# Migration of Google Groups to discourse

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17>\
**Category:** Meta Discussion\
**Tags:** proposal\
**Created:** [October 19, 2016, 4:19am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17 "2016-10-19T04:19:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 19\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:19am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/1 "2016-10-19T04:19:14Z")

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The plan for the migration is:

### julia-dev

- Put out an announcement of upcoming move to julia-dev
- Put out a statement of intent to julia-users explaining why (and soliciting feedback from the broader community)
- After a 5-7 days put julia-dev into read only move
- Send out a e-mail again notifying subscribers
- Include instructions for setting up email forwarding from Discourse
  - is bidirectional email possible/advisable?

### julia-users

- After a successful migration of `julia-dev` (Time frame for evaluation: 4 weeks?)
- Put out an announcement giving a timeline for the move
- Put Julia-users in read-only mode

### Other mailing-list

- After migration of julia-dev. Any other mailing-list or subcommunity is welcomed to contact the [@admins](https://discourse.julialang.org/groups/admins) to create a category/subcategory
- We should discuss the set of top-level categories

### Considerations

1. We are not doing an automate migration of e-mails.
2. No migration of prior content (since that would complicate the move)
3. Mail-in is enabled for a subset of categories [Discourse as a mailing list](http://discourse.julialang.org/t/discourse-as-a-mailing-list/57)
4. Sign in via Google and Github is enabled for now. It also works for users who have already created a account manually given that the e-mail address is the same.

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:30am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/2 "2016-10-19T04:30:29Z")

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 5:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/3 "2016-10-19T05:27:19Z")

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**Note:** This and the post above are wiki-posts, so feel free to edit them.

# Announcement to julia-dev

We are currently in the process of moving `julia-dev` from Google Groups to a forum/mailing-list platform powered by [Discourse](http://www.discourse.org). For the reasons behind this move, please see the [statement of intent](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/julia-users/Ov1J6MOVly0) on `julia-users`. We decided to move `julia-dev` first because of the smaller mail throughput and to see if our community is happy with the features Discourse offers.

The new web address is [Internals & Design - Julia Programming Language](http://discourse.julialang.org/c/dev).

The timeline for the migration is the following:

- Discourse is available from now on and we encourage everybody to post new topics there.
- On _DATE_, `julia-dev` will be set to read-only mode.

In order to give people the choice of opt-in, we opted for a **non-automated migration** , therefore we won’t move over previous content nor previous accounts.

Participation purely through **e-mails** is possible. For instructions on how to set it up, head over to [http://discourse.julialang.org/t/discourse-as-a-mailing-list](http://discourse.julialang.org/t/discourse-as-a-mailing-list) .

# Statement of intent on `julia-users`

The Julia community has been growing rapidly over the last few years and for its discussions uses many different services, including Google Groups (`julia-users`, `julia-dev` etc.), IRC and Gitter. Sometimes individual packages or organizations also use their own forums and chat rooms. All in all, that results in the fragmentation of our community’s online knowledge and in difficulties finding it, which leads to repetition of questions and other loss of time or cause for frustration.

To host the entire Julia community into one place, Discourse has been brought up in the past as a convenient platform to replace the currently used ones. Changing something established is tricky, so we decided to move slowly on this. For a first step, we are only migrating `julia-dev` to Discourse (see the corresponding post on `julia-dev` for a timeline).

We would like to solicit feedback from the broader Julia community about migrating `julia-users` to Discourse as well, and potentially other mailing lists like `julia-stats`. If you are interested in trying it out, please visit [http://discourse.julialang.org](http://discourse.julialang.org). Discourse is organized by categories, so **Development** is the new home of `julia-dev` and **General** would be the future home of `julia-users`.

If the community is happy with Discourse as a solution, we will move forward with the migration. The timetable would be roughly as follows:

1. About 4 weeks after the migration of `julia-dev`, decision to be made on executing or not the migration of `julia-users`, and on its date.
2. One week before the date of migration, post preparative announcement on `julia-users`.
3. On the date of migration, post final announcement on `julia-users` and set it into read-only mode.

Please post feedback or comments either at [http://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse](http://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse) or in this thread.

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**Author:** ![quinnj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/quinnj/32/11_2.png) [@quinnj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/quinnj)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 10:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/4 "2016-10-19T10:50:31Z")

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I think it’d be great to enable sign-on via Github/Google.

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/5 "2016-10-19T12:31:31Z")

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Done for Google. For github I need one of the Owners of the JuliaLang organisation.  
Important to not that it is not a one or other choice. As long as it is the same e-mail address they link to the same account.

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**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 1:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/6 "2016-10-19T13:38:05Z")

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How do I enable this on GitHub?

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 1:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/7 "2016-10-19T13:38:47Z")

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> **[Configure GitHub login for Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configure-github-login-for-discourse/13745)**
>
> Go to https://github.com/settings/developers, then look for OAuth Apps in the left menu. Select New OAuth App. Fill in the required fields. Be sure to set the Callback URL to use the path /auth/github/callback at your site domain. e.g.,...

You need to create a oauth\_client\_id and secret for the JuliaLang Github repository. And them add them under Admin-\>Login

Base address is [http://discourse.julialang.org](http://discourse.julialang.org)  
Callback is [Julia Programming Language](http://discourse.julialang.org/auth/github/callback)

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**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/8 "2016-10-19T13:49:06Z")

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It seems like we should be using HTTPS for everything. Is there some way to do that?

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/9 "2016-10-19T13:50:37Z")

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I contacted discourse about it.

@StefanKarpinski with regards to e-mail forwarding. Do you mean between discourse and Google Groups or  
setting up discourse in a way that Users can use it like a mailing list?

We can activate creation of topics via e-mail and answering to topics via e-mail is already possible.

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**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/10 "2016-10-19T16:39:03Z")

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Both or either? Some people will really want to do everything with email, but it’s a little unclear to me how good an idea even trying to support that is since it may be such a limited way to experience the Discourse forums.

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**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 10:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/11 "2016-10-19T22:25:26Z")

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Just FYI, this also probably means the end of Gmane/NNTP support, as I don’t think the Discourse mail-out format is compatible / Gmane supports subscribing to Discourse forums (definitely not straight away, [as the service is still getting restored](http://gmane.org/info.php?group=gmane.comp.lang.julia.devel)).

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/12 "2016-10-19T23:16:43Z")

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Ok, I will write a post explaining how to use discourse purely per e-mail and activate mail-in for registered users. As an example you should be able to send an e-mail to `julialang+dev@discoursemail.com` to create a new topic.

Update: See [Discourse as a mailing list](http://discourse.julialang.org/t/discourse-as-a-mailing-list/57)

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 5:58am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/13 "2016-10-25T05:58:18Z")

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Any other feedback on this for now? We are working on enabling SSL for this site and then we are ready to go from my perspective.

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**Author:** ![adityam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/adityam/32/7272_2.png) [@adityam](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/adityam)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/14 "2016-11-07T20:38:23Z")

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Would this mean that one cannot read the message using an nttp client (julia-users is mirrored by gmane and can be read using any email client that supports nttp)? AFAIK, discourse does not have an nttp interface.

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**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/15 "2016-11-07T20:43:33Z")

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We could continue to forward Discourse to julia-users, which could be forwarded to Gmane. Given that people can edit messages that won’t be a completely faithful representation of the conversation but it’s a decent approximation. I have to confess that I don’t really understand why people want to access a mailing list (or discourse) via gmane.

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**Author:** ![adityam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/adityam/32/7272_2.png) [@adityam](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/adityam)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/16 "2016-11-08T01:46:25Z")

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> I have to confess that I don’t really understand why people want to access a mailing list (or discourse) via gmane.

Habit and laziness…

Personally, I subscribe to a mailing list only for projects that I am actively involved in. For other projects, I read the message a few times a week. With mailing lists, I need to subscribe (which often involves filling out a form, etc; at one stage, you had to jump through hoops to subscribe to googlegroups without a google id) and then create a filter to move those message to a specific folder. With Gmane, I don’t need to do anything. Simply add the newsgroup in my nttp client (using an interface that I am familiar with), and read messages.

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/17 "2016-11-21T05:06:14Z")

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`julia-users` is in read-only mode as of this morning.

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**Author:** ![danielc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/danielc/32/220_2.png) [@danielc](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/danielc)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/18 "2016-11-21T15:48:48Z")

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Thanks for the announcement on julia-users.

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**Author:** ![vchuravy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vchuravy/32/8_2.png) [@vchuravy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vchuravy)\
**Post date:** [November 27, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/migration-of-google-groups-to-discourse/17/19 "2016-11-27T11:48:53Z")

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A post was split to a new topic: [Establishing category Domain/Quantum](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/establishing-category-domain-quantum/594)