This list has built from one with only occasional posts to a busy one that has built a community. The step of splitting into an applications type discussion list like the VO users are going to likely want and an infrastructure list is already going to rock the boat and I feel that we need to take this slowly lest we risk loosing what we have.
Personally, I hope we all sign up for this new list as it is important to bring these new folks into the VistA community so that their contributions can join ours to build and improve VistA. If we are not there to ease the new VistA Office users through their first steps, they may leave and never take another look at VistA. I actually suspect many of us will have a lot to learn from this because the configuration of VistA is pretty much an untapped topic on this list. The behind the scenes work to do this right is considerable and crucial to the success of an installation of VistA. Those of us that have been involved with the VistA-Office project so far have seen very clearly how very important doing this configuration right is to the users and how very powerful it is as well. I see proper configuration as the leading factor that will lead to the success or failure of VO installations, and I think that configuration will vary considerably from office to office and will change over time within offices. I am hoping that the VA ADPACs and CACs and other specialists will be joining the new list to help us along. I think the clinicians in the group in particular are going to enjoy exploring these new areas, and those in the business of installing and configuring VistA will learn what users like to help improve their customer's satisfaction as well as patient care and education. I am really pretty excited and yet feeling some trepidation about the release of VistA-Office. The cooperation we are seeing between the government entities and the private sector is something I think we all have fervently wanted for some time and it is happening. Those who went to VEHU came back bubbling over with news about the wonderful training materials that were available and a lot of that should soon become available to us to be posted on the fledgling VVSO web site. And I am looking forward to bringing in more people to help with volunteer efforts to provide open source tools for clinicians to use and teaching material to incorporate into VistA to help educate our patients and maybe even attract some funding for the technical gurus build interfaces, etc. I fear failure to build this community successfully and I will be doing every thing I can to see that it does not happen. On Saturday 30 July 2005 10:37 pm, TyrusMaynard wrote: > I am only a relatively recent arrival to the hardhats list and a > beneficiary no matter how this content is packaged ...thank you all. > The example I offered in the initial post is a link to LEO another type of > project but with a strong and disciplined membership. I believe groups are > mainly composed of their demeanor and traditions whatever the tools offered > them ...but I believe forum offers a better finished product in archives > and archiving is important. > The sourceforge forums are very searchable just as the email archives > are. The basic boolean and/or searching seems as good as I can get out of > my large collection of local hardhats email on mozilla. > One problem I failed to mention is that your local email is yours and a > forum server can be slower. > The link provided by David Sommers is excellent reading on group dynamics > and it suggests some sort of leadership has to guide changes (whatever form > of voting with partial participation or other polling is used in the whole > community). In discussion, which is what I intended here, Ruben has spoken > out for email lists which is the status quo and I do not categorize email > lists and archives as a failure. > I continue to advocate a forum for the benefits of a cleaner (and > searchable) archive which I believe to be an easier read. Speed of the > server is another consideration...but I am considering giving the > maintenance of my local client hardhats archive anyway. Thanks for the > active list. > Rusty > > Ruben Safir wrote: > > 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 > > ------------------------------------------------------- > 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 -- Nancy Anthracite ------------------------------------------------------- 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
