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1 | 1 | # GitHub Discussions is the org's only owned channel |
2 | 2 |
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3 | | -**Decision:** Discussions is the org's sole owned support and feedback surface — org-level at |
4 | | -`/orgs/modern-python/discussions` (backed by this repo, and where `SUPPORT.md` routes every |
5 | | -project's users), plus per-repo tabs on the handful of repos with traffic to fill them. No Discord |
6 | | -server, no Telegram group, and no per-repo tab enabled org-wide. When an *answerable* question |
7 | | -arrives by any other route, it gets pushed to Discussions — "ask there so the next person finds it". |
8 | | - |
9 | | -Chat rooms were the obvious alternative and are the one most often asked for. The durable-record |
10 | | -argument is the load-bearing reason against opening them now: a chat answer is ephemeral, while a |
11 | | -Discussions answer is searchable and Google-indexed, so it compounds — it also serves everyone who |
12 | | -later hits the same error. Async also suits a solo maintainer in one timezone. |
13 | | - |
14 | | -The stronger reason is the empty-room threshold. A young project's scarcest resource is the |
15 | | -attention needed to seed a room, and an empty room is worse than no room: a visitor who lands on |
16 | | -"3 members, last message 2 weeks ago" gets a worse signal than from a clean Discussions tab. The same |
17 | | -arithmetic rejects enabling Discussions per-repo across all 28 repos — 20-odd empty tabs read as a |
18 | | -dead org. The standing principle is to **borrow audiences before building our own**: participate |
19 | | -where Python users already are rather than standing up rooms we cannot fill. |
20 | | - |
21 | | -If rooms ever open, the scope is one org-wide room per platform, never per-repo. The whole stack |
22 | | -shares one community, and the only rationale that keeps two rooms coherent rather than fragmenting a |
23 | | -small one is a language/geo split (Russian-speaking Telegram, English/global Discord). |
24 | | - |
25 | | -**Borrowing in practice:** a link back to our own pages is conditional, not standing. Link only |
26 | | -where the linked page actually answers the question at hand (a docs page, or an existing Discussion), |
27 | | -and never as a bare repo drop. The rejected alternative was a mandatory backlink on every reply: that |
28 | | -turns participation into the drive-by self-promotion HN, Lobsters and r/Python each punish, and costs |
29 | | -more standing than the referrals are worth. The obligation that *is* standing runs the other way, |
30 | | -when a question answered in someone else's venue exposes a gap in our docs, that gap becomes an issue |
31 | | -here. |
32 | | - |
33 | | -**Revisit trigger:** launch week (the work is tracked in modern-python/.github#58). Rooms open *during* it, not before — launch traffic is what seeds |
34 | | -them past the empty-room threshold. If a room is still inactive 30 days post-launch, fold it back |
35 | | -into Discussions rather than keeping a dead room linked. |
| 3 | +GitHub Discussions, org-level at `/orgs/modern-python/discussions` and backed by this repo, is the |
| 4 | +only community surface the org runs; `SUPPORT.md` routes every project's users there, and per-repo |
| 5 | +tabs stay off except where a repo has traffic to fill one. A Discord server or Telegram group is the |
| 6 | +alternative asked for most often, rejected on the empty-room threshold rather than on the durability |
| 7 | +of a searchable answer: the scarcest resource is the attention needed to seed a room, and "3 |
| 8 | +members, last message 2 weeks ago" is a worse signal than a clean Discussions tab. The same |
| 9 | +arithmetic rejects enabling Discussions across all 28 repos. The standing principle is to borrow |
| 10 | +audiences before building our own, linking back only where the linked page answers the question at |
| 11 | +hand, never as a bare repo drop. If rooms ever open they open during launch week, one org-wide room |
| 12 | +per platform, never per-repo. |
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