Do you use GitHub Discussions to suggest new ideas? - Chewing the Fat 📈

[piers-sinclair]

Contributors: @wicksipedia @pierssinclairssw @SamBWagner @bradystroud @adamcogan

Let's talk about this rule:
https://www.ssw.com.au/rules/use-github-discussions/

[GordonBeeming]

I think we should rather link to GitHub for the overall example of this working well. That then also lets people know where to go to suggest features for GitHub itself.

https://github.com/community/community/discussions

[billyterblanche]

I haven't used GitHub Discussions yet, but from what I can see it seems to be pretty neat. I quite like the upvote feature as this allows for better visibility to the topics that matter.

[tiagov8]

I've experienced a circumstance where I felt my new Issue wasn't in the right place... because it was more of a question than a request. Now I know where it belonged to :)

PS. Much better than an email thread!

[2fernandez]

I like it. First time I used GitHub discussions was on @matt-goldman blog.
Very cool Tech. Though I though find that GitHub's general UX a bit lacking.

[leehawkinsssw]

I wasn't aware of this feature in GitHub but it looks useful and has all the features I'd expect of a feature of this type. I can see plenty of use cases for this and maybe we can handle the "Suggestions" items in SugarLearning using GitHub Discussions rather than emails.

I'd like us to decide whether GitHub Discussions is a thing or are a thing, and then be consistent in the rule and other places we refer to it/them.

[bradystroud]

I think there are some frequent emails that we could move to Discussions to reduce inbox noise

[brydeno]

This certainly makes sense when used as part of the whole github package. ie keeping all your concerns handled on one platform. Makes a lot less sense for houses using say Jira to track work.

[jakebayliss]

Haven't had the chance to use it yet but this looks great and packs a whole lot of cool features. We will definitely be able to move a whole lot of discussions (pun intended) away from email/teams and onto here and have them available to everyone

[BrookJeynes]

GitHub discussions seems like a great idea for projects that are based on Github. It allows everything related to the project to be kept on a single platform allowing easier access to the required information.

[UlyssesMaclaren]

Very cool... I always wondered what the correct place to store these "pre-PBI" discussions should be... up till now it's been Teams chats and emails

[Levijj22]

Seems like a great platform, especially the upvote feature!
Less emails the better!

[danielmackay]

I love the idea of GitHub discussions. It makes it much easier to follow a conversation especially if you get 'looped' in halfway through. I do wonder about privacy though. Some discussions may not be best had in public, and some people may not be as open/honest if they know their comments can be seen by everyone.

However, I think in a lot of cases it can be great. Often good ideas can feed off other good ideas and iterate to become amazing ideas!

Love the idea of converting discussions to issues, to instantly include all context for a PBI.

As for the rule, it provides some great general advise as to how discussions should be used. I would like to see some proposals as to how specifically we would use this at SSW.

[tkapa]

I like the idea of primarily using GitHub Discussions when it comes to GitHub projects. There seems to be a lot of nice to have features from the get go, which makes them valuable.

I think that the rule is far too long.

The dot points at the beginning get across the major uses for discussions which is great, but then goes back through them again, which isn't necessary.

The flow of Discussion -> Issue -> Pull Request. I don't believe that the rule needs more content past this.

[SamBWagner]

@tkapa test

[kikibianc]

Discussions seems cool, but I doubt the SysAdmin team will use it a lot :)

[ozdemir-mehmet]

Looks fine, but I'll probably stick with Issues

[SofieHong]

Great idea! Compared to emails, GitHub discussions are a convenient way to see what other people say.

[premradhakrishnan]

Pros -

• It fills the gap that exists between ideas floating around and GitHub Issues.
• The upvote feature is great as popular ideas get more visibility
• Also provides transparency to how long ago a feature was requsted.

Cons -

• On large projects, I think a certain amount of admin moderation is required to keep the number of discussions in check or it can become like StackOverflow where the same question gets posted multiple times.

[vladislav-kir]

I never used GitHub Discussions before, but I think it can be useful for some projects. For example, putting suggestions for SugarLearning or Rules in Discussions would be better than sending them in emails.

[Berber-Mama]

Wow, it looks like a new world to me! It's good to see others' comments here, it helps me to understand what's going on and the discussion history. 😊

[Freego1783]

I never had the occasion to use GitHub discussions, but it looks promising. I think it can be really useful to manage customer support/FAQ and product announcements.

[AlexRothwell]

I'm loving the looks of GitHub Discussions so far, it absolutely looks like a great tool for discussing new feature ideas before they have been fully worked out

Also, being a central source of truth means that everyone can always see the latest state of things

Additional visibility to all who can access the repository is another bonus - someone might not have been included in initial discussions but have something to add. Rather than relying on everyone in an email thread to know of everyone who's interested, people can add themselves to the discussion

[camillars]

Great feature for collaboration from GitHub - cool to see everyone's thoughts together and be able to engage with each one.

[Hona]

Its good for a more casual forum setting from GitHub. However, it is now hard to differentiate between issue/discussions. I feel it needs some wider adoption to make the process smooth.
We could use Discussions as a knowledge base, or even a decision record (with the reasoning, from the conversation!).

Also, we can use this automatically linked to Rules for example via: https://giscus.app/

[ozairashfaqueSSW]

Awesone feature, we can replace emails with GitHub discussions

[Ben0189]

This is the first time I have used GitHub discussion, and it has better readability than email. It is a great idea to replace some emails with GitHub discussion

[AshAnil]

The GitHub discussion is an excellent feature... Reduces the email noise, and better chat history. I loved the up votes option but would prefer the names of the person who voted in that particular discussion

[JackDuan123]

What I learned:

All companies are trying to do everything on their platform, it seems like they are under huge pressure from their share holders.
I feel sorry for them.

[calumjs]

I learnt that this feature exists

[ravidhaduk]

Knew about this but never used it. Seems like fewer emails from now on (if we really use it 😊). 👍👍

[Calvin-Lieu]

Haven't used this before, looks like a convenient feature which is worth looking into.