Since you mention a specific example, I've experienced phpBB (on the shatters.net forum for celestia) . Its got a very weak discussion model; there is one message at the 'top' of a discussion within a forum, and all other messages are assumed to be replies to that one. This makes it more difficult to follow what short messages are in reply /to/.
A further problem with forums is that they would balkanize discussion of projects. You end up having to read /both/ the mailing list and the forum to find things out. An example of something like this is the irc channels that the maven project uses[1] - more than once you'll see folk being referred from irc to the eyebrowse mail archives, or from the mailing list to irc, to get background on whats going on. Web forums would do the same, and I can't see a single advantage of web forums other than getting a cartoon character at the side of your message?
If you want something more forum-y, you could try using the newsfeed version of the mailing lists on gmane?
Cheers,
Baz
Disclaimer - not a committer, so my opinion doesnt even matter to me ;)
[1] I'm not arguing against IRC here. It provides real-time comms, while mail/news/forums allow responses to be delayed until sunup in your TZ.
Robert Simmons wrote:
What I meant is on the main Jakarta site. I have used Jakarta for a while
and never even knew about that address. Probably the reason no one uses it.
Mailing lists are not as good as forums for communication.
--Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Jakarta General List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: Forum Software for Jakarta?
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:26, Robert Simmons wrote:
It would seem to me that the installation of a forum on the Jakarta siteis
would dramatically improve communication and the ability of the users to
collaborate on using and improving Jakarta software. PhpBB, for example,
free and can be downloaded from www.phpBB.com and offers many of thethe
features users would find helpful. I would highly suggest this move for
Jakarta site.checkout nagoya.apache.org. It has a forum ... no one uses it ;)
--
Cheers,
Peter Donald
*---------------------------------------------------------*
| Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user-friendly. It |
| just happens to be selective on who it makes friendship |
| with. |
| - Richard Cook |
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