*** I have cross posted this mail to the website mailing list, for discussions about web infrastructre ***
The feedback that I have already got from users interested in the discussions around the Drupal project is that forums are a very important mechanism in sourcing and providing help to end users. One discussion that I had outside of the mailing list regarding the support structure of arguably one of the more successful open source projects, Ubuntu. The structure for end users to source expert support for all aspects of the product hinges off the Wiki and the forums. There is a little more formal structure within these forums due to the breadth of the software that is supported, and usually when you can't work out something the wiki or forum is the first search result, containing detailed troubleshooting and problem solving for almost any issue an end user is likely to encounter. IMO The provision of product specific support structures that is dedicated to the product, in our case LibreOffice, is not only essential for non-technical end users, it is one of the best marketing tools available for an open source community. Your average end user will likely never search through mailing list threads, even if they contain exactly the information they are looking for. A well presented forum running from a dedicated forum system such as vBulletin or phpBB provides the end user with interface familiarity and branding which builds trust in the brand and community. Both phpBB and vBulletin are able to be fully integrated with all major CMS systems to include single sign on, profile and session sharing. For Example: Drupal: http://drupal.org/node/32879 http://drupal.org/project/phpbb Joomla: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/communication/forum-bridges Plone :https://help.ubuntu.com/community/forum/server/Plone As I understand it, Silverstripe is a long way behind all the major CMS systems in terms of 3rd party integration, but looking through the forums I have seen that there are a few people who have hacked Silverstripe in order to allow some basic functionality: http://www.silverstripe.org/archive/show/2593 If we did provide a user forum, which I believe we should, using a dedicated forum system will provide far more functionality and usability, as well as regular security updates than we could ever hope to code and maintain ourselves without drawing on resources that could be used for development of LibreOffice. What do others think? Is the forum support option important for trust building and familiarity? What system would we use? Thanks, Michael Wheatland -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
