Set up a user discussion forum

[ariya]

This issue tracker does not give a lot of value to all PhantomJS contributors because it becomes a dumping ground for all sort of information, from a simple "How do I..." question to a list of serious release management tasks. This is not healthy and it is not useful for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, GitHub is still stubborn in keeping the issue tracker as free form as possible. The quality of issue being reported could have been significantly improved if every draft of an issue must follow a certain structure. For instance, an issue template can remind the reporter to include the version number, to explain the reproducible steps, to enumerate all the expectations, etc. This reduces the chance of a random essay being posted without any structure whatsoever.

For this project, since there is a mismatch between the size of the userbase vs the volunteers, we want to keep the issue tracker as tidy as possible. This means that general questions etc need to be posted somewhere else:

• the official PhantomJS users mailing-list
• Stack Overflow (with phantomjs tag)

This does not seem to be successful at all because questions are still being submitted to this issue tracker at the same rate. Perhaps a mailing-list is not attractive anymore to the Millennial Generation?

An alternative approach worth pursuing is to set up a true web-based discussion forum, e.g. using Discourse of similar technology, so that the users can exchange ideas and compare notes (with the same discussion style) in that forum, while keeping this issue tracker focused on development-related topics.

[ariya]

Technically speaking, an issue should enter this issue tracker only if it is one of the following:

1. A confirmed defect, i.e. a demonstrated deviation from the specification.

Example: PhantomJS computes 1 + 1 as 2. Expected result is 3.

2. A missing feature, i.e. a gap in the implementation.

Example: PhantomJS throws an error when computing 1 + 1, it says "Operator + not supported".

3. A non-recoverable failure such as crash, infinite loop, etc.

Example: PhantomJS runs out of memory when computing 1 + 1 and then it crashes.

4. A development task: a concrete, assigned plan to carry out a specific and well defined activity.

Example: Support operator * in PhantomJS. Assigned to: Joe Sixpack.

Anything else should go in the discussion forum first. This includes (but not limited to):

• General question, in the style of "How do I ....?".
• A build problem. Often times, this is caused by the environment (outdated compiler, missing packages, insufficient memory, unsupported OS, etc). A build problem can enter the issue tracker only if it does not work per expected, after other environment issues have been ruled out.
• A script that does not work. Again, this could be attributed to the usage error, wrong API call, incorrect assumptions, and so and so forth. A failing script can enter the issue tracker if it demonstrates a defect or it highlights a missing feature. For both cases, it is important to avoid duplications.
• A design request. If someone wants to use PhantomJS to complete a task and asks for a second opinion, that is a discussion suitable for the forum.

[vitallium]

A script that does not work. Again, this could be attributed to the usage error, wrong API call, incorrect assumptions, and so and so forth. A failing script can enter the issue tracker if it demonstrates a defect or it highlights a missing feature. For both cases, it is important to avoid duplications.

This is a really good and important point. We could get rid of many duplicates if all these 'issues' will be moved out to the support forum. I know that our documentation is not that good.
But I think these questions could show us the missing points in the documentation.

[ariya]

But I think these questions could show us the missing points in the documentation.

That's perfectly fine. At that stage, we then rule out any other causes and conclude that there is a gap or a mistake in the documentation. This can proceed to this issue tracker or a pull request.

[ariya]

An open-letter to Github w.r.t issue tracker improvement: https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github.

(And yes, some of us signed that letter)

[johncip]

Folks should note that the discussion forum described above exists now and is located at http://discuss.phantomjs.org/

[gsouf]

I just checked the discution forum, you should provide a github login to make it easier to reach.
Also you should put it in front on the website, or in the github readme.md to redirect people to it.

I would like to mention that the instant messagerie system slack was successful for a number of large open source projects. It's a good place to share with community. If you setup a slack and if you manage it well I'm pretty sure you can earn a few solid contributors.

[ariya]

@gsouf Slack is fantastic, but if you expect me to run it, we're going to bump to the same problem described in #14541. Using Slack does not magically increase my contribution capacity 😢

[gsouf]

@ariya Yes, but you can gather people interested in phantomjs and help them to be good at fixing issues! Do you think so?

[gsouf]

@ariya what's about improving the forum to make it the standard place to get help, then github will become the place to have issues, not help message, and it will be much more clean to work with.

I'm ready to help to improve the forum

[ariya]

Let's just recommend people to use Stack Overflow for this. It's the de facto standard after all.