Let's see if we can bring this around into something constructive.
Currently we have:
This mailing list
+ Mailing lists provide users a familiar way
to get support
- Does not seem like there is that much support
on this list
Development mailing list
~ For developers only
+ Seems active
- Users will begin to call anything a bug
in order to get support since they can not on
the users list
New Forums
+ SF.net login is unlike most other forums
+ Confusing login system
+ SF.net concerns me with privacy, I can not
delete my data
Old Forums
- Convoluted, which forums do I use
ASSP is an amazing tool, the 1.5 branch is one day going to probably
become so darn stable, focus will move to the 2.x branch entirely, and
only bug and security issues will be dealt with. 2.x is also a
different beast. 1.5 has a ton of life in it, and is really ideal for
most users needs.
Do we really need to "fork" support? As that is the only weakness I
see with ASSP. Do not get me wrong, I understand this is a group
project, and volunteer driven. How can anyone ask for more free work
from the developers? I certainly am not.
What I am asking, is that if this is a group project, that
responsibility be dished out by those in the power to do so. Who made
the above decisions on the lists and forums? Why chose such a
fragmented method, one that is hostile to the end user getting the
support they need. This is very much a two way street, without the
users, no bugs would be found, no bugs would be fixed, and ASSP would
have to die. No one wants that.
One problem I see, is it will not be long, before someone does a
little fork of their own, of the 1.5 branch. Buys a 1U server case,
stuffs it with a few GB of memory, a SSD, installs some linux distro
on it, and sells a Barracuda killer. It very much would kill the
Barracuda in how well it works. This person only need provide
technical support. So you charge 400.00 for the hardware, and 500.00
a year for technical support. This is not unreasonable, and many
people would pay. ASSP can not move forward unless people feel they
can get support. No matter how good it is (software), there are many
companies that need to know there is support. ASSP will miss those
that need official support, but there are more than enough that can
look at the support activity, and feel safe in using it. Looking at
that support activity now, one may be a little worried.
This is so easily solved, someone with the power just needs to
delegate to someone here and give them the ability to help.
1) Merge the forums and mailing list. I suggest moving it to google
groups. They offer mailing lists that are transparent, and appear to
the casual user as a forum *or* a mailing list. You need not use a
gmail account, you can use any email you like. You can use it as a
forum, and get the help of the forum and the mailing list, or you can
use it as a mailing list and get the help of those using it as a
forum. This merges all forums and mailing lists for end users into
one place. Done.
Google groups allows an entry page to contain links and other data.
This could be a good place to store links to the downloads, and
whatever else a user may need access to.
Having a stronger community, will for sure, inspire more people to
stick around and help others. Just make sure that the other admins
have the admin control on the google mailing list, so no one can run
off with it. It would be owned by the ASSP project.
2) Look at what can be done to SF.net to help users. If that means
finding a way to get them to create a policy by which users can delete
their account, then we must do so. Data privacy is a concern to many,
and a barrier. If they do not cooperate, or do not have plans for
openID, or some other way to give me, the user, control of my own
data, we must look to another provider.
Great example:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=69172
Click download, takes me to some page, where there is a an options
box. Is my download happening? No, so I click on the zip link, and
am jumped around all over the place. 20 seconds later, my download
starts. I am far from the only person to say this SF.net download
page is terrible.
3) Bug tracker. If I am wrong, and there is one, ignore this. If
there is not one, why? This is mandatory. Right now, I have no idea
where to report bugs. I have posted them here, I have emailed them in
directly. I had a semi-long talk about a bug in private email. The
bug came up on the dev mailing list, and was accepted as new and not
known about. But I already spent time reporting it in the past.
Email to a developer that I randomly chose off the Project Member page
is not a bug reporting system. It is a poor way to manage but
reports, and wastes developer time.
Users should report bugs, users should test and confirm those bugs.
Once users do their part, a developer can look into the tracker, and
list all confirmed by users bugs, and work on those, not wasting time
with new users who do not know the difference from a bug and a config
error.
3a) Changelogs, are there any, or are updates always fire and forget,
hope for the best?
4) iworld.de/homes/assp/
What is this place? There is a beautiful wiki, this data needs to
move to there, where users can maintain it. This is more of the
fragmentation I talked about earlier, and it is so simple to solve.
5) Home page ( http://assp.sourceforge.net/ )
Let's talk about nuking this, and putting it front and center in the
wiki, and moving the wiki into that url. Or get a assp url for all
this stuff. This is again, more fragmentation. Wiki's are made for
users to be able to contribute, it works, it removes burden from the
developers.
////
I looked into RSS on the phpBB forums, it is not turned on or the
SF.net version does not have it. I see now way of consolidating that
data. There is not really that much data in there. I would bet, a
small handful of us passionate users would be more than willing to re-
post it through to a google groups list. I would bet a small script
parsing over the database dump could do it as well.
I think that sums up most of my issues in a constructive way. The
biggest problem, I have no idea who I even ask to see if the above
ideas are something that can be tried. I can take it on my own, and
fragment even more, in the hopes that my fragmentation becomes the
main source, but I sure as heck would love to avoid that, and just
allow users to help.
On Jun 10, 2009, at 6:00 AM, GrayHat wrote:
>> I can do this (and then some) with far superior products for the
>> _minimum_ cost.
>
> Are you referring to VamSoft ORF by chance <g> ??
>
> http://www.vamsoft.com/orfee_overview.asp
>
> I'm asking since the above sounds like an ASSP clone :D
> so I'm curious to know which "far superior" product you are
> referring to
--
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
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