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HyperNews for LHCb Tim Adye Rutherford Appleton Laboratory LHCb Core Software Meeting 12th July 2006 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 1 Outline • What is HyperNews? • Why switch? • Advantages and disadvantages WRT Simba2 • Why not some other technology? • Some use cases • How do we get started? • Start with lhcb-core-soft? • References 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 2 What is HyperNews? • For us, it could be a replacement for most Simba2 mailing lists • Also has features of • web fora / bulletin board systems (like RootTalk) • news/announcement system (like Usenet) • Not intended to replace TWiki or web pages • Open-source project • Originally hypernews.org (at least since 1994) • Adopted and improved by BaBar (since 1997) • Now in use by H1, STAR, Geant4,... • more recently CMS and ATLAS • Continuing development within the HEP community • HyperNews server managed by LCG/SPI • Now includes an LHCb instance 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 3 Why Change from Simba2? • Web archive is central to HyperNews • single, integrated, system instead of disjoint mailing lists • displays threads • Threads, sub-threads, individual postings have a static URL for easy reference • easy to browse, very fast to search • I searched for “database” in 250,000 BaBar posts. It found 18,000 in under a second • different views, eg. • show recent posts in all or some fora • show whole thread/forum text on one page (eg. to print) • Can post via the web or e-mail • can post Wiki-like “smart text”, plain text, HTML 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 4 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 5 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 6 Give it a try in the “HyperNews Test Forum” HyperNews Features (2) • Can subscribe to receive posts as e-mails • Simple and powerful control of what you receive • Whole forum or individual threads • Automatically subscribed to replies to your posts • Can switch off all e-mails without losing subscriptions • eg. when going on holiday – it’s all still there when you get back! • Reply to post with e-mail, or follow link to web display • ... or keep up-to-date / catch up via the web • “recent posts” page • ... or some people use a combination of the two • New discussion fora can be requested by web form • Sends me an e-mail and I then create it manually • still a rather cumbersome process • includes creating Simba2 back-end, so may take a day or so 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 8 Limitations of HyperNews • All fora are open to all collaboration members • private lists should remain in Simba2 • All e-mails to/from HyperNews are converted to plain text • attachments are stripped off – give a URL instead • good practice anyway – don’t fill up peoples’ inboxes • URLs are automatically turned into links in web view • Used to be a problem with threading posts from Microsoft Exchange • MS hotfix in January (applied at CERN, RAL,...) • After only 29 years, Microsoft support SMTP RFC! • HyperNews development continues • Eg. limited attachment support 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 10 Why not use <insert-cool-technology> instead? • I haven’t done a survey but, for collaboration, I find HyperNews the most convenient • cf. Usenet, BBS (like RootTalk), discussion ‘blogs • and of course mailing lists and private mails • It is widely used in HEP, so familiar to some • Ask any former BaBarian, and they’ll tell you how much they miss HyperNews • LCG run the server for us • We know the developers • at SLAC and CERN (Pete Elmer, CMS) 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 11 Discussion fora (1) • Everyone should subscribe to “HyperNews System Announcements” • New fora announced here, allowing people to subscribe • Eventually could migrate nearly everything that currently has a mailing list • Eg. one forum for each detector and software subsystem • In some cases, it is useful to have separate “development discussions” and “user questions” fora • Experts subscribe to, or watch, both • Users post to the latter, receive e-mail responses without having to subscribe • Can also browse/search this forum to see if it has already been answered • Soon users start to help other 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 12 Discussion fora (2) • “Task forces” and system/paper reviews have their own fora • Separates out short-term discussion, while maintaining a record in the archive • Can also be used as a shared record of important e-mails • Eg. communications with journals, approvals, minutes of external meetings, etc. • Just forward them to the appropriate e-mail gateway address • I already created some generic fora • Linux, programming, and (La)TeX questions • HyperNews announcements, feedback, and test • Use “HyperNews Test Forum” to play with the system • CERN Computing Announcements • Automatic feed from [email protected] • Chat and discussion that doesn’t fit elsewhere 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 13 Other Use Cases • If a question or discussion has come up before, just post a link to it • No need to copy text • The questioner can see the full discussion / thread • Sometimes a discussion strays to another forum’s topic • Post replies in new forum with link to old + quick link oldnew • Short-term documentation, recipes, and kicks can be posted as a HyperNews announcement with a link from the documentation • When it becomes obsolete, remove the link • a record remains of what people recommended • Sort-term only: not a substitute for proper documentation! • Can easily migrate to Wiki 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 14 How do we get started? • If people approve, can start using it for new fora right away • Ulrik Egede already asked for one • Try migrating an existing list, see how it goes • Start with lhcb-core-soft? • Post an announcement to list • close the old list to new posts? • Migrate the rest adiabatically, or all at once? • Probably easiest to let each group manage their own transition 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 15 Would be useful to decide on some forum categories early on • Fora requested by each group, but categories defined in advance • can be changed of course, but not from the web form • Currently have: • • • • Computing Computing Operations General Discussions HyperNews • Perhaps add: • • • • • • or one category per subsystem? • Could add now or later: • National Discussions • Collaboration Matters • Journal Paper Reviews • Detector Operations 12th July 2006 Online Computing Offline Computing Physics Analysis Trigger Detector Subsystems Tim Adye 16 Final Thoughts • Effective communication is crucial in a large(ish) geographically-distributed collaboration like LHCb • Meetings, documentation, TWiki, and e-mail all useful forms of communication • But e-mail has problems when collaborating with many people • private e-mail restricted to those in the loop • mailing lists OK for announcements, not so good for discussion • mailing lists most useful if also easily used after the fact • HyperNews addresses these issues • makes collaboration e-mail more Wiki-like • encourages open communication • opens up archive – documentation for free 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 17 References • HyperNews development • D.A.Smith, P.Elmer, T.Hung, HyperNews - managing discussions in HEP, CHEP06 • http://hypernews.slac.stanford.edu/ • LHCb instance • https://hypernews.cern.ch/HyperNews/LHCb/top.pl which will be linked from (if LHCb HyperNews is approved) • https://hypernews.cern.ch/ 12th July 2006 Tim Adye 18
