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Posted to dev@beam.apache.org by Chamikara Jayalath via dev <de...@beam.apache.org> on 2022/08/17 02:42:44 UTC

Forward StackOverflow questions with the apache-beam tag to a new mailing list

Hi folks,

It seems like many of the questions posted to StackOverflow with the
apache-beam tag [1] go unanswered or take more than they should to receive
an acceptable answer.

What do you all think about creating a new mailing list,
stackoverflow@beam.apache.org (assuming Apache Infra is OK with this and
it's technically feasible to do so), where notifications regarding such
questions will be forwarded to ?

This should allow folks who are interested in answering related questions
to get notified early. Hopefully getting more eyeballs on these questions
will increase the response rate (and the quality of the answers).

Another option might be to post such notifications (or aggregations) to dev@
but this might unnecessarily spam all members of the dev list.

Thanks,
Cham

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam

Re: Forward StackOverflow questions with the apache-beam tag to a new mailing list

Posted by Chamikara Jayalath via dev <de...@beam.apache.org>.
Hi folks,

Thanks for the comments here.

I created https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-23616 to request
Apache INFRA to create a new email list.
I'll update this thread when INFRA comments on the feasibility of this.

Thanks,
Cham

On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 6:35 PM Ahmet Altay <al...@google.com> wrote:

> +1 to this idea.
>
> I think both options are reasonable. At the same time I also agree with
> checking with infra first on the feasibility of creating another mailing
> list.
>
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 10:00 AM Chamikara Jayalath <ch...@google.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 9:18 AM Robert Bradshaw <ro...@google.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 5:15 AM Alexey Romanenko
>>> <ar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Good point about unanswered SO questions. +1 that we need to improve a
>>> situation there.
>>> >
>>> > Yes, we may try to stream them to a new dedicated list but it will
>>> require people here to subscribe to and check regularly one more list which
>>> perhaps won’t be so efficient as well.
>>>
>>> I view the value of a new list as making it easy to choose to
>>> subscribe or not, and being able to respond to questions as they come
>>> in. You're right it's less useful for people who manually check lists
>>> rather than get them in their inbox.
>>>
>>> > I believe that a digest of the N latest unanswered questions to dev@
>>> (or to user@? or both?) every 3-4 days should be a better option.
>>>
>>> We could do this too. Ideally a list of all recent questions (answered
>>> or not, answers can be improved and voted on) if that's technically
>>> feasible.
>>>
>>> IIRC, the current rate is around 10-20 questions a week, so not huge,
>>> but still non-trivial.
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, ideally we can do both.
>>
>> (1) Individual questions at a high high frequency to
>> stackoverflow@beam.apache.org so that folks who are interested in
>> answering such questions (and subscribed to the list) get notified early.
>>
>
> As an anecdotal data point: Google as a company has an internal Q&A site
> and creating a similar mailing list had a noticeable impact on the number
> of questions answered. It was a good way to include the broader community
> as well. That said, I do not know if this would similarly apply to stack
> overflow or not.
>
>
>>
>> (2) Aggregated digests at a low frequency to the dev@ and user@ so that
>> we get more eyeballs into questions that go unanswered. Also this will be a
>> good way to get more upvotes for the correct answers.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Cham
>>
>>
>>>
>>> > On 17 Aug 2022, at 04:42, Chamikara Jayalath via dev <
>>> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Hi folks,
>>> >
>>> > It seems like many of the questions posted to StackOverflow with the
>>> apache-beam tag [1] go unanswered or take more than they should to receive
>>> an acceptable answer.
>>> >
>>> > What do you all think about creating a new mailing list,
>>> stackoverflow@beam.apache.org (assuming Apache Infra is OK with this
>>> and it's technically feasible to do so), where notifications regarding such
>>> questions will be forwarded to ?
>>> >
>>> > This should allow folks who are interested in answering related
>>> questions to get notified early. Hopefully getting more eyeballs on these
>>> questions will increase the response rate (and the quality of the answers).
>>> >
>>> > Another option might be to post such notifications (or aggregations)
>>> to dev@ but this might unnecessarily spam all members of the dev list.
>>> >
>>> > Thanks,
>>> > Cham
>>> >
>>> > [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>

Re: Forward StackOverflow questions with the apache-beam tag to a new mailing list

Posted by Ahmet Altay via dev <de...@beam.apache.org>.
+1 to this idea.

I think both options are reasonable. At the same time I also agree with
checking with infra first on the feasibility of creating another mailing
list.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 10:00 AM Chamikara Jayalath <ch...@google.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 9:18 AM Robert Bradshaw <ro...@google.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 5:15 AM Alexey Romanenko
>> <ar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Good point about unanswered SO questions. +1 that we need to improve a
>> situation there.
>> >
>> > Yes, we may try to stream them to a new dedicated list but it will
>> require people here to subscribe to and check regularly one more list which
>> perhaps won’t be so efficient as well.
>>
>> I view the value of a new list as making it easy to choose to
>> subscribe or not, and being able to respond to questions as they come
>> in. You're right it's less useful for people who manually check lists
>> rather than get them in their inbox.
>>
>> > I believe that a digest of the N latest unanswered questions to dev@
>> (or to user@? or both?) every 3-4 days should be a better option.
>>
>> We could do this too. Ideally a list of all recent questions (answered
>> or not, answers can be improved and voted on) if that's technically
>> feasible.
>>
>> IIRC, the current rate is around 10-20 questions a week, so not huge,
>> but still non-trivial.
>>
>
> Yeah, ideally we can do both.
>
> (1) Individual questions at a high high frequency to
> stackoverflow@beam.apache.org so that folks who are interested in
> answering such questions (and subscribed to the list) get notified early.
>

As an anecdotal data point: Google as a company has an internal Q&A site
and creating a similar mailing list had a noticeable impact on the number
of questions answered. It was a good way to include the broader community
as well. That said, I do not know if this would similarly apply to stack
overflow or not.


>
> (2) Aggregated digests at a low frequency to the dev@ and user@ so that
> we get more eyeballs into questions that go unanswered. Also this will be a
> good way to get more upvotes for the correct answers.
>
> Thanks,
> Cham
>
>
>>
>> > On 17 Aug 2022, at 04:42, Chamikara Jayalath via dev <
>> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi folks,
>> >
>> > It seems like many of the questions posted to StackOverflow with the
>> apache-beam tag [1] go unanswered or take more than they should to receive
>> an acceptable answer.
>> >
>> > What do you all think about creating a new mailing list,
>> stackoverflow@beam.apache.org (assuming Apache Infra is OK with this and
>> it's technically feasible to do so), where notifications regarding such
>> questions will be forwarded to ?
>> >
>> > This should allow folks who are interested in answering related
>> questions to get notified early. Hopefully getting more eyeballs on these
>> questions will increase the response rate (and the quality of the answers).
>> >
>> > Another option might be to post such notifications (or aggregations) to
>> dev@ but this might unnecessarily spam all members of the dev list.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Cham
>> >
>> > [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam
>> >
>> >
>>
>

Re: Forward StackOverflow questions with the apache-beam tag to a new mailing list

Posted by Chamikara Jayalath via dev <de...@beam.apache.org>.
On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 9:18 AM Robert Bradshaw <ro...@google.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 5:15 AM Alexey Romanenko
> <ar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Good point about unanswered SO questions. +1 that we need to improve a
> situation there.
> >
> > Yes, we may try to stream them to a new dedicated list but it will
> require people here to subscribe to and check regularly one more list which
> perhaps won’t be so efficient as well.
>
> I view the value of a new list as making it easy to choose to
> subscribe or not, and being able to respond to questions as they come
> in. You're right it's less useful for people who manually check lists
> rather than get them in their inbox.
>
> > I believe that a digest of the N latest unanswered questions to dev@
> (or to user@? or both?) every 3-4 days should be a better option.
>
> We could do this too. Ideally a list of all recent questions (answered
> or not, answers can be improved and voted on) if that's technically
> feasible.
>
> IIRC, the current rate is around 10-20 questions a week, so not huge,
> but still non-trivial.
>

Yeah, ideally we can do both.

(1) Individual questions at a high high frequency to
stackoverflow@beam.apache.org so that folks who are interested in answering
such questions (and subscribed to the list) get notified early.

(2) Aggregated digests at a low frequency to the dev@ and user@ so that we
get more eyeballs into questions that go unanswered. Also this will be a
good way to get more upvotes for the correct answers.

Thanks,
Cham


>
> > On 17 Aug 2022, at 04:42, Chamikara Jayalath via dev <
> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > It seems like many of the questions posted to StackOverflow with the
> apache-beam tag [1] go unanswered or take more than they should to receive
> an acceptable answer.
> >
> > What do you all think about creating a new mailing list,
> stackoverflow@beam.apache.org (assuming Apache Infra is OK with this and
> it's technically feasible to do so), where notifications regarding such
> questions will be forwarded to ?
> >
> > This should allow folks who are interested in answering related
> questions to get notified early. Hopefully getting more eyeballs on these
> questions will increase the response rate (and the quality of the answers).
> >
> > Another option might be to post such notifications (or aggregations) to
> dev@ but this might unnecessarily spam all members of the dev list.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Cham
> >
> > [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam
> >
> >
>

Re: Forward StackOverflow questions with the apache-beam tag to a new mailing list

Posted by Robert Bradshaw via dev <de...@beam.apache.org>.
On Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 5:15 AM Alexey Romanenko
<ar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Good point about unanswered SO questions. +1 that we need to improve a situation there.
>
> Yes, we may try to stream them to a new dedicated list but it will require people here to subscribe to and check regularly one more list which perhaps won’t be so efficient as well.

I view the value of a new list as making it easy to choose to
subscribe or not, and being able to respond to questions as they come
in. You're right it's less useful for people who manually check lists
rather than get them in their inbox.

> I believe that a digest of the N latest unanswered questions to dev@ (or to user@? or both?) every 3-4 days should be a better option.

We could do this too. Ideally a list of all recent questions (answered
or not, answers can be improved and voted on) if that's technically
feasible.

IIRC, the current rate is around 10-20 questions a week, so not huge,
but still non-trivial.

> On 17 Aug 2022, at 04:42, Chamikara Jayalath via dev <de...@beam.apache.org> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> It seems like many of the questions posted to StackOverflow with the apache-beam tag [1] go unanswered or take more than they should to receive an acceptable answer.
>
> What do you all think about creating a new mailing list, stackoverflow@beam.apache.org (assuming Apache Infra is OK with this and it's technically feasible to do so), where notifications regarding such questions will be forwarded to ?
>
> This should allow folks who are interested in answering related questions to get notified early. Hopefully getting more eyeballs on these questions will increase the response rate (and the quality of the answers).
>
> Another option might be to post such notifications (or aggregations) to dev@ but this might unnecessarily spam all members of the dev list.
>
> Thanks,
> Cham
>
> [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam
>
>

Re: Forward StackOverflow questions with the apache-beam tag to a new mailing list

Posted by Alexey Romanenko <ar...@gmail.com>.
Good point about unanswered SO questions. +1 that we need to improve a situation there.

Yes, we may try to stream them to a new dedicated list but it will require people here to subscribe to and check regularly one more list which perhaps won’t be so efficient as well. 

I believe that a digest of the N latest unanswered questions to dev@ (or to user@? or both?) every 3-4 days should be a better option.

—
Alexey

> On 17 Aug 2022, at 04:42, Chamikara Jayalath via dev <de...@beam.apache.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
> It seems like many of the questions posted to StackOverflow with the apache-beam tag [1] go unanswered or take more than they should to receive an acceptable answer.
> 
> What do you all think about creating a new mailing list, stackoverflow@beam.apache.org <ma...@beam.apache.org> (assuming Apache Infra is OK with this and it's technically feasible to do so), where notifications regarding such questions will be forwarded to ?
> 
> This should allow folks who are interested in answering related questions to get notified early. Hopefully getting more eyeballs on these questions will increase the response rate (and the quality of the answers).
> 
> Another option might be to post such notifications (or aggregations) to dev@ but this might unnecessarily spam all members of the dev list.
> 
> Thanks,
> Cham
> 
> [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apache-beam>