What do people think about adding categories for bitcoin-related projects?
I’ve been thinking about adding one for bitcoin-inquisition for announcements/discussions, and maybe it would be interesting for other projects that don’t want to admin their own dedicated forum?
It’s apparently possible to make a group for the project owners and give them permission to moderate posts in their category.
Maybe just add something like ‘tools and libraries’ category ?
Although with your example, bitcoin-inquisition, this might not work, as it is neither exactly a “tool” nor a “library”. But maybe you could classify it as a “tool” for a “deep investigation of the value of proposed consensus changes”
I like the term “working group” for a group that’s focussed on a topic, particularly if it’s probably not going to go on indefinitely, and in that vein there’s now a wg-blockrelay group/category for discussing expanding the number of block-relay-only connections bitcoin core peers make/accept cf #28462.
Combining a category with a group makes it possible to:
We’ve also had wg-cluster-mempool going for a little while now; previously it was private to the group members; it’s now public, but read-only if you’re not a group member. Happy to setup variations of this for other groups, if there’s interest.
Was thinking wg-silent-payments might make sense? Currently having discussions in several different places about:
A lot of these discussions feel too early for draft BIPs/mailing list posts, hence a working group feels like a good fit?
(Created wg-silent-payments after discussing offline)
Is the goal for all wg- tags to indicate that a topic only accepts replies from allowlisted group members?
I just spent a bunch of time trying to understand a proposal tagged with a wg- and am frustrated that I can’t reply unless I beg someone for permission. I want to avoid wasting my time in the future, so I want to know if I should just read wg- tagged stuff as “Ignore this for now”.
To be clear, I appreciate the idea of small group discussions being publicly archived for posterity. Thank you to @ajtowns for setting that up and to everyone who is using that feature. I just don’t want to read stuff until I can do something with it.
It varies per group.
The only group that currently has public read but not public comment/post is the silent payments working group, but as mentioned in its “about” post, all you have to do is go to the wg page and click join, no begging for permission needed.
Is there any way groups with different posting policies could be distinguished from each other? Maybe cwg- for closed working groups ? Alternatively a label like closed on any non-open discussions
I understand the benefits of closed working groups for developing ideas that aren’t ready for public criticism yet, especially unthoughtful criticism from entrenched opposition—but I think it’s important to label any closed discussion as such. I don’t want to see a discussion among experts and come to a mistaken belief that it represents a consensus opinion when critics didn’t have an opportunity to reply.
Additionally, I think it’s advantageous to members of a closed group to see that their posts are still protected from inline criticism from outside the group. Otherwise I worry they too may come to a mistaken belief that they have discussed an idea sufficiently enough that it represents a consensus opinion.
If discussion of silent payments is meant to be open, why do I need to join rather than just reply like in wg-blockrelay or have it just be a tag like for wg-cluster-mempool ?
Creating an open group was my intention. Still figuring out how delving works, so I think this is a classic “never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity” 
I was under the impression for any wg you needed to join before being able to post, but if its possible to have the group where anyone can reply without joining I’d prefer that. My main reason for wanting a working group is to group different topics under the same category.