Unified internal communications channel

[Laura David Hurka]

On Thursday, December 7, 2023 6:12:04 PM CET Joshua Goins wrote:
> Hi Carl,
> 
> > Adding a new channel that is either a mailing list, rss feed or a forum
> > category won't help and will probably only makes it worse. It's also very
> > difficult to defines that is an important internal news for the whole
> > community is as it will be different for every subproject in KDE. The
> > plasma logo discussion would have not been very relevant for any app
> > developers. Similarly discussion about the new default database backend
> > for
> > Akonadi won't be interesting for Plasma developers but might be
> > interesting
> > for KMyMoney and other non-PIM apps using Akonadi.
> 
> Yeah this is kind of tough to define, and I'm also wondering about the best
> way to handle this. Ideally, the communication channel would be low traffic
> (hence my suggestion to not allow discussions at all, and point people to a
> relevant issue if they're interested) so people won't easily ignore it.

I had the idea for such a channel before. But I admit that I did not search 
whether such a channel already exists.

I would subscribe to a channel which is readable via email and has messages 
like these examples:

* KDE Eco project launched. Interesting for developers concerned about 
ecological impact of KDE software and other software. More info [here].

* KDE community goals: The community goals for [date] to [date] shall be voted 
on until [date]. Goals can be submitted until [date]. Interesting for anyone 
seriously involved in the KDE community. More info [here].

* Akademy [year] event announced. This will be a hybrid meeting from [date] to 
[date], held online and in [place]. Interesting for people interested in KDE’s 
community and culture, and for those involved in several KDE projects. More 
info [here].

The four below examples are purely fictional, you did not miss them:

* Akademy 2027 event cancelled. Because of urgent issues, Akademy 2027 can not 
take place. Important for anyone who planned to attend Akademy 2027. More info 
[here].

This is how an important discussion would be announced:

* Discussion about KDE Eco CI jobs: Should energy measurement CI jobs become 
mandatory for all KDE applications? Interesting for developers and maintainers 
of KDE software and infrastructure. Join the discussion [here].

* Discussion about KDE Eco CI jobs: The discussion linked at [date] expanded 
to also cover mandatory energy measurement CI jobs for KDE websites. 
Interesting for KDE website maintainers. Join the discussion [here].

* Anouncement about KDE Eco CI jobs: Energy measurement CI jobs are now 
mandatory for most KDE Gear and Plasma projects. Result of the discussion 
linked at [date]. Interesting for developers and maintainers working on KDE 
Gear and Plasma. More info [here].

This would probably be a moderated mailing list. Anyone willing to announce 
something can send an announcement. Moderators only check that the 
announcement is self-contained, so that all readers can immediately judge the 
relevance for themselves.

> That doesn't solve the scope issue though, but might help anyway.

Based on what I have read on kde-devel and kde-community, that gives eligible 
announcements, the traffic may probably be low enough to ignore the scope 
issue. After all, you would probably subscribe to this channel to be well 
informed.

I would exclude announcements that fit entirely in the scope of a project with 
an own communications channel. In my above examples, KDE Eco could not invite 
to the monthy meetings, and not to discussions about KDE Eco internal stuff of 
the mentioned CI jobs.

Additionally I would put predictable announcements, like all regular releases 
and KDE Goals and Akademy, in a monthly digest.

Cheers, David