I want to first clarify that I think Flink China operation team has done a PHENOMENAL job to grow user base in China! This discussion is not about discrediting anyone. The problem occurs as more of a high growth pain IMHO.
>> We did guide users to use mailing list to ask questions, but people still prefer DingTalk. We can continue to remind users to use mailing list frequently. > Do we know why that's the case? Do we need to educate people more on mailing lists? - They "prefer" it possibly because it's easy and fast with lower cost than emailing. If we have a worldwide Slack channel, it'll be the case too. The quality of communication and question also goes down with it though. When I last looked at it months ago, maybe 70+% questions were typically a log screenshot followed up "has anyone seen this before?". Many of them never got answered and just got buried by others. Situations may have changed now, I'm sure. > Ideally, we find a way to help the community grow AND follow good apache practices. - Absolutely. I think, specially, "we" means "include and with Flink China operation team". I think maybe the root cause of the original question on user-zh's low activity is that, we failed counting Flink China operation team as part of our community, and thus didn't get aligned well enough on ideas and execution. E.g. when voting for user-zh, people voted +1 are all **devs** who possibly had default expectations that it's gonna be the main question channel. I didn't see **any people from our operation team** voted or expressed their opinions. Have we communicated to the them the purpose of user-zh before or during the voting? If not, that's something we can improve. I suggest we should officially take Flink China operation team as part of Flink community by inviting and encouraging them to join related discussions and raise their voice in mailing list from now on. On Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 1:48 AM Robert Metzger <rmetz...@apache.org> wrote: > Bowen, I agree with your observations regarding a chat group with 10k > members! > > I'm not very familiar with how the tech scene in the Chinese-speaking world > works. Ideally, we find a way to help the community grow AND follow good > apache practices. > If most other projects and communities are doing user support via Chat > groups, then it would probably be difficult to move people away from that, > or in the worst case, it would slow down adoption of Flink in China. > Do you think that people are generally okay with using mailing lists, or > will it hinder adoption? > > 2. We did guide users to use mailing list to ask questions, but people > > still prefer DingTalk. > > - We can continue to remind users to use mailing list frequently. > > > Do we know why that's the case? > Do we need to educate people more on mailing lists? > > > 4. The apache archive [1] for user-zh doesn't support searching. > > - We can provide a nabble service for user-zh which supports > searching > > itself. > > > Great idea! Do you want to set it up? > > > 5. The messages from the mailing list are not showing up on Baidu. > > - I don't have much experience how to improve this. IMO, Baidu is not > > good at searching for technology-related information. > > > What is the primary search engine for technology-related information? > Or asking more broadly, how are people in China finding help when they run > into problems with a system? > > > Best, > Robert > > > On Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 5:49 AM Jark Wu <imj...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Thanks Bowen and Robert, > > > > Here're my observations and thoughts. > > > > 1. Most questions and discussions happen in the DingTalk. > > 2. We did guide users to use mailing list to ask questions, but people > > still prefer DingTalk. > > - We can continue to remind users to use mailing list frequently. > > 3. All the questions in mailing list have replies, although in hours. > > - It means users can get problems solved by using mailing list. > > 4. The apache archive [1] for user-zh doesn't support searching. > > - We can provide a nabble service for user-zh which supports > searching > > itself. > > 5. The messages from the mailing list are not showing up on Baidu. > > - I don't have much experience how to improve this. IMO, Baidu is not > > good at searching for technology-related information. > > > > > > > > Regards, > > Jark > > > > > > > > > > [1]. > > > https://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/flink-user-zh/201906.mbox/browser > > > > > > On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 at 05:38, Bowen Li <bowenl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > I resonate with your concerns Robert. It's because most questions are > > > asked in the DingTalk group which has close to 10,000 people now. > Here're > > > my observations and thoughts. > > > > > > Group chat is great for marketing, announce news and updates, broadcast > > > live streams/events, and is just TERRIBLE for ask-answer questions and > > > discussions (may be ok for 3-5 :) surely not 10,000...) We probably all > > > experienced the problems - content not really searchable, topics lost > > fast, > > > too much noise, people post questions without evening doing any > homework > > > first, etc. I personally have muted that group chat and haven't really > > look > > > at it for a long time, and I do feel the heat in the group is also > going > > > down because of the problems. > > > > > > Mailing list is indeed old school, but it still exists nowadays for its > > > own reasons - searchable, async communication, topic focused, etc. And > I > > > believe all technical discussions and ask-answer should happen in the > > > mailing list, not in that group. > > > > > > IMO, the root cause is that we haven't clarified what that DingTalk > group > > > should be really used for, and how it should work together with our > > user-zh > > > mailing list. We created that group chat and kind of just let it drive > to > > > its own directions. This is a good time to reflect on how we should > > > position that group and mailing list. > > > > > > As mentioned above, I believe the group chat should only be used for > > > marketing/interacting, announcing news and updates, broadcasting live > > > streams/events, etc, and all technical discussions should be diverted > to > > > user-zh mailing list. > > > > > > I cc-ed a few organizers and drivers of the DingTalk group so that they > > > can share their thoughts. > > > > > > Bowen > > > > > > On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 2:19 AM Robert Metzger <rmetz...@apache.org> > > > wrote: > > > > > >> Hey all, > > >> > > >> the user...@flink.apache.org is now a few months old and I wanted to > > hear > > >> how things are going. > > >> > > >> From the number of people in the DingTalk group (5000 ?), I would have > > >> expected more people to use the mailing list. But I also understand > that > > >> mailing lists are an outdated technology from the last century. > > >> > > >> These are the numbers of messages per month: > > >> Feb: 72 > > >> Mar: 170 > > >> Apr: 119 > > >> May: 62 > > >> Jun: 10 > > >> > > >> Is there anything we can do from our side to help adoption of that > > mailing > > >> list? > > >> For example: Are messages from the mailing list showing up on Baidu > when > > >> looking for common problems with Flink? If not, does it makes sense to > > >> have > > >> a mailing list archive on a server/domain in China? > > >> > > >> Best, > > >> Robert > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 11:42 AM YuZhao Chan <yuzhao....@gmail.com> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > >> > That's great. > > >> > > > >> > > > > > >
