK - but in the EU one would have to prove GDPR compliance of all used (sub)services as well (by proper data protection statements and subcontracts)

To me GitHub discussions sound like a good idea. I was also thinking about that having a copy of every release binary in the GitHub project Releases section would make it easier finding all the different board images built.

@Gordon may https://rewind.com/blog/top-github-compliance-concerns/ help you with your questions around GDPR compliance?

StackExchange may also have some valuable information in that context

From GitHub's Data Protection Agreement, the following excerpt seems promising to me

To the extent GitHub uses or otherwise processes Personal Data subject to the GDPR for GitHub’s legitimate business operations incident to delivery of the Online Services to Customer, GitHub will comply with the obligations of an independent data controller under GDPR for such use. GitHub is accepting the added responsibilities of a data “controller” under the GDPR for processing in connection with its legitimate business operations to: (a) act consistent with regulatory requirements, to the extent required under the GDPR; and (b) provide increased transparency to Customers and confirm GitHub’s accountability for such processing. GitHub employs safeguards to protect Personal Data in processing, including those identified in this DPA and those contemplated in Article 6(4) of the GDPR.

@ChrisS yes, there will be some people like that... However I'm sure they probably use AdBlock/similar so I doubt analytics will put them off writing something here if they care so much about this change.

There's an argument that using something that a lot of other projects use (like GitHub discussions) is preferable to the current solution, as people who care will have likely already found a solution they are happy with for accessing GitHub (burner accounts/etc).

@Andreas_Rozek from a GDPR standpoint the fact that GitHub is now owned by Microsoft is extremely positive. They can't hide behind being a USA-based startup, and Microsoft has to do things right or they get sued.

But for my company, I don't believe the GDPR applies in this case. Neither me not customers are going to be uploading any confidential data - the forum posts here are and always were public, and when people write a forum post they know it's going to be public.

When you create a GitHub account, it's with GitHub, so the information there is GitHub's and will be bound by their GDPR compliance.

... but this is exactly why I want to move to something like GitHub discussions. The amount of time I waste dealing with company related admin is insane - and it means I don't spend that time doing work that's actually useful to Espruino users.

I doubt analytics will put them off writing something here if they care so much about this change.

People who avoid this forum will most probably not see this thread.

people who care will have likely already found a solution they are happy with for accessing GitHub (burner accounts/etc).

The people I know of think different about this. Microsoft collects a lot of data from a lot of users. E.g. with each Windows version they collect more data from their users. The question is: Do we want to support such a company by using their platforms? Not everyone wants this and burner accounts don't help in this case.

I think I understand the reasons for using GitHub discussions but I am nevertheless a bit sad about this move.

@Gordon @ChrisS I don't want to discuss any GDPR issues of Windows or other Microsoft products here - the question should instead be: will the migration to GitHub discussions (which should lower the load on Gordon's shoulders) be safe for users (and Gordon himself!)?

Right now, it seems so (from the viewpoint of a non-lawyer, of course)

Yes, GitHub was bought by Microsoft (sigh!) but they officially(!) claim to be GDPR-compliant (and seem to offer the data processor contracts Gordon may need to be safe himself). For me as an end-user, this claim is sufficient - any further inspection should be left to lawyers.

As a consequence, I'd now welcome the migration to GitHub discussions (although I still don't really like the idea that anybody would need to register with GitHub just in order to join a discussion about Espruino - at least, "foreigners" should be able to read what was written in the forum)

I don't really enjoy using GitHub Discussions, I think this forum has a much friendlier (I guess classic?) interface, but if maintaining this forum is taking up lots of Gordon's time then moving to the least effort option makes sense. I'll get somewhat used to it.

It will also mean giving up the small degree of pseudoanonymity I currently have - my username on this forum is completely different to my GitHub/real world name, but anyone with a mind to could already piece it together from things I have said.

I think the most important thing would be making sure the wealth of information here moves to GitHub Discussions (or whatever other platform) - the current forum can sometimes be hard to search, but there is a lot there when you dig back.

Agree in all points

Hmm - well, that's not as conclusively positive as it was earlier in the thread!

Right now the maintenance of this forum isn't a huge problem, and porting all posts to GitHub discussions would likely take me a while so it's not something I want to do if it annoys half the users.

BUT I'm aware that this forum is not indexed very well by search engines. I often find it very hard to find threads that I knew were commented on only a week ago, so new users must find it much worse.

Really I like the ability for users to flag the 'correct' answer. So often there'll be a post with a concise answer that then get hidden under a bunch of (actually unrelated) 'me too' replies, and it's be great to avoid that and maybe even 'fix' existing posts

I'm not a fan of using GitHub at all (pretty much for the reasons outlined here): if a project chooses to use it I won't stay away for that reason, but it would make me sad to see more of Espruino moving into a proprietary platform.

On the other hand I guess the code and issues already live there, so it would make sense to have everything on one platform. I don't have much experience with GitHub discussions, but I assume linking/mixing questions and issues would probably work smoother too.

In the beginning I tried to bookmark posts that are important to my work, next was to use Search which is ok.

What about extending this forum if possible .....

• switch to https, let's encrypt is free
  
• allow to add flags for conversation and post
  
• extend search for flags
  
  

Anything else?

Extending the forum would be nice, but it's hosted my microcosm (who get enough by tagging ebay/amazon with referral links to pay for their ongoing maintenance). I don't have the ability to change the forum directly other than by patching it with a forum.js file I host :(

so it would make sense to have everything on one platform

Yes. I guess if something happens in the future there are likely to be similar all-on-one self-hosted alternatives that Espruino could be ported to.

I think moving to Discussions would be fine. Having all the knowledge stored in this forum available there would be required though imo. If you actually spend time on this forum you could allocate to more development otherwise (not sure I get you here, you say "Right now the maintenance of this forum isn't a huge problem" as well as "The amount of time I waste dealing with company related admin is insane "?), I would do the move.