
What happened with the Chef mailing list migration - coderanger
https://coderanger.net/chef-mailing-list/
======
dredmorbius
This is a choice example of how _not_ to do a migration of your primary
project discussion tool:

1\. It wasn't announced in advance.

2\. It wasn't adequately tested in advance.

3\. The replacement system wasn't compatible with the pre-existing one. Its
dynamics are significantly different, most notably in that it simply _is not a
mailing list_.

4\. Chef and Discourse both come off smelling exceptionally poorly, and with
highly tarnished reputations.

My own first awareness of the transfer came as, while in the midst of travel
and away from my typical email and computing systems, a Gmail inbox of mine
exploded with what appeared to be miscategorised Chef mailing list items.
Gmail fouls up filtering sufficiently often that I'm aware of this, but the
problem persisted, largely overwhelming my mailbox.

I was relying principally on an Android tablet and either the Gmail app or
Mobile web interface. For a tool which claims to make using and organising
your emails far more viable, _neither of these offers access to Gmail
filters_. I"ve still not been able to access or update those due to other
concerns.

It took a considerable time to figure out what the hell had changed. Clearing
my spam folder for the first time in a few weeks, I took a look at the new
Chef emails, and found that they weren't email list messages but _forum_
notifications, and that there wasn't a simple unsubscribe.

Clicking the unsubscribe link, I was presented with a log-in screen for a
service I'd never used.

I've emailed Nathan at Chef directly requesting my removal. I suspect he's
busy. I also indicated that I'd be configuring Gmail filters to nuke _all_
future Chef and Discourse content.

As for Discourse itself, it took a few articles for me to recognise it, but
this is Jeff Atwood's new gig -- he's of Coding Horror and Stack Exchange
fame. I've followed Jeff's work for some time and am generally impressed by
it. I'm aware of challenges SE has faced with its frequently too-aggressive
moderators (there's a balance between information content and quality, and
simply maintaining the social lubrication of _conversation_ ). I'd read some
of his earlier discussions on Discourse and its aims, and been impressed.

The implementation, _particularly_ with this specific system transition, is an
utter fuck-up.

If Chef had simply cut the cord, sent a "so long and thanks for all the fish,
see you on the flipside" message, _informing mailing list members where the
new discussion could be found_ , things would have been far better.

Or, if Discourse had _completed a mailing-list gateway system, and provided
import tools for existing lists._

The Gmail interaction is an unfortunate one and out of both Chef and
Discourse's immediate hands, but something a discussion _for, about, and
largely used by sysadmins with both massive email loads and highly-tuned
filter systems_ should have been utterly fucking obvious. I'm not particularly
keen on calling folks idiots on HN, but Nathan and whomever were responsible
for the transition at Discourse have earned their idiot stripes.

There's a strongly cautionary tale about committing to proprietary systems in
the first place, which appears to be what Chef's initial email solution was.
The Coderanger post-mortem fills in details here I wasn't aware of. The most
obvious continuing fault is that Chef are jumping from frying pan to fire.

But if other projects want an excellent example of what not to do, here it is.

~~~
coderanger
If you want to send me your username I can make sure you are unsubscribed from
everything.

~~~
dredmorbius
dredmorbius@gmail.com

~~~
coderanger
Done, you should get no further emails at this point. I apologize on their
behalf for the trouble.

~~~
dredmorbius
Thank you.

