[Systems] Social Help [was Re: New Discourse version, update available]

[James Cameron]

G'day Bernie,

No, and no.

Thanks for raising this.  It is a risk to have a public service
unmaintained, as it can lead to it being exploited.

Discourse is integrated with Sugar through the Social Help feature
[0], using the alt-shift-h shortcut or the frame icon.  The feature
was added [1, 2] in GSoC 2014 and merged in May 2015 for Sugar 0.106,
with some good fixes since.

Social Help is an underutilised feature.  Rate of new posts is
minimal, at about two per year, and I think I'm the only person
responding [3].

Despite designed technical advantages [1] Social Help has not had the
popularity or numerical success of Sugar Network, and with the board's
decision [4] to remediate Sugar Network my guess is that the Social
Help feature could be removed from Sugar.

My guesses for why Social Help has not been used are;

(a) the feature is undiscoverable,

(b) deployments have set up their own forums,

(c) independent users of Sugar 0.106 and later are minimal,

(d) failed to gain critical mass.

To answer your questions;

1.  I'm not handling updates to Discourse; I've no access keys and
don't know how to do it [5].  Sam Parkinson was handling updates at
one stage.

2.  I'm not using it for project communications, and I've asked those
who try that to use mailing lists [6].

You mention Slack.  I don't believe we have Slack.  Slack isn't
referenced in the Wiki, and hasn't been mentioned on mailing lists.
If Slack is being used, it is a private group, and the knowledge
hasn't been widely distributed yet.  Please do that?

We do have too many project communication options for the size of the
project at the moment.  I'd like to see some options close.

+CC sugar-devel@ and iaep@ since I've raised several issues that may
benefit from wider discussion.  ;-)

References:

0.  https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Social_Help
1.  https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2014/AnaBalica/Social_Help#Comparison_between_Discourse_and_Sugar_Network
2.  https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2014/Prasoon2211/Social_Help
3.  https://socialhelp.sugarlabs.org/
4.  https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/Decisions#2017-04-21_2
5.  https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Service/Social_Help#Todo
6.  https://socialhelp.sugarlabs.org/t/sugar-collaboration-xsce-iiab-xmpp-jabber-ejabberd/226/5

On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 01:31:46PM -0400, Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> Is anyone handling updates for discourse?
> 
> Is it being used for project communication? I ask because we also have
> IRC, Slack and mailing lists.
> 
> On 29/09/17 07:57, socialhelp at sugarlabs.org wrote:
> > Hooray, a new version of Discourse <http://www.discourse.org> is available!
> > 
> > Your version: 1.6.8
> > New version: *1.8.8*
> > 
> >   *
> > 
> >     Upgrade using our easy *one-click browser upgrade [...]
> > 
> >   *
> > 
> >     See what's new in the GitHub changelog
> >     <https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/master>
> > 
> >   *
> > 
> >     Visit meta.discourse.org <https://meta.discourse.org> for news,
> >     discussion, and support for Discourse
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Systems mailing list
> > Systems at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/systems
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
>  _ // Bernie Innocenti
>  \X/  http://codewiz.org
> _______________________________________________
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> Systems at lists.sugarlabs.org
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-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/