The Mozilla community in general. There are almost no limits on what we can do here (we wouldn’t want bugs coming here for instance).
It’s supposed to be a replacement for the mailing list/google group set-up
It’s open-source software that is hackable, and shows the power of the web. It’s pushing online communication to the next level and we can be a part of that.
Hi @yousef,
What I got is that Discourse is meant to be the mailing list replacement. Is this sentiment shared by the current group of users?
I ask this because if there is clarity and shared understanding on the goals and time frame of the evaluation, as well as the stakeholders on the ultimate approval on replacing mailing lists in lieu of Discourse, I think there would be less second guessing.
We have some users using it as a replacement for yammer (TCP) and others using it as a replacement for lists (us). Currently, a lot of mailing list users don’t want to make the jump as we haven’t got starting threads by email implemented yet.
There’s an etherpad for current needs/wants here
The discussion at this thread is also worth noting for current feedback:
http://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/tcp-discussion-forum-thoughts/327
Hi @yousef,
I think from your reply, this makes the target users of Discourse are:
Mozillians who use the mailing lists for discussions in the open
I’m part of the Yammer and I think it serves a different purpose. It’s more like an internal social tool (stuff people outside of the Mozilla community would not be interested in, time-sensitive matter like launch info, etc.) There are also files and recognition features in Yammer as well.
Going back to the mailing list users, if Discourse would be the replacement, then it would make sense to get feedback from people who value it and use it.
Also, I also think positioning Discourse as an “upgrade” to mailing lists is better than “replacement” if it does present better features and will make the the target users happier.
@regnard - some of that stuff that you list, really shouldn’t be locked down in a private tool. It’s basically stuff that would go on the mailing lists except people want an easy way to restrict access. It would be useful to find out what other features of yammer are regularly used, but it’s my understanding that the primary purpose was to be a communication channel like the mailing lists, but with easier to create groups and easier to control access.
Depending on the use cases, Discourse has the potential to replace either system, though that’s not to say we’ll try to replace both with one tool, unless that becomes natural. We’d follow the path with the most potential, that’s also going to be affected by which features are missing for the different use cases.
@Kensie I don’t know, but Yammer has positioned itself as an internal social network. We had that in a company I used to work for and it basically functioned as a replacement for the corporate intranet.
With that said, Yammer would not be a good replacement for mailing lists (low barrier, archived discussions in the open) but I suspect that it’s there for a different purpose.
The way I see it, Discourse in its current form would not be suitable to take on Yammer, but would have a better shot at swaying mailing list users.
It would really be good to ask long-time mailing list users to try Discourse out and see what they think of the platform-- this would be a gold mine of insight.
In Discourse you can have “private categories”, and the plan is support Mozillians API to restrict some categories to certain groups in Mozillians.org.
Hi @nukeador,
If that’s the case then, I would say that Discourse is not ready it its current state to serve as an enhancement to the current channels it is challenging (email lists & Yammer). We’d have to hack on Discourse to hammer it to a version to meet the requirements of the community.
Not being ready yet for that scenario doesn’t mean it’s not ready at all for the rest of them, as you can see with the active categories here 
Yes, it’s a work in progress, but as I mentioned, I’m curious to what long time mailing list folks would say about Discourse.
Alternatively, if Discourse gets the features to integrate with the mailing list (like Google Groups), that would be the killer app.
There’s a loong thread on mozillians mailing list about Discourse pros and cons from different perspectives.
I think as soon as we have the “create a thread by email”, a mailing list person should be able to use it in the same way, I don’t know if @majken knows the status of our needs.
I’d love to get some some help from fellow Discourse users. I’m evaluating Discourse to become the central place for a project I’m working on, amongst different options (Yammer & mailing-lists are other options that are considered).
Could someone help me list the pros & cons of Discourse vs mailing-lists vs Yammer?
I love mailing lists but I’m quite old-school and I spend a lot of time doing email. Would Discourse help in order to engage with community members that are more mobile-oriented?
Any feedback on this topic is welcome 
–Tristan, new to Discourse.
Community IT has entirely moved away from our old mailman list to
Discourse, and I prefer Discourse. One feature that makes Discourse really
nice, imo, is that you can subscribe to an entire category, just like
subscribing to a list, but then if there are discussions that aren’t
relevant to you, you’re able to ignore that discussion.
Discourse can act like a mailing list, and you can reply to emails it
sends, but it also has a nice interface for web and mobile devices.
I can’t really think of any advantages Mailman has over Discourse, other
than the fact that it can email you your password in plain text… Though
that’s not a good thing!
Discourse FAQ has some answers.
I guess, no email checking needed (in-build notifications) and mobile view would be really useful for what you have in mind.
Thank you Nukeador for these details. I’m trying Discourse from my mobile running Firefox for Android. Nice responsive interface!
Is there also a native app available or is it Web only?
–Tristan
It’s web-only. We actually have a webapp on the Firefox marketplace, but I’ve had to take it off since it doesn’t play nicely with the Persona authentication popup.
Thanks for the quick response!
One issue that we have is that stuff discussed between CommSquared members is confidential. I understand that we can decide that a category can be made private. But who’s able to read the content of the discussion if it’s in a private category?
How can I make a private category?
Thanks in advance,
–Tristan
PS: I’m hope I’m not too annoying with my seemingly clueless questions
If you’d like to use our Discourse instance (you’re more than welcome to) we can give you the permissions to add people to a group which can read/post to a private category.
We’ve also had the idea of restricting access based on Mozillians groups but we haven’t found anyone interested in creating the plugin.
I’d love to try Discourse for our CommSquared initiative. We don’t know for sure if it’s going to be our main communication tool, but that’s the point of this evaluation phase.
May I be granted the permissions to add people to a group which can read/post to a private category, please?
I’d also love a CommSquared private category to be created.
Thanks,
–Tristan
I was going to split out Tristan’s questions to give it more visibility, but I haven’t done that before, and I am totally missing how to do it (I’m sure I’ve seen it done besides the reply as topic button?)
Btw Tristan, you should check out the reply as topic button anyway as a feature.