On Wed, 15 Dec 2021, 15:59 William Stein, <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 6:49 AM Dima Pasechnik <dimp...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 12:44 AM William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > Here's some very quick thoughts, some on topic and some off: > > > > > > - The original author of the software that ask.sagemath.org runs did > initially do the configuration at some point long ago. He was starting a > business to support instances in exchange for money. I wonder if that is > still around? > > > > contact details, etc are here: https://askbot.com/ > > (their own instance is running version 0.10.3) > > > Thanks. It looks like the obvious thing we would have to buy would be > his hosting service, which is $45/month and provides this (see below). > It seems like he doesn't offer any sort of "manage your existing site" > service anymore. An obvious question is whether or not he would also > migrate our existing site over to his hosted service. Also, we would > be switching from "trust Thierry for backups, long term existence, > etc." to "trust random guy in Chile who has nothing to do with Sage > and also trust that William can ensure the $45/month gets paid > somehow." So it seems he doesn't really provide the service > (namely -- help us upgrade to the latest version) that he used to > provide, and I can see why (it is probably a pain in the butt to do). >
they offer consulting. It won't harm to ask whether they are willing to do an one-off job of upgrading. > > > 30 day free trial > All standard features > SSL Support > Single Sign On > Up to 750 users > Daily backups > > > > > > > > > > > If so, maybe we could pay him to update our ask.sagemath.org > instance? In any case, many thanks to Thierry for maintaining > ask.sagemath.org all these years! > > > > > > - The ziglang community has an interesting approach to the community > discussion problem, which is just to welcome and try *everything* that > somebody will set up, and see what sticks. They have a list of all the > resources that various community members are running here, which is useful > for ideas, in case there's interest in expanding what's available for > Sage: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/wiki/Community > > > My impression with zig is that the two main ways they communicate are > (1) github issues, and (2) their Discord chat server, which is *very* > active. Note that Discord has absolutely nothing to do with Discourse, > and solves a completely different problem. We also use Discord for CoCalc, > and it has a manageable steady stream of activity (in fact, some discussion > there is about Sage). One aspect of Discord is that answers don't seem to > get indexed by Google; it's very different than ask.sagemath.org or > Discourse. I think the Sage community currently has no *active* general > realtime community chat, though we used to all use IRC for Sage very > heavily a long time ago, and I think Gitter was also popular at one point. > There's the Zulip for Sage here https://www.sagemath.org/help-zulip.html > but it's not that active. A point in favor of Discord is that it is > what all the kids are currently using to discuss video games, hence they > are likely to already be using it, and get notifications, etc; it's also > very functional for free (unlike Slack). > > > > > > - Github has a free thing that is supposed to compete with Discourse, > I think, called "Github Discussions". I tried encouraging people to use > Github Discussions for CoCalc (see > https://github.com/sagemathinc/cocalc/discussions), e.g., by linking to > it in a few places, but it is totally dead. Nobody uses it. I'm not sure > why. > > > > > > -- William > > > > > > On Tue, Dec 14, 2021 at 3:43 PM Thierry < > sage-googlesu...@lma.metelu.net> wrote: > > >> > > >> On Sat, Dec 11, 2021 at 07:00:54AM -0800, kcrisman wrote: > > >> > Some hopefully-useful comments: > > >> > > > >> > Overall, I am not sure why the project is running this server. I > think we > > >> > > are spreading ourselves pretty thin here. There is also: > > >> > > - https://groups.google.com/g/sage-support > > >> > > - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/sage > > >> > > > > >> > 50 questions in last 6 months - thankfully, not as many about the > Sage ERP > > >> > software as in the past - so nowhere near the volume of > ask.sagemath? But > > >> > see below. > > >> > > > >> > > - https://stackexchange.com/search?q=sage > > >> > > - https://mathoverflow.net/search?q=sage > > >> > > > > >> > negligible > > >> > > > >> > Also https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sagemath - 50 > > >> > questions in the past 18 months. > > >> > > > >> > Though I haven't had time to contribute to any of these regularly > since > > >> > somewhat before the pandemic, my observations are twofold on this: > > >> > 1) The same people were helping on both the SE sites and > ask.sagemath > > >> > 2) The response time and quality (and number of answers) were all > better on > > >> > ask.sagemath > > >> > It's possible this has changed recently, but more likely it is just > that > > >> > some of the networking issues have made it less reliable, but > haven't > > >> > improved service on the other sites. Contributors to answers have > liked > > >> > ask.sagemath. > > >> > > >> An additional benefit from ask.sagemath is that is it well referenced > on > > >> search engines, so that answers posted there can be used as a > knowledge > > >> database. > > >> > > >> > I do notice that ask.sagemath has for some time only reported "0 > years > > >> > ago" for recent questions - I don't think the askbot developer > > >> > (https://askbot.com) has been super productive lately and of > course we > > >> > don't have the ability to support that software as well as Sage > > >> > itself. That seems to be more of a sticking point, though I think > > >> > Thierry and Samuel will have some relevant comments on that. > > >> > > >> This "0 years ago" comes from a change in some javascript where, there > > >> is a jump from hours to years, without knowing about days and months. > > >> > > >> Maybe it is fixed on another upstream branch. Note that we are still > on > > >> the 0.7.x branch since migrating requires some work. Indeed, when we > > >> upgrade, we need to run some migration scripts that update the > database > > >> structure. Unfortunately, our database scheme is not exactly the same > as > > >> the official one since in the early years, ask.sagemath was installed > by > > >> askbot developper himself, who adapted the db to some needs (perhaps > > >> William can say more about that). We already fixed a lots of such > > >> things, but when i moved ask.sagemath in emergency last year from Ohio > > >> State University to Paris North University, i updated the versions > until > > >> i fall on some database migration issue and did not go further. This > > >> might not be that hard to fix, but it is pretty boring (one have to > > >> understand where is the bug, do some sql to adapt our tweaked database > > >> to what it is supposed to be, and try again to see if the migration > > >> script pass). > > >> > > >> If someone from the community is willing to give a try, i could set > up a > > >> separated container, that is a duplicate of the current production > > >> server and provide an SSH access. > > >> > > >> > As for sage-support, it's always surprising to me how many > "customers" > > >> > simply disappear as soon as you mention asking a question there - > > >> > somehow they either want a Q&A site, or to ask on Facebook, or > > >> > whatever. I don't really know why this happens, but clearly the Q&A > > >> > sites (in toto) are necessary. > > >> > > >> It is a pity that sage-support is not well referenced by search > engines > > >> since there are some pretty good answers there. If i understand > > >> correctly, on discourse it is possible to ask and answer questions by > > >> email, so that people that prefer the sage-support way could > contribute > > >> as well. However, i think that merging ask.sagemath and sage-support > > >> into some discourse instance and keep all links well redirected will > > >> require quite some work. > > >> > > >> Ciao, > > >> Thierry > > >> > > >> > > >> > Finally, to anticipate a question that has come up in the past on > this > > >> > issue, I had previously inquired with a SE employee about > transferring > > >> > data, and it seems it's not really a viable option. (As a very > tangential > > >> > note, one could make a similar observation about Trac versus GH/GL > - could > > >> > one take all those very useful discussions and import them?) > > >> > > > >> > -- > > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "sage-devel" group. > > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > >> > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/3ab714cf-5987-4a1d-9f99-471e616e83a8n%40googlegroups.com > . > > >> > > >> -- > > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "sage-devel" group. > > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > >> To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/20211214234339.GC5262%40metelu.net > . > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > William (http://wstein.org) > > > > > > -- > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "sage-devel" group. > > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/CACLE5GBNueo5hK04X0s4jcuykF9G3P%2BjG_WdL9Ko0epostaFjg%40mail.gmail.com > . > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "sage-devel" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/CAAWYfq3qUz-eAF1Yg%3DN9NaGsD3VFj4sb6sVp_-PYaCThdtf2Sw%40mail.gmail.com > . > > > > -- > William (http://wstein.org) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-devel" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/CACLE5GAFXyEzWEHWLVEoiMoF-6Hw7unwb0Zd%2Bsi6_DvreCa7WA%40mail.gmail.com > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. 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