Server migration corrections

[silver marsh]

Okay! Tossing this thread up for everyone to document any corrections spotted from the server migration, so it's all in one place for @normal venture !

the link to #1284965988642590891 in #find-support message is pointing to the dev dashboards, not the support dashboards

[ancient pebble]

add the ability to post pictures to these forums for everyone!

[normal venture]

This is sorted now.

[normal venture]

I'll review this today - I did already see the convos about it.

[normal venture]

Thing I am going to review:
Renaming #1284966617670881350.

Thing I am going to change:
#find-support formatting

[serene wedge]

https://tenor.com/view/thing1-thing2-mike-myers-cat-in-the-hat-gif-11306307

[jade yew]

Another thought, how about renaming #creator-connection to the-creators-vault

[normal venture]

So, the intent behind this was to be open to anyone's content, not specifically our creators.

Does it seem like it would be too specific to call it creators in this sense, or would it be confused with, say, 3d printing?

[jade yew]

Just going off your first sentence, isn't that what shameless self promo is for?

maybe that's all we need

[ancient pebble]

#look-wut-i-made. #this-is-mine

[normal venture]

Hmm hmmm hmmm.

[ancient pebble]

I actually like the channel name #this-is-mine.. short and sweet

[normal venture]

Okay. Regarding content - I will change it to creators-vault. Then what I am going to do is sit and wait to see what activity looks like. I personally feel like the 3 separate channels have different intents, but it's possible people go to one channel over the other to share things.

[normal venture]

@lucid finch How does this look in your opinion? (Since you raised it.)

[normal venture]

Thing I will address:
Implementing a hardware/DIY channel. Currently leaning towards "the-workshop".

[shrewd nexus]

Just gonna repost my thought in here so it doesn't get lost in the general topic - I'd like to see community channels that are focused on "on topic" discussion related to home assistant; many of the channel feel right now like "off topic" channels where most discussion is unrelated to home assistant. It might be good to provide separate community channels for aspects of HA that have significant users, but are irrelevant to other people ("diy" is an example; me and a few other folks have mentioned the old zigbee/zwave/etc channels as having non-support discussion that was only relevant to people who had bought into the relevant hardware ecosystem.)

[lucid finch]

Looks a lot better, imo.

I actually played with having an AI format it yesterday too, if you want:

[normal venture]

I’ll mess with it a bit in the morning, but that will be fun to test.

Appreciate the feedback.

[lucid finch]

er, I posted the wrong text file

That was my prompt, not the result

There we go

[dreamy turret]

That sounds like a good name to me!

[young trail]

@normal venture A nice addition to the #1284966353798697001 channel description might be to note that people should specify their country when asking for product recommendations.
This is too much of a global community for people to assume others will know they're looking for 120V NA-spec hardware.

[normal venture]

Huh. I swear I had that noted somewhere but I don't see it in anything. Maybe I left it out from the staging server. I'll get something in there.

You are thinking in the Posting Guidelines and not the Start Here thread, yes?

[young trail]

Yeah, something along those lines

"Please specific the required country and/or voltage for mains-powered devices when asking for product recommendations"

Nothing fancy 🙂

I just replied to this person: https://discord.com/channels/330944238910963714/1286259144277364758 but no idea if I'm just assuming wrongly that this is a case of "USA is the default if unspecified" and 120V product is even what they want 🤷‍♂️

[normal venture]

How do they Posting Guidelines look with the new addition?

Happy to adjust wording, too.

[young trail]

Looks great, might add "no-neutral" in your list of features, because it's one people do tend to often forget

[normal venture]

How do you mean?

[young trail]

Where you've said

Any features you are searching for (such as power monitoring, dimming, etc)

"no-neutral wall switches" would be another biggie

Just a small, but significant bugbear. Someone asks for a smart switch, you make a product suggestion, and only then do they drop the "oh I don't have a neutral wire" nugget'

[normal venture]

Ah, yep, cool thank you! Hardware is not my forté, I am sure people have realized this by now.

There we go. Thanks again! 😄

[normal venture]

I have adjusted the formatting in this channel to be less of a wall of text.

[serene wedge]

Maybe add the word cameras to the hardware thing, as you suggested yesterday? #community-updates message

@normal venture

[normal venture]

I’m on my weekend. All other requests will be acknowledged next week. 😄

[normal venture]

Done. Thank you.

[normal venture]

I will be renaming the #1284966617670881350 channel to open-home-protocols based on discussions with my coworkers and community members who are finding better homes for some tags in this channel.

This means Analytics doesn't really have a good home there now, but it also doesn't have a fitting home in other channels.

The current suggestion is that there is a channel created dedicated to databases. Other thoughts include having an Analytics tag in both #1284965172053807145 and #1284966582375813201, or having its dedicated home in either one of those. I would love to hear thoughts on this!

[ancient pebble]

any reason why there can't be a channel named, cameras, zigbee, zwave etc etc etc?

[normal venture]

Reducing channels was a huge part of this change, and the "related tech" category was a mess before.

The goal of the name change is to be clear in what is talked about in there. And cameras have a home in #1284966353798697001.

[young trail]

TBH since 98% of the camera chat was Frigate, they could probably use their own Discord server these days

[serene wedge]

That would be an awesome suggestion to bring up to them. I would be fine sending customers there if the option were available. Start a Petition!

[night moth]

Why not rename #1284965172053807145 to other-software and let it then catch all of that?

[ancient pebble]

wouldn't that bounce stuff like z2m between that channel and the related-tech?

[night moth]

Yeah, but we already get people with the add-on that post there

[normal venture]

Add ons is aligned with what the website says when it comes to the overall product. So rather than having it all lump together, pulling it out and having clear definitions of each channel helps there.

To that point, HA isn’t exactly well organized and that causes most of my problems here - everything can easily be related to another aspect of the product, almost always having 2 spots someone could post and it be accurate.

[night moth]

My problem is that InfluxDB the software then doesn't fit anywhere if it's not an add-on. Maybe another channel is needed after all

[normal venture]

Yeah, that's why I think the database channel was thrown out as a suggestion - it's a valid aspect of HA but it isn't an OFFICIAL part of it.

[night moth]

Needs a wider scope really, what about Mosquitto for example?

(or is that the new open-home-protocols)?

[normal venture]

Is it a protocol specifically?

I haven't seen that one mentioned yet.

[night moth]

MQTT is the protocol, Mosquitto is the commonly used broker software

Both as an add-on and not

[normal venture]

Which brings me right back to this point of almost everything could have 2 homes.

[night moth]

Well, some things have no home 😛

As long as it's clear and consistent I don't care, I just care that software not installed as an add-on has a home

[ancient pebble]

#1284965172053807145/additions

[jade yew]

I mean based on the amount of posts in add-ons, why not just merge it with integrations and have an integrations tag and an add-ons tag

[normal venture]

Hmmm. That isn't an awful suggestion. It at least fits in the channel width.

[ancient pebble]

maybe you should split the support catagory into 2. core and 3rd party

[normal venture]

Ooooohhhhhhhh

[ancient pebble]

everyone knows the term 3rd party term. shocked that isn't being used lol

[normal venture]

I'd need to take that back to the team to adjust, but that's also solid.

MOSTLY because one of their biggest requests is that people know where to go when they land in here, and that includes keeping things aligned with how they are on the website or in HA itself.

We may understand that, but there are a lot of less technical people getting into this shit.

[jade yew]

Yep, and that need is only going to increase as HA gets more mainstream.

[normal venture]

So I think merging integrations and add ons would be doable, but doing generic terms common in the tech industry may cause confusion with the real newbies.

[jade yew]

I agree. I also think we have that issue with addons and integrations separated-- bringing them together I think is clearer for "real newbies."

[ancient pebble]

i mean.. no

depending on install you wouldn't even know what an add-on was

[jade yew]

yes I know-- but most people understand "integration"

[night moth]

That's optimistic... lots call everything a "plugin"

[jade yew]

I think we've had this conversation before.

[normal venture]

That's why I believe leading the channel with integrations would be better than add ons.

[ancient pebble]

reality is, it won't matter. people will still get lost and still ask in the water cooler lol

this server needs a somewhat competent ai chat bot to intercept questions in chat channels lol

[jade yew]

I thought that was you?

[ancient pebble]

you see a color on my name? but I see a color on yours...

[normal venture]

Yeah, that won't happen, lmao. It's a dream state, but AI is still too expensive (both monetarily and resource consumption) to implement something like that.

😅

[jade yew]

(Missy, somewhat competent ai would be an excellent role)

[ancient pebble]

change crows to that lol

[normal venture]

Lol nooooooooo the normies will take it seriously!

But not if it were a joke one.

Like Bill's special role.

[jade yew]

assign it to me and I'll just start replying potato to everything

[dreamy turret]

Build a Markov bot, give it that role, only have it reply if it's @'d, for it's data set just feed it all the home assistant docs

Classic Markov bot chat can never be beat by ai

[normal venture]

This is a pretty fun thing to consider. lol.

[serene wedge]

Add-on topic Start-Here #1...

First, we highly encourage people to do a search on our Discourse forums - it's possible that your situation has a solution elsewhere! The community repository of add-ons can be found on our forums, so there's a high chance you can find your answer there.

I suggest an edit to help them search the forum...

First, we highly encourage people to do a search on our Discourse forums - it's possible that your situation has a solution elsewhere! The community repository of add-ons can be found on our forums, so there's a high chance you can find your answer there. Plug this into your search engine: -BOLD THIS-> site:community.home-assistant.io YourDearchTopicHere

Suggestion for you.

[normal venture]

Well, the link in there goes straight to the section for the community repo, but also we all know how well search works there...

[serene wedge]

This one will narrow in on the actual thing they want though. And only looks in the forum. It's a suggestion. It it doesn't fit I'm cool with that.

[normal venture]

No no, I understand the point of this. I think we have been a part of several conversations in which we have said that search engine queries are the way to do searches.

[serene wedge]

I must haveclicked some safety thing on my discxord somewhere. No external links work any longer. I have to copy links and paste them in the browser.

[normal venture]

WEIRD.

[serene wedge]

ya, hated it at first, now it makes me actually feel safer I won't bad-click something.

[normal venture]

I wonder if you aren't seeing the pop up that says "trust links from this place" when you click and that's the issue?

[serene wedge]

I did see that for the community forum just now,but the actual link not so much. Ptobably a thing in the default browser firefox not accepting stuff.

[normal venture]

AH yeah, probably. P R I V A C Y and S E C U R I T Y.

[serene wedge]

If you do decide to in places to external links, this keeps them inhouse...https://community.home-assistant.io/t/tips-on-searching-for-answers-duplicate-topics-in-the-forum/703275

[normal venture]

Cool, I'll adjust things and share it with the Crows for feedback first like I am doing with the searching Discord bullets.

[serene wedge]

You may consider the reddit and facebook stuff inhouse, but I don't... And it filters out vloggers.

[normal venture]

I have a couple channels that have updates that need to be communicated today, so this could fall in line with that.

[shrewd nexus]

It would be helpful to be able to tag forum posts (under related-tech?) specifically with ZHA ("Zigbee Home Automation") or Zigbee2MQTT - those are both Zigbee integrations, but they behave quite a bit differently. Also note that Z2M is technically available as an Addon, leading to some channel confusion.

[normal venture]

Ahhh you mean separating out the specific Zigbee integrations?

Instead of just the one tag?

#1284966617670881350 does have the Zigbee one.

[shrewd nexus]

it's kind of tricky - some things are related to the behaviour of a specific integration, but people might also have support questions related to zigbee in general, like optimizing meshes or picking devices (or even asking for help picking which integration they should use)

[normal venture]

And to your point of integrations vs add-ons confusion - I kind of ran into that with #1284966915055288530 but think I found a nice balance on how to include everything regarding that.

[normal venture]

Very fair. So I could keep Zigbee, add ZHA and Z2M?

[shrewd nexus]

I think that might be useful, yeah.

[normal venture]

Sweet, I'll note that for the switch.

[sly lily]

https://tenor.com/view/uni-cat-bowtie-cute-hi-gif-500744924715907421

[lofty schooner]

havent seen it being mentioned before here, but there is also this.
If aligning to the HA wording/concepts would be important, as the team justly states, why not have this in the channels also? For non 3d party topics that is. Add those like already done, and all is covered?

seems the full picture of the HA ecosystem people experience on a day to day base

[night moth]

I wonder if the blurb for #1284966582375813201 in #find-support should also mention Helpers - it seems like people aren't connecting helpers to integrations

[normal venture]

Hmmmm okay. Seems like the link out of the server may not be working as intended. I'll adjust that.

[marble swift]

After this short period of the new system I find that I'm reluctant in posting short quick questions that probably have a quick answer. It doesn't really fit into the thread system imo. I've seen other servers have a dedicated channel for quick questions that seemingly work ok. Just tossing it out there if you haven't considered it.

[normal venture]

Curious to know why you don’t hop into things like #the-water-cooler or #the-workshop to do this?

[night moth]

There’s no support here
Just sayin 😛

[normal venture]

Support and asking a quick question are different.

Support is when you need to go through a ton of troubleshooting to figure out what you are having issues with. A quick question is "anyone else use this thing?" and then there is convos.

[normal venture]

Like, here's an example of where a convo took off that is more geared towards helping someone but there isn't full troubleshooting happening in one of the community channels. #the-water-cooler message

The mods will suggest moving to a support channel if things take off in a support manner. I've watched them do this a few times.

[polar ice]

Good example.

[silver marsh]

Maybe clarifying the no support messages to "no detailed support" or something would help

[night moth]

And at what point does it become "detailed"?

I think the simple questions can be answered, but anything more won't be works

[silver marsh]

Fair!

[normal venture]

I like this thought! I have a doctor's appointment to go to but I'll see how I can word it this afternoon.

[serene wedge]

If it gets to be like a dozen-ish back and forth and you are not at the end, get a room...
forums are great because you post something and I see the title 2 days later, I might have more info for you. If you want it to go away quick you canjust close it yourself and it goes to older. Don't think they are a burden, easy easy to manage.

@silver marsh

[marble swift]

Sounds good! I'll try putting in a few quick questions when they arise.

[normal venture]

Got a quick question? Not a problem, but anything more will be redirected to the support channels.
I could make this more clear or adjust it, but here's what I think can be added to the description in #the-water-cooler. I can put similar messages in the other channel descriptions.

[normal venture]

So the only thing I changed was the start here line where I clarified what you should be posting about. Does this help?

Also thinking what if I put the START HEREs at the top of the message...

[night moth]

That's good, but part of me wonders how many people will read all the way to the end? I'd say try it and I'll raise it again if things don't change.

[glad prism]

I think adding a little blurb in that channel would be great (for everyone; mods, crows, users)

Either that or a dedicated #quick-question channel in Support

[normal venture]

The extra chat channel ain’t happening. 😆

Not sure if I’ve made that explicitly clear, but I’ve definitely said support is for support, not chatting.

https://tenor.com/view/no-way-gif-23045069

[normal venture]

No one reads anything, so a lot of this work is for y’all more than anything else.

[night moth]

Glad we're keeping you busy then

[normal venture]

It’s never boring.

[night moth]

Wouldn't want you bored... that'd be bad

[normal venture]

I’m one of those people who will find something to do when they get bored. And it’s never something someone else wants me to do. 🤣

[night moth]

Ah yes, we call that looking under rocks

I've been asked never to do that on a Friday

[normal venture]

I’ll fuck with the formatting in those posts a little more today before the release party.

[glad prism]

what about an extra channel tho

https://tenor.com/view/ron-swanson-parks-and-rec-i-regret-nothing-gif-4194396

[normal venture]

[polar ice]

What about channels where people “congregate” and “collaborate” on things? They could be specific to certain “things”.

[normal venture]

lmao.

[silver marsh]

Just remember, anything you do will be called "censorship" lmao

[glad prism]

You aren't allowed to say that

[polar ice]

https://tenor.com/view/help-gif-7380459

[normal venture]

Okay, back to the problem I am trying to solve with the related tech channel.

It makes sense to me (and others I've chatted with outside of this channel) that merging #1284966582375813201 and #1284965172053807145 channels makes the most sense. Doing that, it feels like the Analytics tag would best fit in there since in #find-support the examples list "database services". Moving Analytics out of the related-tech channel will make it possible to change its name to open-home-protocols.

Objections?

[versed sedge]

just please not name channels in ways that dont make it very obvious whats in them 🙏

[normal venture]

It would be #/integrations-and-add-ons - which just barely fits. And I will work to have things pointing in the right space.

The biggest benefit of this is that new people won't have to figure out if it's an integration or add on. It's all in one spot.

[versed sedge]

i was more thinking about open-home-protocols. it feels a bit too close to how the funky channel names in community sound which are quite hard to grasp if you dont already are deeply invested into the world of homeassistant and are good at understanding the english language

[normal venture]

Ah, but everything in there is specifically a protocol.

[versed sedge]

both of those terms arent what the big bold icons on their product box states

it is very obvious for us but someone looking for keywords is a bit left on that

[normal venture]

Yeah, people who are stumbling onto things are very unlikely going to head in there.

Specifically because they are terms that are generic.

As a new user myself, most of my issues haven't been related to the protocols but integrations.

I suppose it won't hurt to make it clear that it's designed to be a hardware channel for things that aren't in #1284966353798697001.

[versed sedge]

yea

[normal venture]

[sly lily]

https://tenor.com/view/server-cat-gif-25719255

[normal venture]

You are not wrong.

Though I would describe myself more as a goblin.

[night moth]

Three goblins in a trench coat?

[normal venture]

Gonna test around some things for this today.

[normal venture]

2 more like it. I'm not that tall.

[polar ice]

I was JUST about to say that. lol

[night moth]

https://tenor.com/view/laugh-despicableme2-movie-funny-happy-gif-14633303185890006697

[marble swift]

Why can't I change the settings for notifications on a thread? I want it to be 'all messages' and not just 'mentioned'. Can't even select 'nothing'.

[night moth]

Blame Discord

[glad prism]

Did you create the thread?

I think it's largely based on that

[marble swift]

Yup.

[glad prism]

could be wrong, I can change the settings but I'm a mod

[night moth]

Thread != post though

[glad prism]

ah

[night moth]

This is a thread

[marble swift]

I can actually change the notification here to All messages, but not on the one I created

[glad prism]

so that's the distinction cc alexa post

[marble swift]

Wait... now it works... wtf

Maybe Missy is doing some black magic

[glad prism]

she sleeping bro

it's like 5am her time

This is when I like to create as much work as possible for her before she wakes up

[marble swift]

I'll do what Tinkerer said then - blame Discord.

[normal venture]

https://tenor.com/view/true-correct-dwight-schrute-rainn-wilson-right-gif-23822659

[onyx parrot]

I was encouraged to suggest here new kind(s) of channels/forums, therefore:

• WebUI – for questions connected to generally using the WebUI (my particular question was: if there is a panel similar to Developer Tools -> States, but for Devices, instead of Entities)
• HA Internals – for general questions about HA architecture (my particular question was: if there are any "attributes" or other data belonging to Devices, besides just their ID)

[shrewd nexus]

Regarding non-dashboard web ui - that might be worth expanding the scope of #1284965988642590891 a bit to cover that? (possibly with a more general channel name)

[glad prism]

there's a devices tab in integrations tab, it shows all the "attributes" of a device as columns. There are other "attributes" but they are meaningless to the user because all they do is provide HA with linkages to other under-the-hood hooks. Questions about dev tools would go in #1284965988642590891

[normal venture]

WebUI stuff should be in dashboards with a UI/UX tag. I could add a specific Dev Tools tag but if you are doing development it may be better to get help in the developer section.

Do you have a specific way you were thinking of these being handled outside of the desire for them?

[onyx parrot]

Do you have a specific way you were thinking of these being handled outside of the desire for them?
I'm not sure if I understand your question… U asking why I didn't think current categories fit my question?

Well… As it comes to the question about a panel/way similar to Developer Tools -> States => my reasoning was that #1284965988642590891 is dedicated for Lovelace Dashboards -> questions about views, cards, etc.

Although I can now see that – for example – http://homeassistant.local:8123/config/integrations/dashboard – is the integrations list panel, and in the url it is called "dashboard" as well 😉 So i guess, there are more "dashboards" than just lovelace in HA 😉 Anyway, it wasn't my intuition.

WebUI name looks to me more universal, although I'm a webdev so the name is intuitive to me -> it probably isnt for "normal folks" though xd idk

As for HA Internals – I still think this kind of stuff does not fit anywhere. Maybe the name HA Architecture would be better. An example question would be: why is it so difficult to add labels configuration possibility to YAML 😄

[normal venture]

The biggest problem with those names is what you called out - they are often technical jargon and normies won't really understand what they are for.

Configuration is a really hard thing to bundle into one group. What you are configuring is important. Using your example of architecture, are you changing the YAML in an integration or an add-on?

There's the other aspect of...well, would this fit under discussions on the Architecture repo? There's a lot of weird combinations that make things interesting to bundle and most are super nuanced.

HOWEVER, I will sit on this and see what I can improve here.

[shrewd nexus]

I'd think that most questions about architecture fit into one of the existing categories fine. Development stuff (building integrations) already has its own space, and other questions can be answered in the context of dashboards, automations, or templates if that's where the knowledge will be applied.

[polar ice]

Most architecture questions and discussions should probably happen more in Github discussions than on here. There are usually more dev eyes there than there are here or on the forums.

[serene wedge]

FYI, don't know if interested but it came up for me on another site...
https://github.com/AnswerOverflow/AnswerOverflow
https://www.answeroverflow.com/

[normal venture]

Alright, I have a lot of changes I have made in the staging server ready for review. To reduce the amount of images I need to share, I am linking out to imgur - I know the task switching is annoying but I didn't want to lose the text context that comes with these changes. Several links have multiple images so be sure to review them all.

For these changes I worked yet again with mods and my colleagues, then gathered feedback from the Crows. Now it's time for your feedback!

• A new Resources category will be added, which is read-only so it appears in the Server Guide.
  • I'll forward the community resources posts after this one so that y'all can test the URLs if you would like.
  • Reducing the text in find-a-channel by moving the content into new threads titled Channel description; this channel will also be moved to the Resources category.
  • Best posting practices will be its own channel and the steps to search on Discord will move here.
• New Support category channel list.
  • add-ons will be merged with integrations; some tags are being removed in favor of consistency and fairness
  • installation will be renamed to configuration, and moved to its place in alphabetical order
  • related-tech will be renamed to open-home-protocols, networking and analytics are moving to configuration, we will be removing the Thread tags (Matter works over Thread, so issues with Thread are issues with Matter)
• Every support channel's Post Guidelines will be updated to reference where information is instead of being a wall of text.
• https://discord.com/channels/330944238910963714/1334544611758309438
• automations updated START HERE thread
• automations new Channel Description and its tags
• companion-apps updated START HERE thread
• companion-apps new Channel Description and its tags
• configuration updated START HERE thread
• configuration new Channel Description and its tags
• dashboards updated START HERE thread
• dashboards new Channel Description and its tags
• energy updated START HERE thread
• energy new Channel Description and its tags
• hardware updated START HERE thread
• hardware new Channel Description and its tags
• home-assistant-cloud updated START HERE thread
• home-assistant-cloud new Channel Description and its tags
• integrations-and-add-ons updated START HERE thread
• integrations-and-add-ons new Channel Description and its tags
• open-home-protocols updated START HERE thread
• open-home-protocols new Channel Description and its tags
• templates updated START HERE thread
• templates new Channel Description and its tags
• voice-assistants updated START HERE thread
• voice-assistants new Channel Description and its tags

[patent shale]

Thread works over Matter
Isn't it the other way around?

[normal venture]

Not per the man who builds our Matter stuff. 😄

[patent shale]

thread is a transport and matter is a protocol that runs over a transport

[normal venture]

Or rather, yes, that.

Matter also runs over local networks, which is why networking is no longer in there.

[patent shale]

matter can also run over Wifi

but anyway, I agree that there are few "thread" things that aren't actually "matter"

[normal venture]

Fixed.

[patent shale]

Similar thing in the "Matter" tag description in #open-home-protocols

[shrewd nexus]

Make sure to link to the Thread docs https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread from the open home protocols start here thread / description, since it has important instructions for getting set up with thread (shared between homekit over thread and matter over thread)

(fun fact: pointing people to step 3 of https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread#to-make-home-assistant-your-first-thread-network is probably the most common response i've had to make to help people running into issues connecting matter over thread devices)

[shrewd nexus]

matter can also run over wired ethernet, https://www.smartwingshome.com/pages/the-worlds-first-poe-matter-over-ethernet-motor

[wooden latch]

-# And Thread can be used outside of Matter (Apple Homepods did that)

[shrewd nexus]

yep, and Home Assistant does support connecting directly to Homekit protocol devices over Thread; that's https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/homekit_controller

regarding the add-ons channel - there are a number of haos add-ons that don't have associated home assistant integrations - sometimes it's just a way to run an additional piece of software on a haos system beside home assistant. i'm not sure where it would make sense to guide people for support relating to those (configuration maybe?)

[young trail]

Getting off topic for this thread perhaps, but holy crap thanks for that link. Someone I know was shopping for basically exactly that recently, and they weren't super happy with the zigbee ones they had to compromise on

[wooden latch]

The channel # integrations-and-add-ons covers all standalone add-ons as well.

[shrewd nexus]

ah, i missed that that channel had been renamed

[wooden latch]

It reduces the "That's an integration, not an add-on - go elsewhere".

[shrewd nexus]

still is overlap between open-home-protocols and integrations-and-add-ons unfortunately, since pretty much every open home protocol is also an integration.

[wooden latch]

And vice-versa

[shrewd nexus]

(or an add-on)

[wooden latch]

There is always an overlap. templates and integrations, voice-assistants and integrations,...

[patent shale]

that's it, back to a single channel

[wooden latch]

https://tenor.com/view/yess-girl-gif-26883543

[shrewd nexus]

but yeah, in the current setup i've got some matter-related questions i've answered spread over add-ons, hardware, and related-tech; so hopefully this will be an improvement.

[normal venture]

Thread documentation is listed in the Channel description. 🙂 https://imgur.com/a/open-home-protocols-channel-description-tags-SWbsqEl

[normal venture]

Add-ons don't need to have an associated integration to be posted in the new channel.

[shrewd nexus]

oh, i must have missed that. (imgur is having a bit of loading trouble for me right now)

[normal venture]

Much like you don't need an integration for one in the current channel.

[shrewd nexus]

I kind of would like to see a thread tag tho, since for matter stuff, how to support it can vary depending on the network connectivity used.

[normal venture]

Lemme tell you about hardware and open home protocols and integrations and aaaahhhhhhh

[normal venture]

It was specifically requested by Marcel to be removed. Thread issues are Matter issues.

[shrewd nexus]

unless it's homekit over thread, and matter issues aren't always thread issues. :/

[normal venture]

That channel in particular needed to be reviewed by my colleagues who work on Matter and Z-Wave since that is their bread and butter. I went with their advice on this.

[shrewd nexus]

but i guess getting people to select the correct combination of tags could be problematic.

[wooden latch]

Those are HomeKit integration issues and ones of Apple itself. Nothing HA can do about the Thread part in that case.

[shrewd nexus]

you can use homekit devices with the haos otbr add-on and homekit_controller integration, no apple hardware or software involved.

[normal venture]

Still the integration then.

[wooden latch]

But it's an edge case and likely disappearing - even Apple moves to Matter over Thread.

[shrewd nexus]

(dang, i can't even get integration/addon straight at times heh)

[normal venture]

Don't worry, neither can we.

That's the main reason why they are being merged together - it's just easier than trying to explain how they are different.

[shrewd nexus]

the worst case is when people ask about "sharing from homekit to home assistant" when they actually mean "sharing a matter device from apple home to home assistant" :)

[normal venture]

I will not be closing the threads that are active in add-ons but closing the add-ons channel for new posts.

[wooden latch]

Matter device -> Matter
HomeKit device -> integration

[normal venture]

Once the threads are closed then that channel we be closed fully.

Ah, and I did not mention that all the read only channels will get their final messages updated to point to the proper new forums channel.

That's just...not really a big impacting change.

[shrewd nexus]

(this one is confusing because homekit devices can't be "shared", they're single-admin, and having a device show up in both places is rather more complicated and a different process from sharing a matter device)

[jade yew]

We’d still have people posting for help in #the-water-cooler and you know it

[young trail]

You could literally reduce the server to two channels called #support and #not-support and people would still post in the wrong one

[wooden latch]

Maybe we just close the water cooler 🤔

[shrewd nexus]

i mean, from what i've seen half the stuff in that channel should be in #memes anyways ;)

[wooden latch]

Maybe a #post-here-to-be-banned channel - and it's not a bluff.

[jade yew]

That would be gold

[patent shale]

#the-roach-motel

[patent shale]

they would undoubtedly post in #not-support wanting to know whether their question rose to the level of "support"

as we get now

[jade yew]

Just a quick question ™️

[patent shale]

A musing, a doubt, a Deep Thought by Jack Handey

[normal venture]

@mystic spindle I made changes based on what you suggested. Here's what I expect the Resources under the Server Guide would look like. The channel itself will be hidden, so the name doesn't matter much, but I will probably change it to find-support or something. Thoughts?

[wooden latch]

https://tenor.com/view/lgtm-looks-good-to-me-software-engineering-software-engineering-gif-10905130715192233131

[mystic spindle]

What do you mean by hidden? What's currently called find-a-channel, that will be hidden?

[normal venture]

Yes, that’s how Resource channels work. It will still be accessible, but it has to be accessed through the Server Guide. https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/13497665141655-Server-Guide-FAQ

The “unsure where to go” thread will remain, no change there and you can still access it through the resource page.

[mystic spindle]

Alright, I think I can imagine it now and it looks nice. Might I suggest (since that's where our conversation started...) to add a sentence for people coming to Discord from IRC, specifically? Something like "If you're used to IRC and new to Discord, there's a couple of things that are different here. It's not just one channel per topic, but a whole server, with many channels, some which are more like a forum. Like it says above, if you're looking for help, check out #find-support. If you want to get to know the community, we hang out by #the-water-cooler. Do be careful with asking for help there, though, as it is not generally very welcome."

[normal venture]

I'll consider that as well! I don't know quite where it will fit, but I do have an idea where it can maybe go. I'll work on that next week. 😄

[normal venture]

I am starting some of these changes today - this will happen over the course of this week as I add Channel Description threads to be able to adjust the START HERE threads, followed by updating the Posting Guidelines in each support channel.