Where should people ask questions?

[acinader]

we have gitter, the forums, issues....

My preference would be to close gitter and the forums and direct all questions to stack overflow. I think gitter is the least usefull and I think that we'll never get good seo on the forum and shouldn't even try.

I think that SO has won and that it has the network effect and seo so that when people google for an answer, the best chance of finding a previously asked question is stack overflow.

If we made it clear in the documentation that all questions, for all sdks and everything should all be under the parse-server tag, we could start building a useful repository of code samples and answers.

I have tried to keep an eye on it and answer questions.

Thoughts?

@TomWFox @dplewis @rogerhu @TylerBrock @natanrolnik

[TomWFox]

I definitely agree that we need channels of communication to be more clear & I agree that SO is great for discovery.

But I think the forums to have a place, for example, I posted a question about possible uses for the Open Collective budget which I don’t think would make sense on SO (and might be flagged as being off topic for SO anyway?).

Could we close the Gitter chat, keep the forum for discussion on organisation/strategy/contribution and direct all code/hosting/SDK related questions to SO? (+ if possible either rename or create a new tag for parse-platform?)

[acinader]

Good feedback. Unfortunately, I missed your post in the forum (I just went and responded to it). I'm not sure, but I'm a little more inclined to use issues here for discussions like that, and just tag them as discussion. I like concentrating things in one place...

[awgeorge]

You need to try and focus the community as I think there are pockets of people on different platforms. In terms of SO - looks like a lot of people are using it for support: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/parse-server but not many responses, which may be discouraging for new users trying out the platform. SO - Seems to be the first place people ask for help though, as it's ingrained to all developers now.

I would remove Gitter as I don't think the chat room is useful.

Issues should be kept to just issues, I feel a low issue count is a sign of a well-maintained system.

Therefore:
SO: Support
Discourse: Features & Planning
Github Issue tracking: Bugs

[dplewis]

I agree with @awgeorge.

Currently Gitter is tech support, implementation details and FAQ, I'm all for removing it. Perhaps add a FAQ to the repos. Some people want to hire developers instead of use PAAS but thats a separate discussion.

I've only answered like 2 questions on SO in my life. I don't have much feedback on it but would definitely use.

Discourse: Announcement Tutorial on how to receive notification for all posts. You currently have to specify which categories you want to watch / track. Took me a while to figure that out as I thought it was automatic.

[acinader]

This works for me! Tom, you up for looking at the docs changes so we can close this out?

Answering SO questions is fun and usually quick...

[TomWFox]

Ok, shall I add a note at the top of the READMEs for the server + all SDK repos directing question to SO?

_{Sent with GitHawk}

[TomWFox]

Also I think it would be a good idea to get a new tag or rename an existing tag to parse-platform.

_{Sent with GitHawk}

[TomWFox]

Maybe we keep parse-server and rename parse.com?

I looked into changing tags and it seems doable - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/87437/how-to-rename-a-tag

_{Sent with GitHawk}

[awgeorge]

Easy to do - you need to create a post on Meta@stackoverflow and include a moderator to rename the tag. If we link to here then I think it will be ok. I can initiate this if that’s what we want. Parse.com obviously makes no sense. Parse-Platform sounds good. It’s a shame that Parse is not an easily google ale thing. — W

…

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On 16 Mar 2019, at 10:29, Tom Fox ***@***.***> wrote: Maybe we keep parse-server and rename parse.com? Sent with GitHawk — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[awgeorge]

Wow - people are still actively using the tag parse.com.

[TomWFox]

Yep, it’s a bit of a mess. That’s why it makes sense to rename the tag - there is also a “parse” tag but that only has 58 questions with the last one being over 5 months old so I don’t think we should direct people to that.

[TomWFox]

@acinader & @dplewis - are you happy for @awgeorge to request the change of the “parse.com” tag to “parse-platform”?

[acinader]

that would be great!

[awgeorge]

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/381447/rename-tag-parse-com-to-parse-platform

[TomWFox]

🎉 The parse.com tag has now been renamed to parse-platform 🎉 - Thanks @awgeorge

I have started a PR (#23 on the website repo) to make the changes clear.

I've also announced this on the Gitter chat and I will add an announcement on the community forum too.

[acinader]

so uh, how about now we try to combine parse-server and parse-platform under parse-platform?

[awgeorge]

Not sure - you need to use at least 3 tags when creating a ticket. I would keep it so we can target the difference between SDK and serverside.

[acinader]

well, I don't think that the tags parse-platform and parse-server make it clear which to use when.

I have never asked a StackOverflow question (I've answered a bunch :) but the instructions say 1 - 5 tags which seem to be confirmed by this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55288329/cannot-get-in-node-js

I'd expect that someone would use a combination like parse-platform, node or parse-platform, iOS, etc.

My goal is to focus power in one place in the hopes of hitting some critical mass to achieve a network effect (how do you like that buzzword use!?) and I think that having a single tag gives us the best chance of hitting escape velocity (+1).

[awgeorge]

No - you're correct - it's three on meta. One on the main website.

[acinader]

@awgeorge see: https://github.com/parse-community/parse-community.github.io/pull/23/files#diff-eacf331f0ffc35d4b482f1d15a887d3bR19

[TomWFox]

I think @acinader is right about merging the tags - in reality the questions being asked on the parse-server tag and the parse-platform tag (formerly parse.com) are more or less the same. In fact often as people were unsure they would use both.

With regard to where 'hosting' related question should be asked, I think the 'parse' tag on server fault can be used if that is what we want? - unless we just want to direct those to the forum?

[awgeorge]

Sounds like a good plan. I’ve upvoted your so post: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/364789/should-we-make-tag-parse-com-a-synonym-of-parse-server?r=SearchResults

[acinader]

Any feedback that you guys would like to add, I think that Manual and I are having a useful conversation. Def not asking you to agree with me, cause I am interested in the best outcome, not my outcome ;).

[awgeorge]

Without the tag, how do you want people to tag between, [parse-platform] the server, and [parse-platform] the JS SDK? - It's possible that both camps will use [parse-platform] [node]. Hence why I thought having both would be reasonable.

I think people would tag [parse-platform] [parse-server] for questions specifically related to the server, and I do think they would include the platform tag anyway.

[awgeorge]

However - just because the tag exists, you don't have to document it. :)

[TomWFox]

This may be a stupid question but are there actually code level questions that people could have about the actual parse server?

My understanding is that you configure and deploy the server and then leave it alone? The only thing I can think of is cloud code which seems to have a tag already - [parse-cloud]

[TomWFox]

@awgeorge with regard to specifying the JS SDK there is also a [parse-javascript-sdk] tag.

At least as a starting point if all questions use the [parse-platform] tag they are then all in the same place and further tags can be used or not because the title and description (of a question) will obviously specify in more details.

[awgeorge]

If there seems to be a tag for everything, then why wouldn't there be one for the server. We have the express server code, docker problems running the server, maybe help to try to patch the server, or contribute code towards the server.

However, I wholly agree that the tag is currently being used mainly to denote the fact that they use the parse-platform, although there are a handful of people using it how I imagined.

Whatever we agree, I have Edit privileges so will start retagging questions with parse-platform

[acinader]

ha. @awgeorge you just convinced me. I didn't even realize that there were other tags. parse.com and parse-server just happened to be the two I monitored. so I am just tilting at windmills here.

I think we did good by changing parse.com to parse-platform

I think that changing our docs to point to parse-platform is the right way to go and thanks to you two for undertaking it.

I'm going to a) close this now but re-open if you think we need to pursue and b) I'm going to recant on meta. (and link here).

[TomWFox]

@acinader @awgeorge

I think there is one thing we haven't concluded - there is a parse tag on server fault which I believe can be used for questions about hosting (this should probably be named parse-server but that's beside the point).

The question is do we want to document / direct people to this or do we want these questions asked on the forum? - currently we have a bit of a mix.

[acinader]

do you have an opinion?

[TomWFox]

I'm not too fussed, I'm slightly inclined to direct people to the server fault tag for three reasons:

1. I think the forum is best for discussion and shouldn't be bogged down with too much Q&A
2. There are experts in areas such as AWS that may answer questions there but not on the Community Forum as they do not actively use the Parse Platform
3. There a community moderators that hopefully mark duplicates etc - which perhaps reduces the workload on us

[acinader]

works for me

[TomWFox]

Ok, I’ll go with that then.

[awgeorge]

Yes, server fault is suited for non-coding server related questions and we should direct people there if we know they're going to get answers. I still feel that people may genuinely have SO related coding questions regarding the server portion, but don't have to document it.

[TomWFox]

@awgeorge no that’s fine, I’ll document the parse-server tag as it seems you and @acinader are in agreement on that. I will make the adjustments to the website tomorrow as it’s 1am here now.

[TomWFox]

@acinader I think we can close this again now.