Jason Chu wrote:
On Mon, Jun 13, 2005 at 06:31:21PM -0700, cactus wrote:
Jason Chu wrote:
What are the forums really useful for these days anyway? ;o)
Maybe talk about it on the mailing list.
Jason
Is this the prevailing stance about the forums by the dev team?
(sorry to use you as an example Jason)
I can't speak for any of the other devs, but it is my stance. I can't
bring myself to stay up to date on the forums. It's not just because I
think the content is stupid or anything like that. I hate forum software.
I think with the current setup, there is an expectation that the users
have, since the forums are "official" and listed on the archlinux.org
subdomain, that it is somehow supported and visited by the dev team.
If the devs are not doing so, then I think it will only cause more
issues in the long run. If you want the "meat" of the discussions to
exist on the mailing list, then maybe it is time for few slight changes.
I see a few potential avenues:
1) Spin off the user forums to another domain. Something like
"forums.archusers.org", and have the archusers.org domain managed
entirely by the userbase (forum moderators/TUs). Have it be its own
seperate entity. Then users will know that it is not part of official
arch, and will likely bring more major issues to irc and to the mailing
lists, while seeking day to day help in the unofficial user forums.
I'm not quite sure this is necessary. How do you guys give information to
the new forum users? Couldn't you say somewhere in there that the
developers would like the threads that people want the developers to see to
go on the mailing list?
2) Keep the current setup, but add some language to the front page that
the forums are "unsupported user forums". Make the same statement on the
top of the forum header. Clarification could be added that the devs do
actively use the forums.
Is unsupported really the right word? There is lots of support on the
forum and lots of people use it. Just not the devs. I'm sure there are
lots of debian forums that aren't frequented by all the devs either.
3) Add a special forum category (developer corner) or something, much
like the new aur category, and have the forum moderator team police it
far more closely than the other forum areas..so that the devs can find
some use out of it without having to deal with regular forum babble.
Maybe even attempt to setup a forum to mail gateway on just that
specific forum category.
I've lost faith in the forum to mail gateway. I just don't think it'll
work the way I want it to or how most people would expect it to work.
Making the devs more aware of threads that they could comment on would
probably work. That was originally one of the things the newsletter was
for. I'm pretty sure it's lacking because there are still only 2 people
working on it! Maybe we should get some of the moderators (they're the
ones who are reading the categories anyway) to write their own sections of
the newsletter. That way it can inform the devs of activity on the forum
and the devs can inform the community of their work.
I am actually trying to do that at the moment but Ben and I are having
some "coordination problems"
Just a couple of ideas to help deal with the current situation. It
currently does seem that users expect the devs to use the forums, and it
seems the devs expect the users to use the mailing lists. Realize, I am
using the term "expect" loosly, with an eye towards a generalization of
percieved expectations. Any clarity that can be added to the situation
would be more helpful in the longrun, I believe.
There was once a time when I could spend a less than an hour a day keeping
up with the forums. I can't afford to spend any more time fighting with
and waiting on them. Times change.
Personally, I significantly prefer the mailing list. And with things like
gmane, archiving and searching are way cooler. What we really need is a
mail to forum gateway ;o)
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