Dealing with list volume

Dealing with list volume

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

Hi guys,

Recently XDA learned about WireGuard, which has resulted in an influx
of teenagers writing in, sometimes with their mailing addresses, and
generally decreasing the overall quality of discussion here. As
WireGuard becomes more well known, this kind of thing is expected to
continue. I'd prefer for this list to stay one where it's easy to stay
up to date and "read every post". I'll be enabling some mailman
filters in the coming days to try and filter some things out and keep
things sane around here. If you all have any suggestions or requests
with regards to this, I'm happy to listen to them.

Sorry for the ruckus.

Regards,
Jason

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Mytril]

> Hi guys,
> 
> Recently XDA learned about WireGuard, which has resulted in an influx
> of teenagers writing in, sometimes with their mailing addresses, and
> generally decreasing the overall quality of discussion here. As
> WireGuard becomes more well known, this kind of thing is expected to
> continue. I'd prefer for this list to stay one where it's easy to stay
> up to date and "read every post". I'll be enabling some mailman
> filters in the coming days to try and filter some things out and keep
> things sane around here. If you all have any suggestions or requests
> with regards to this, I'm happy to listen to them.
> 
> Sorry for the ruckus.
> 
> Regards,
> Jason
> _______________________________________________
> WireGuard mailing list
> WireGuard@lists.zx2c4.com
> https://lists.zx2c4.com/mailman/listinfo/wireguard
> 

Hello Jason,

i personally have subscribed this mailing list only to ask and describe
the problem with the dynamic addresses, you know. Maybe it is easier for
you to have an wiki and bugtracker like gitlab or gitlab, where
everybody can get the informations he need, show bugs, get infos about
bugs and ask questions to other users.

Regards, Mytril

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 2:59 PM, Mytril <mytril42@posteo.de> wrote:
> i personally have subscribed this mailing list only to ask and describe
> the problem with the dynamic addresses, you know.

I thought that was a very good topic. The matter of dynamic addresses
is certainly something to be discussed. Don't worry!

> Maybe it is easier for
> you to have an wiki and bugtracker like gitlab or gitlab, where
> everybody can get the informations he need, show bugs, get infos about
> bugs and ask questions to other users.

That's what the list is supposed to be for, though. Maybe it's just a
matter of SNR?

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Ferris Ellis]

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>> Maybe it is easier for
>> you to have an wiki and bugtracker like gitlab or gitlab, where
>> everybody can get the informations he need, show bugs, get infos about
>> bugs and ask questions to other users.
> 
> That's what the list is supposed to be for, though. Maybe it's just a
> matter of SNR?


Just my two cents on matter based on personal experience:

Issue trackers: I personally suspect as adoption increases the popular expectation will be for a more ticket oriented (i.e. Github like) experience for filing bugs and feature requests. For better or worse people seem to feel there’s a large commitment increase on their part from filing a ticket  and being part of a community mailing list.

Wikis: As for wikis, I always have had mixed feelings about them. For large projects like Gentoo or Arch they’re great, in my opinion, for community knowledge accumulation. But for smaller projects I’ve found having something to the effect of a community maintained `docs/` directory with markdown is just simpler and easier. Plus you can always go back and generate some pretty webpages out of the `docs/` markdown files if you’ve reached the adoption level where people expect documentation to be in webpages.

Cheers,
Ferris


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Re: Dealing with list volume

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 12:01 AM, Ferris Ellis <ferris@ferrisellis.com> wrot=
e:
> Wikis: As for wikis, I always have had mixed feelings about them. For lar=
ge
> projects like Gentoo or Arch they=E2=80=99re great, in my opinion, for co=
mmunity
> knowledge accumulation. But for smaller projects I=E2=80=99ve found havin=
g something
> to the effect of a community maintained `docs/` directory with markdown i=
s
> just simpler and easier. Plus you can always go back and generate some
> pretty webpages out of the `docs/` markdown files if you=E2=80=99ve reach=
ed the
> adoption level where people expect documentation to be in webpages.

This is what I currently have for the wireguard.com page. I should
really open source that repo. I could certainly use some more
documentation, but nobody has stepped up to create it.

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Joe Doss]

On 11/30/2017 07:03 AM, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> Recently XDA learned about WireGuard, which has resulted in an influx
> of teenagers writing in, sometimes with their mailing addresses, and
> generally decreasing the overall quality of discussion here. As
> WireGuard becomes more well known, this kind of thing is expected to
> continue. I'd prefer for this list to stay one where it's easy to stay
> up to date and "read every post". I'll be enabling some mailman
> filters in the coming days to try and filter some things out and keep
> things sane around here. If you all have any suggestions or requests
> with regards to this, I'm happy to listen to them.

We do need a place for users to communicate that isn't going to collide 
with devel chatter. https://www.discourse.org/ is pretty great for 
users, easy to use and not terrible to self host. I think it would be 
good to give users a non mailing list place to self help on their problems.

I would be willing to donate the server needed to run one for WireGuard 
and the time/energy to set it up and keep it running. If you want to 
keep things in email, set up a wg-users list and call it a day.

Joe



--
Joe Doss
joe@solidadmin.com

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

Hi Joe,

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:34 PM, Joe Doss <joe@solidadmin.com> wrote:
> We do need a place for users to communicate that isn't going to collide with
> devel chatter. https://www.discourse.org/ is pretty great for users, easy to
> use and not terrible to self host. I think it would be good to give users a
> non mailing list place to self help on their problems.

That's what IRC is for, I think. #wireguard is where people should go
to chat usually.

> I would be willing to donate the server needed to run one for WireGuard and
> the time/energy to set it up and keep it running.

Thanks for your offer to host something, but I've got more than enough
stable infrastructure for hosting new gadgets, as they occur to us.
I'm also very hesitant toward introducing a new platform, when IRC
should cut it.

> If you want to keep things
> in email, set up a wg-users list and call it a day.

I've recently been vortexing people who need super basic help toward
#wireguard, in order to leave this list for discussion of all sorts,
whether it's discussion of interesting user related things ("how do I
do this new and interesting thing I couldn't find any documentation
about?") or development things or bikeshedding or whatever else.

I wish we had some better documentation for getting people acquainted
with the basics. I don't like having to tell people, "did you read
these 6 webpages and the man pages and piece it together yet
yourself?", since the response is invariably, "ugh."

Jason

Re: Dealing with list volume

[David Woodhouse]

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On Fri, 2017-12-08 at 03:33 +0100, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> 
> I've recently been vortexing people who need super basic help toward
> #wireguard, in order to leave this list for discussion of all sorts,
> whether it's discussion of interesting user related things ("how do I
> do this new and interesting thing I couldn't find any documentation
> about?") or development things or bikeshedding or whatever else.

How does that work out for you? That same class of (potential) users
has a tendency to fire up an IRC client for the first time ever, join
the IRC channel they were directed to, say "hi" or *perhaps* if we're
lucky actually ask their question... and then disconnect again 30
seconds later if they don't get instant gratification.

At least in email you can follow up :)

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Re: Dealing with list volume

[Joe Doss]

Hi Jason,

On 12/07/2017 08:33 PM, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> That's what IRC is for, I think. #wireguard is where people should go
> to chat usually.
>
> Thanks for your offer to host something, but I've got more than enough
> stable infrastructure for hosting new gadgets, as they occur to us.
> I'm also very hesitant toward introducing a new platform, when IRC
> should cut it.

Right, it should cut it but it's becoming obvious that it's not. Here 
are a few points.

* I have seen comments in IRC that are trying to help new users wishing 
the new user with problem X would just stick around in the chat so they 
can get the help.

* There are no methods to search or to keep record of chat from IRC, so 
we are seeing the same questions over and over again. That a lot of 
wasted cycles.

* IRC is a barrier for some users. They didn't grow up with it, they 
don't understand how to use it. This turns them to the mailing list. 
Everyone uses Email. Some people use IRC.

* Email is search-able on the list but you are pushing users to IRC 
because the volume is too great. Even then it's not the easiest UI to 
find answers to your questions or to build a user community.

* Large FOSS projects like Fedora have every support channel avail. IRC 
(https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/IRC), Mailing Lists 
(https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/), GitHub Clone 
(https://pagure.io/), Forums (https://fedoraforum.org/), Ask Fedora 
(https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/questions/) and they don't say well X 
should be good enough. They let the user pick the channel that works 
best for them to find help.

I get that for you IRC should fit the bill for supporting the user base 
and it's the support work flow that works for _you_ the best. I am the 
same. I RTFM, read online documentation, sludge through the mailing list 
a bit and then I hit up IRC when all else fails. That is the support 
work flow that works for _me_, but not everyone is like that. If we give 
the users a painless way to get the answers they need, and and a 
painless way to communicate with other users, most will self-help 
themselves and each other.

Email or IRC are great for small projects but as you can see now, we are 
having some growing pains with the influx of new users. At some point, 
the project is going to get too big and you won't be able to firefight 
every support case that comes in. Are were at that point yet? Well this 
thread got created so you must feel we are close.

Discourse helps fix most of the problems above. It is the _best_ forum 
software I have used to date and I highly urge you to consider using it 
to help us create a community for every type of user, technical to 
layman. Here are some very successful projects using it:

https://discuss.elastic.co/
https://forum.sublimetext.com/
https://forums.meteor.com
https://talk.jekyllrb.com
https://discuss.gohugo.io
https://forum.ionicframework.com
https://discuss.kotlinlang.org
https://forum.golangbridge.org
https://users.rust-lang.org
https://internals.rust-lang.org

WireGuard is a stupid easy VPN solution to setup compared to the 
competition. It's support channels and user community center should be 
stupid easy too.

Joe




--
Joe Doss
joe@solidadmin.com

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On Fri 2017-12-08 10:44:41 -0600, Joe Doss wrote:
> * Large FOSS projects like Fedora have every support channel avail. IRC 
> (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/IRC), Mailing Lists 
> (https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/), GitHub Clone 
> (https://pagure.io/), Forums (https://fedoraforum.org/), Ask Fedora 
> (https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/questions/) and they don't say well X 
> should be good enough. They let the user pick the channel that works 
> best for them to find help.

You're right that this approach is important for large projects.  What
your request here doesn't acknowledge is that each channel of support
that you make available has some additional cost in terms of time and
energy.

Also, wireguard is *not* currently a "Large FOSS project" -- it's a
small FOSS project with a ton of potential and small but active user and
developer community that is still very much in the experimental phase
(the release notes do not lie!).

If the project adds new support channels, but doesn't have the capacity
(time, energy, knowledge) to maintain them responsibly, that's
potentially a worse situation for the project than just having fewer
support channels.

If Jason feels comfortable managing IRC and a mailing list, but feels
spread too thin to manage a web forum or a discourse instance, i don't
think we should pressure him to spread himself too thin.  He needs some
time left over to focus on the code too, right? ;)

That said, if someone knowledgable from the community wanted to
volunteer to set up, maintain, and supervise an *unofficial* web forum
or other communications platform, with regular reportbacks to to the
support channels that Jason *is* willing to support, i can't imagine
anyone would have a problem with that.  But, be aware that this
represents significant work.  And an ill-maintained, unsupervised
platform that presents itself as a WireGuard support channel (even an
"unofficial" one) is probably *worse* for the project than just
encouraging people to learn to use a mailing list or IRC.

If you're not willing to commit to that maintenance and supervision work
involved with running such a channel, that might be for the same reasons
why Jason might not be willing to commit to it either!

    --dkg

Re: Dealing with list volume

[Joe Doss]

Hi Daniel,

I already said I would dedicated the time and energy to hel0 make a forum 
successful. I said that in my first reply. I just won't do it in an 
unofficial capacity. An unofficial forum isn't going to set it up for 
success and it's going to take more than just me to make it a first class 
support channel and user community work.

In the end it's Jason's call. A users@ mailing list is a perfect 
alternative if he wants to keep things in email as stated in my first reply.

Joe


On December 8, 2017 11:57:26 AM Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg@fifthhorseman.net> 
wrote:

> On Fri 2017-12-08 10:44:41 -0600, Joe Doss wrote:
>> * Large FOSS projects like Fedora have every support channel avail. IRC
>> (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/IRC), Mailing Lists
>> (https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/), GitHub Clone
>> (https://pagure.io/), Forums (https://fedoraforum.org/), Ask Fedora
>> (https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/questions/) and they don't say well X
>> should be good enough. They let the user pick the channel that works
>> best for them to find help.
>
> You're right that this approach is important for large projects.  What
> your request here doesn't acknowledge is that each channel of support
> that you make available has some additional cost in terms of time and
> energy.
>
> Also, wireguard is *not* currently a "Large FOSS project" -- it's a
> small FOSS project with a ton of potential and small but active user and
> developer community that is still very much in the experimental phase
> (the release notes do not lie!).
>
> If the project adds new support channels, but doesn't have the capacity
> (time, energy, knowledge) to maintain them responsibly, that's
> potentially a worse situation for the project than just having fewer
> support channels.
>
> If Jason feels comfortable managing IRC and a mailing list, but feels
> spread too thin to manage a web forum or a discourse instance, i don't
> think we should pressure him to spread himself too thin.  He needs some
> time left over to focus on the code too, right? ;)
>
> That said, if someone knowledgable from the community wanted to
> volunteer to set up, maintain, and supervise an *unofficial* web forum
> or other communications platform, with regular reportbacks to to the
> support channels that Jason *is* willing to support, i can't imagine
> anyone would have a problem with that.  But, be aware that this
> represents significant work.  And an ill-maintained, unsupervised
> platform that presents itself as a WireGuard support channel (even an
> "unofficial" one) is probably *worse* for the project than just
> encouraging people to learn to use a mailing list or IRC.
>
> If you're not willing to commit to that maintenance and supervision work
> involved with running such a channel, that might be for the same reasons
> why Jason might not be willing to commit to it either!
>
>     --dkg