Forums generally suck. Web tools squash communications and of course, are nothing like the tools for handling email. Nearly ever major programming project has been handled by mailing lists, news groups, and mutt.
This and searchable archives are the backbone of collaboration. Finally, MORE mailing lists just means more things I need to sing up to and merge in my mailbox. And please don't look at Open Office for a guild on these kinds of things. They are a complete failure in this regard, and that is before we start to discuss the problems of the product itself. Ruben On Sat, 2005-07-30 at 21:09 -0400, TyrusMaynard wrote: > I am posting with a specific topic, but want to thank David Sommers > for his recent post expressing caution about "splitting" discussion between > the new VistaOffice (which is a forum) and the historically unified hardhats > (which of course is a mail list) I don't have a confident answer for that, > but > I am reviving an older question *will hardhats convert to a forum style* > I believe the time to convert is now, although I realize some folks > might still > prefer the email mode (and if the tools are difficult to maintain identical > content in both emaillist and forum application modes, I think forum should > be > the sole choice) > For Friday 7/29 there were about 150 email postings, but volume is not > the > entire issue. The threads are long (which is proof of effort) and problem > solving and teaching is a multifocal conversation necessarily. I think a > *forum > is much more readable* than a succession of emails, whether in your own > cherished mail client or in the archives of hardhats. Email clients and > archives > require a click to move to each new post and often have confusing styles for > the > sequence of pasting past copy into a reply. *Forum mode transcends the > pasting > of prior thread content* and it presents a cleaner read for pasting into > your > PIM or linking into other sites like wiki etc ( I do wish that the HTML of > forum > archives treated each forum post as a document anchor for more granular > linking) > > If we believe that our postings should have the discipline to leave a trail > of > solutions ....that alone speaks for using a forum archive so that content is > more readable by subsequent visitors (not to mention our interacting usage) > > If it is appropriate to have the OpenOffice/hardhats split according to the > guidelines just now posted by Joseph , I think it is all the more important > to > convert hardhats to forum, if only to handle the additional traffic that > will > occur on hardhats. That said it's probably valuable to have the forum > interface > just for readability. > > Right now there is not a large mass of forum content in the universe of > hardhats/worldvista/mumps/gtm to reflect upon, but visit this link as an > example > of a mature sourceforge project with lots of history to feed newcomers: > http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=10226 > Pick a thread with 20 or 30 replies and consider its readability. > > Now read this archive of Hardhats email thread (on the topic of OpenForum) > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=10218400 > > Thanks for David Sommers link to the excellent article on technical tools > and > social actions > http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html > > Now that the VistaOffice has been given its guidelines and vehicle as a > forum, the core group that guides hardhats must face these questions on the > mode > for handling big traffic at hardhats. I don't know the methods for this > decision among venerable hardhats, but after some discussion and some process > that probably thankfully won't be called voting...I'm sure everyone can take > whatever changes in stride. > Rusty Maynard > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies > from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, > informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to > speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477&alloc_id=16492&op=click > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477&alloc_id=16492&op=click _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
