[Dune-devel] Replacement for mailing lists

[Steffen Müthing]

Hi everyone,

the old infrastructure server here in Heidelberg will be decommissioned very soon. Right now, it
is still responsible for our mailing lists, so we need to find a replacement for that. After looking
around quite a bit, we settled on Discourse (https://discourse.org), which is a slightly quirky
combination of a mailing list and a forum.

There is now a test server running at https://discourse.dune-project.org. Here are some pointers about
how it works:

- Topics (threads) are organized into categories that can be nested two levels deep. I’ve used that to
  group dune-devel and some other stuff under the "Core Modules" category.

- You subscribe to a category by opening the category page and clicking on the circle icon on the right
  side of the page.

- You can use the server either through your mail program or through the web interface. TBH, the mailing
  list support isn’t as nice as what you get from a dedicated mailing list server like mailman, but it works.

- In mailing list mode, it works without having to create an account (just send a mail to e.g.
  core at dune-project.org, and you get all replies to that thread / topic mailed to you).

- User accounts are tied to our GitLab, so you need to have a GitLab account to create a Discourse account.
  We really wanted to cut down on the number of different accounts and passwords required. When you try to
  log in, Discourse authorizes you with GitLab and you’re done. There is an explanation with screenshots  in
  the pinned topic (appears on the right) called "How to use the Dune Discourse server".

- The software does have some nice features like intuitive attachments, MathJax support (just type TeX and
  have it rendered), simple polls and a solution system (kind of like Stackoverflow light).

- You can actually search the archive, and there is no arbitrary split on month boundaries (hello mailman ;-) ).

- Discourse has a weird badge system (like achievements) for stuff like "replied to 10 topics" etc., but that is
  turned off.

So, please try it out and let us know what you think (or if you have any super-nice alternative). The plan
going forward will be to shut down the mailing lists in the near future, dump their archives somewhere where
they can be easily accessed and switch to Discourse (or another solution if one of you has something on offer).

And maybe we can carry out that discussion on the new infrastructure to give it a whirl… ;-)
Here is a topic that I created for the purpose: https://discourse.dune-project.org/t/thoughts-on-the-new-discourse-server/33

Cheers
Steffen
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