Feedback about Github Discussions

[lesteve]

I started this to collect comments, complaints or suggestions for improvements about Github Discussions.

Note Github Discussions is beta and evolving, see Github Discussions feed-back for feature requests and comments

There are a few things that we can change in scikit-learn Github Discussions like categories: General, Q&A, Ideas, Show and Tell.

[lesteve]

Few limitations I can see for now:

• no labels yet edit: this has been implemented (Provide an equivalent to "labels" community/community#19). For example some users may be knowledgeable and willing to help on a particular topic (e.g. gaussian processes). Filtering by label on top of Categories could be useful for them to find relevant discussions.
• move a discussion to an issue is not possible although it could be useful. edit: this has been implemented (Convert Discussion into Issue community/community#2861). An example use case : a question started in Discussions lead to realise there is a bug in scikit-learn. Currently you have to create a separate issue with a link to the Discussion.
• in contrary to issues, there are no automatic generated back-links when mentioning another discussion with #discusion_number between discussions or between discussions and issues. This does not help finding relevant information in related discussions or issues. Links between Tickets and Discussions are not shown (in the opposite direction) community/community#3211 (comment)
• bug about triage rights through a team When triage rights are granted through a team, the "Convert to discussion" button does not appear community/community#2993
• no templates for Discussions: Templates (like issue templates) for discussions community/community#2838
• for categories for which there is not an answered mark (currently all but Q&A), I feel like sometimes you want to say this discussions has reached its term and then maybe not see it in any more the main dashboard. Does that mean there should be a way of "closing" a discussion, not sure (Close discussions community/community#3097) ... you can lock discussions but this seems a bit harsh ...

[chkoar]

Good points. Discussions seem like issues. I suppose that soon they will add the back reference to issues.

[lesteve]

I suppose that soon they will add the back reference to issues.

I commented on this: community/community#3211 (comment)

The feeling I get is that they started a bit afresh with Discussions. At the beginning my mental model was that Discussions were Issues plus answer/unaswered boolean flag (and some forum-like features on top of it). The more it goes, the more I realise this is not that simple. For example adding labels does not seem that simple community/community#19 and may take some time to be implemented.

[avm19]

In general, I think scikit-learn/Discussions must become a place of a clear purpose and usefulness. At the moment, Discussions seems like everything and nothing (also barely alive). In my opinion, the best way to define the purpose of Discussions is to list Discussions among the mailing list, StackOverflow, stats.SE, and gitter, which will help to ensure that the scopes of these channels of communication do not overlap too much.

In particular, I'd like Discussions to become the place for aspiring or beginner contributors to seek answers from maintainers and core developers, as Developer's Guide cannot document all aspects. The kind of questions I asked, I believe, is more suitable here than on StackOverflow (these questions are specific to the current scikit-learn CI setup and development practices). Also, answers are found much more easily on a discussion board or forum than in a chat room or mailing list (I could not find the search function on gitter at all!).

I suggest to create a separate category: "Q&A for new contributors", and give it a year or so to see if it takes off.

[lesteve]

In particular, I'd like Discussions to become the place for aspiring or beginner contributors to seek answers from maintainers and core developers, as Developer's Guide cannot document all aspects.

Office hours seems to be a good place for this. The next one is on May 2nd: #23070

In my opinion, the best way to define the purpose of Discussions is to list Discussions among the mailing list, StackOverflow, stats.SE, and gitter

Feel free to open a PR adding Discussions to the list!

Right now, I think most people are directed to Discussions through our issue template that tries to push people towards Discussions for generic questions rather than opening an issue.

Concerning searchability I agree that gitter is poor, I personally rarely check gitter out, but this is quite subjective and different people will have different opinions on this.

[avm19]

The Office Hours sound great (especially the pair programming part), but have a disadvantage of being once in a while, which means that one has to wait in order to ask a question. Besides, the answers aren't made permanently available to a wider audience or searchable.