I think forums have an advantage over a mailing list (having been on this list for many years) in that newcomers can find answers to questions already answered, and other handy reference material can be kept around for others to read.
One of the main benefits I found from being on this list however that was it is easy to interact with, given that I'm on email every day, I can quickly chime in to a conversation if I have something useful to offer. I already post on the Steam forums, find them easy and quick to use and load relatively quickly in my experience, and that's from Australia. Another benefit of the mailing list was the dedicated server update notifications which are always very handy (the time between an update being posted and our servers then being updated is usually only ten minutes) - from what I read though the hlds_announce@ list (which just contained server announcements) would have been kept around, which is great. I have also noticed Valve team members slowly drift away from this list, but that may be because there is a bit more noise (in the good sense) and the attention previously needed is no longer that necessary, as there are many people here who already reply with helpful answers. One thought I had regarding the forums was their separation; currently there are four forums (Windows/Linux srcds/hlds), when we currently have two mailing lists (hlds, hlds_linux). I'm not sure what would be best, but perhaps two forums may help consolidate the knowledge (the hlds/srcds forum would handle 90% of the support problems), with the linux forum handling linux-specific issues? Cheers, Andrew - Plasma -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Burton Johnsey Sent: Tuesday, 10 February 2009 12:42 PM To: '[email protected]' Subject: Re: [hlds] Important notice regarding the HLDS mailing lists Given the feedback received from the list, we are holding off migrating the mailing lists to the forums. The intent of migrating to the forums was to leverage the benefits and features of the forums to further strengthen the community, giving us a central spot to gather feedback. The forum software is continually being updated by vBulletin and is flexible enough to also allow us to add our own features. To address a couple of specific concerns about the forums: - Membership - We can keep the membership in the DS forums private so that random forum users cannot post. - Moderation - We can assign moderators for specific forums. Moderators would be volunteers from the current mailing list participants. - Forum server performance - We have upgraded the system that runs the forums and we do not experience the lag we were experiencing in the past - The forums are accessible to more people than the mailing list. We want to make things better, not worse. We appreciate any further feedback you have to offer. -----Original Message----- From: Burton Johnsey Date: Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 12:38 PM Subject: Important notice regarding the HLDS mailing lists To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>, Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> We will be shutting down the HLDS mailing lists on Friday, February 20th. After February 20th, all server discussions should take place in one of the forums listed below. Windows server discussion should be conducted here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=44 (Source) http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16 (Gldsrc) Linux server discussion should be conducted here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=45 (Source) http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=19 (Gldsrc) If you have not already done so, please register a forum account<http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/register.php>. NOTE: The mailing list archives will still be available for viewing. -BurtonJ Valve Software _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
