[erlang-questions] discourse for erlang

[Michael Truog]

On 08/26/2018 01:18 PM, Joe Harrison wrote:
> On 26/08/18 14:54, Tristan Sloughter wrote:
>> I've been pushing this. Instead of having a custom built forum like
>> erlangcentral used to have, just use discourse like every other language
>> :). I also thought about setting it up myself and trying to get it
>> adopted that way, but geez does it have a lot of moving parts.... But
>> not going to divert this into a rant about Ruby on Rails projects...
> Let me take the bait, then:
>
> "The only officially supported installs of Discourse are Docker based."
>
> I find this sad, and the reasoning even more tragic:
>
> https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.md#why-do-you-only-officially-support-docker
>
> Several people (i.e. myself) may consider such complexity of forum
> software to be criminal.
>
> I may have dropped the DMARC bomb earlier (which is enough of a burden),
> but I think that asking Raimo or anyone else to host Discourse counts as
> cruel and unusual punishment.
>
> --
>
> On a more positive note, I find the mailing list archives to be a great
> way to judge the "size" or popularity of discussions here. I can quickly
> see names, topics, and the length of threads. If I want to search, my
> mail client does a "good enough" job.
>
> - Joe
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I agree that email provides valuable discussion and the email information has remained accessible for long period of time.  The accessibility of email is likely due to its reliance on published standards and the amount of software facilitating email.

In comparison, Discourse is a single small open-source project that favors Docker, making it similar to a corporate walled-garden that is not interested in preserving its data for years as Discourse source code changes.  If a Discourse interface was as ubiquitous as email, then it may be advantageous to use, but that would be a very different situation.  Lets wait until Discourse replaces email in popularity.

Best Regards,
Michael