Should we close the Google Group?

[Relequestual]

Proposal

We should reduce the administration overhead and stop using the Google Group.

Context

Previously the JSON Schema Google Group has been the only place to have discussions which will not become inaccessable.
We consider slack discussiosn to be ephemeral.

Justification

1. We now have GitHub Discussions which are permanent (ish).
2. Since the begining of 2020, the JSON Schema Google Group has recieved a total of 6 threads.
3. The administration overhead is non-negligable, as we get some amount of spam.
4. It would be better for users to direct them to Slack or GitHub Discussions, where they can get support much faster.
5. We didn't use the Google Group for announcements for the last release and no one mentioned it.

Considerations

1. Deleting the group could be detrimental, as it might still contain some useful information which may be found by searches.
2. Users who want to interact with the project will have to register for some service (either Slack or GitHub). I don't feel registering to GitHub is much of a barrier for developers.)
3. There are 1189 members on the group. We loose a sort of "mailing list". Maybe we should provide an alternative for announcements?
4. The group can be "arcived", or at least we can prevent anyone from further posting messages and update the info to reflect and redirect.

Please provide

[karenetheridge]

Didn't Google Groups get shut down last year?

..but regardless, I never knew it existed :)

[Relequestual]

Haha maybe. I don't recall!

[jdesrosiers]

I think it'd be tragic if the history was lost. It would be great if there was a way to make it read-only.

[Relequestual]

Yes. That's one of the options. Sorry if I didn't make that totally clear.

[jviotti]

I vote for not supporting Google Groups anymore. GitHub feels like a more natural home to JSON Schema and focusing on fewer channels make sense given the size of the JSON Schema team.

Some further thoughts:

• If Google Groups is indeed closing, we should take a look at seeing if you can export an archive before all the data gets removed. Depending on the format of the data, it can be provided as a static download or hosted somewhere under the control of the JSON Schema org

• Can we provide automated responses to any new Google Group conversation stating that such channel is deprecated and redirecting users to GitHub Discussions? This is an action item that can happen right now

• Given Google Group's low popularity, I don't see a reason to at least not mention it anymore in the website

There are 1189 members on the group. We loose a sort of "mailing list". Maybe we should provide an alternative for announcements?

It would be nice to maintain a JSON Schema mailing list taking that as a starting point (i.e. Mailchimp or something like that?). We can promote the mailing list including a prompt to insert your e-mail in the JSON Schema website (thoughts @kinlane?) and use it to share news, case studies posts, articles, etc. I think it's fine to include the 1189 Google Groups members by default, as they already sort of "accepted" by joining the group.