Discourse as mailing list replacement, some questions

jdoerfert · 2021-06-22T17:57:13.983Z

In [llvm-dev] [cfe-dev] Mailing List Status Update @Hal Finkel (who doesn’t seem to be registered here and who I consequently cannot CC, I think) repeated what was said before, discourse replaces a mailing list.

He linked this article (How do I use Discourse via email? - FAQs - Mozilla Discourse) which talks about email preferences and creating topics via mail. I did find some of the preferences but not all. I don’t think the ones I didn’t find are the most important but I wanted to include it here.

More importantly, I was wondering where I find the “Create topics via email” button. I suspect the button thing might not work on my system but I want to give it a try, unfortunately I didn’t find the button Assuming the button is added, does that mean we always need to click it or is sending an email sufficient to start a topic? If it’s the latter, it is not really clear to me to what address to send the email. The last paragraph of the article does explain it a little I’m not certain what I’d do now.

Thanks,
Johannes

mehdi_amini · 2021-06-22T18:24:33.757Z

We haven’t setup the “create a topic by email” on this instance right now. The way it works IIRC is that we need to create an email account (anywhere) dedicated to this and configure a pop3 access for Discourse to poll the email account.

uri · 2021-06-22T18:49:20.000Z

We haven’t setup the “create a topic by email” on this instance right now. The way it works IIRC is that we need to create an email account (anywhere) dedicated to this and configure a pop3 access for Discourse to poll the email account.

Well, inability to post a new message (as opposed to replying to an existing thread) is a severe disadvantage, compared to the current mailing list.

Also, POP3 is a big warning sign to me. Cannot Discourse offer something like llvm-incoming@discoursemail.com for the LLVM group? And if it cannot – then, again, perhaps the benefits of this platform are overrated…?

mehdi_amini · 2021-06-22T19:15:01.795Z

uri:

Well, inability to post a new message (as opposed to replying to an existing thread) is a severe disadvantage, compared to the current mailing list.

Maybe you misread but there is no intrinsic “inability” here: it is just something to configure.
In particular you need to setup an email for each category for this to work.

tonic · 2022-01-26T22:25:44.538Z

It’s there now! I’m finishing the documentation on it now. If you click on every category description you can see the email address to use.

jdoerfert · 2022-01-26T23:26:47.268Z

Where do I find category descriptions? (I really tried for a few minutes to find them.)

mehdi_amini · 2022-01-26T23:48:20.162Z

The description is a thread inside the category itself. Most of the time it is “pinned” at the top of the category, other you probably need to search it with “About the xxxx category”

For example for this category : Mailing Lists & Forums - LLVM Discussion Forums

Screen Shot 2022-01-26 at 3.48.35 PM1376×422 22.1 KB

jdoerfert · 2022-01-27T00:06:39.055Z

Seems to work:

[TEST] Testing if I can start a thread via email Feedback

This worked! My email signature was dropped (which I personally don’t care assuming the heuristic is not too aggressive). The rest seems to have made it through nicely.

Thanks @mehdi_amini @tonic

tonic · 2022-01-27T00:24:19.869Z

This is going to also be in the DiscourseMigration document. Almost done with adding it all.

rjmccall · 2022-02-09T23:12:51.512Z

It looks like I can’t use the Discourse iOS app here; it always redirects to Safari. I can use the app fine on the Swift forums. Is this an understood problem?

tonic · 2022-02-10T00:20:53.218Z

I am able to use the app. Were you using it prior to the migration? If so, maybe re-add discourse.llvm.org to your app?

rjmccall · 2022-02-10T01:47:07.062Z

Ah, I had the old URL added; re-adding it under the new URL seems to have done the trick. It took some badgering to get it to accept github authentication, but the app is working now, thank you.