I’ve found the move of python-dev and packaging discussions to Discourse extremely valuable for making it easier to track and (very occasionally) participate in those discussions.
Would Typing-Sig be open to considering moving into a new category within discuss.python.org? Are there any features of the mailing list that Discourse is missing that prevents this from being possible?
I think this would make typing discussions more accessible to the wider Python community.
I can see the attraction (I do also prefer Discourse as a medium), but I’m ambivalent.
We tried a while back to move typing-sig discussions to the issue tracker of https://github.com/python/typing. I feel like the most significant impact of that was that there are now two places where you need to post your typing ideas, rather than one. If we tried to move to Discourse, that might mean that we now have… three places where typing ideas now need to be posted.
I like the idea of consolidating Python discussions on discuss.python.org, but that probably won’t happen unless we actually shut down the typing-sig mailing list. I also feel like typing-sig generally hasn’t suffered from the same kinds of moderation challenges that some of the other Python mailing lists have had, so the incentive to switch to Discourse isn’t so great.
Nevertheless, I like Discourse so much that I’d rather move. We’d have to shutdown the mailing list.
I would generally support moving to Discourse.
Note however that I’ve been absent from typing-sig for several months now, so you might want to only lightly consider my opinion when compared with others who are currently active on the list.
I’d be supportive given that discourse already sorta needs to be followed for typing discussions due to PEP discussions commonly happening here. At moment typing-sig does cover some more niche topics/earlier discussions before something is prepared as PEP. Both seem reasonable to have in discourse under typing section (similar to their being packaging/async one).
I also support moving typing-sig is Discourse. Currently, some typing discussion happens on the mailing list, some happens here. This could be bundled.
We tried a while back to move typing-sig discussions to the issue tracker of https://github.com/python/typing . I feel like the most significant impact of that was that there are now two places where you need to post your typing ideas, rather than one
The typing tracker actually predates typing-sig and they have a different focus: The GitHub issues are mainly intended to discuss (potential) future typing features, similar to the “ideas” category here. An issue tracker is better suited to these kind of discussions, as the issues don’t “disappear” in the comment history. (Although we probably need to triage the issues again at some point.) typing-sig (or possibly Discourse in the future) is better suited to immediate problems: Resolving incompatibilities between type checkers, modifying/deprecating existing features, discussing PEPs etc.
Yup – there was still a concerted move to try to get feature discussions back on python/typing, though, which imo has been only partly successful. I still feel like a lot of potential features are discussed largely on the mailing list (e.g. PEP 695 was almost exclusively discussed on typing-sig), and that a lot of people read typing-sig who do not follow the python/typing issue tracker. If I were proposing a major typing feature, I still feel like I’d probably post on both python/typing and typing-sig, or I’d be worried I wasn’t reaching all the relevant people.
FWIW, it’s my belief that having any kind of programming discussions on an email mailing is pretty painful, and I’d love to see all typing discussions happen on Discourse. Apart from anything else, it’s where people who are new to Python typing expect to see these discussions, since they aren’t aware of the history of “typing features are generally discussed in this separate other place”. If we can all agree on shutting down the python/typing issue tracker and the typing-sig mailing list, and having all discussions here on Discourse, then great. But I feel like further fragmentation of discussion would be the worst of all possible outcomes.
I think that’s a reasonable worry. I definitely feel, as an outsider, that typing discussions are still happening very much “in private”. I tend to find out about things when they pop up on Discourse, at which point they are usually already in PEP form. And I typically can’t find the background, either (people often don’t post links to the tracker or mailing list discussions).
I think that by now, typing is important enough that it should be getting discussed along with the rest of the language. If that means that there’s an increase in non-specialists (like me!) voicing incompletely thought through opinions, then I think that’s just part of the price that needs to be paid for success. And yes, that does mean that I think that goes as far as viewing the Ideas category as an incubating ground for typing-related proposals from the community.
It appears that there is a consensus (at least in this thread on Discourse 
) to move typing-sig to Discourse.
I imagine the next steps to actually move it would be:
I don’t have enough permissions to do #1 or #3 but I could do #2. Comments?
@moderators Does one of you have enough permissions to do this?
@guido Do you have enough permissions to do this?
Once I’ve confirmed who has enough permissions to do (1) and (3), I can take care of doing (2). Probably all actions should be performed close to the same time.
I believe only the postmaster can archive the list.
I’ve just sent off an email to postmaster@python.org , which appears to be the way to get in contact with them.
I think it’s also possible to import a mailing list (if you have the mbox archive file) into Discourse. Which would be nice, but probably significant work.
This, apparently:
Sounds like there’s an import_mbox.sh script. You’d need an mbox file.
IIRC the mailman archive files are mboxen with obfuscated email
addresses; you’d need to unobfuscate those before import to match things
up with existing accounts.
I’ve got an shell incantation for the unobfuscation sitting around
somewhere if someone wants it.
I am one such person. I mostly am subscribed to typing-sig to stay up-to-date with typing changes. Reading new discussions, to see where typing is going and the new features I’ll be able to use. I am new to Discourse, so a bit out of my depth. Would be cool to see how I can make Discorse send emails about new topics related to typing to my email – effectively what typing-sig is now. Do you (one) think other people (on typing-sig) would appreciate such guidance?
On a side note. I’ve noticed PEPs are rarely discussed on typing-sig. Perhaps I’m not reading all the emails, but I think a few of the later PEPs haven’t been on typing-sig. Taking me by surprise on release. Do you (one) know how/where to follow just typing PEPs?
See Following Python’s Development for some Discourse advice, including enabling “mailing list mode”. See also How to remove categories from my mail? for how to only get mail about chosen categories.
Note that even with mailing list mode turned on, Discourse doesn’t
fully act like a mailing list. For example, it doesn’t respect
typical attribution headings for quoted content in replies.
Discourse has a “reputation” system and limits what you can post
until you achieve sufficient reputation points, but some of the
factors it considers are based on an assumption that participants
are engaging through the web interface (e.g. it tracks how long it
thinks you’ve spent “reading” posts based on timers in Javascript).
Discourse also allows participants to delete their posts, and I’ve
had a moderator get annoyed with me for replying to a post that had
been “deleted” even though there’s no way for mailing list mode
users to be aware of that without double-checking on the web that
the post is still there before responding to the copy you’ve
received in your inbox.
If self-deletion of posts were to be disabled, I would shed zero tears. It’s annoying in the web interface to see a notification that a thread has something in it, go have a look, and find that it just says there’s a deleted post. It doesn’t even stop people from reading it, as you can check the edit history and see that the post got deleted. What’s the value of the feature??
One other minor annoyance to be aware of: if you PGP/MIME sign your
messages, Discourse will silently discard them (not merely strip off
the signature). I normally sign all public correspondence to mailing
lists, but have to be extra careful to remember not to sign posts to
Discourse if I want them to go through.
No response after 7 days.
@guido do you know how I can find out who the postmaster is, or know someone else who’d know? Perhaps there’s a different channel that I can use to get in contact with them.