GitHub discussions for developer support

[ligiabernardet]

I am wondering if this is a good mechanism for developer support. Thoughts?

[evankalina]

I am curious about who gets notified when new threads and new replies are added.

I see there is an option to my right to "subscribe" to this thread. I just clicked it, so I presume I will get an email when Ligia (or anyone else) replies here.

But I wonder if Ligia will see this response, assuming she hasn't clicked "subscribe" yet. I am deliberately not going to tag her username here.

I also wonder if someone can sign up to get notified any time a new discussion thread or reply is posted, without having to subscribe to each individual thread. Do all repository watchers get notified of new discussions/replies?

[climbfuji]

I got it although I didn't subscribe. But I subscribed to "all notifications" from ccpp-physics anyway.

…

On Feb 16, 2021, at 1:30 PM, evankalina ***@***.***> wrote: I am curious about who gets notified when new threads and new replies are added. I see there is an option to my right to "subscribe" to this thread. I just clicked it, so I presume I will get an email when Ligia (or anyone else) replies here. But I wonder if Ligia will see this response, assuming she hasn't clicked "subscribe" yet. I am deliberately not going to tag her username here. I also wonder if someone can sign up to get notified any time a new discussion thread or reply is posted, without having to subscribe to each individual thread. Do all repository watchers get notified of new discussions/replies? — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#570 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AB5C2RP5CPGRA5YK5LI4CCLS7LIV7ANCNFSM4XXBZQSA>.

[ligiabernardet]

Evan, I did get an email. When I posted, I got automatically subscribed to this thread (I had the option to unsubscribe).
I noticed that when one watches a repo, you can watch all activity, or select whether you want to watch issues, and/or pull requests, and/or releases, and/or discussions. So, the answer to your question appears to be yes: you can sign up to watch all discussion threads.

[evankalina]

OK, so this is good. It looks like the specific setting that controls whether people get notified of new threads/replies is in Settings --> notifications --> Automatically watch teams: When you’re added to or join a team, automatically receive notifications for that team’s discussions.

That was checked in my account, probably by default, since I don't remember changing it.

[willmayfield]

@evankalina I assume tagging someone will still need to be the way to reliably assure a message is seen... it's the same way in Slack from my experience.

It seems very notification-happy by default but at least the subscribe/unsubscribe button is obvious.

[evankalina]

One issue I'll mention that the HU folks have been discussing that GitHub will not ameliorate is the following:

We often ask developers to send us the paths to the source code and working directories if they are using a machine that we have access to. It obviously makes debugging much easier. We've had some internal discussions about whether developers have any issue with providing these paths in a public area. At this point, it is a theoretical concern, as no one has told us (yet) that they are unwilling. But I am curious to hear thoughts from others.

[climbfuji]

Interesting point. I've seen paths pasted on github a few times. But I guess you could ask developers to share such information in a more private (albeit no more safe) way such as "please send me the path via email" if this is a concern.

It would be a concern for any platform we choose that is open to the public, though.

[evankalina]

Yeah, email is our backup plan if someone does say they're uncomfortable. It is an OK workaround, but it does invite the possibility that the developer will start sharing additional information related to the issue via email in their response with the paths. It could require some gentle encouragement to please stick to the GitHub thread for everything other than the directories. But perhaps that's an acceptable side effect.

[willmayfield]

https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions seems pretty responsive if it comes to a question of whether there are plans for a DM feature or other workaround for this scenario. I saw a post there that discussions is not yet available in private repos as they're working out how to implement it.. maybe this kind of issue is on their minds.