Hi all,
I would hope that this is "in addition to" the mapserver lists not a
replacement to the lists. I just setup my account to forward mapserver
questions to my email account so I can monitor what is happening on gis
stack exchange. I don't find the extra step of logging into stack
exchange as convenient as responding to email, but I have noticed that
there are a lot of questions that get asked there and not on the list.
-Steve
On 10/4/2013 10:23 AM, Rahkonen Jukka wrote:
Hi,
Mapserver users list has worked fine for me for several years but I have
seen that it is no more what it used to be. There are less mails on the
list and part of the discussion that would be interesting also for users
(at least power users) has moved into developers list and inside the
github issues as comments.
Compared with same kind of projects, the Geoserver users list and
GDAL-dev have remained popular and users do still receive good service.
Somehow it feels that we cannot turn the clock backwards and if users
have moved away from the mailing lists then they won’t come back and
Stackexchange feels like a modern and not so bad alternative.
OpenStreetMap is having their own Help center which is like
Stackexchange but I do not know if Mapserver is popular enough for
something similar. Perhaps there are also people who are eager in
hunting Stackexchange points and prefer that instead of something just
Mapserver specific.
However, change from mailing list into Stackexchange is not necessarily
that simple. Of course we have lots of simple problems like “WMS does
not answer me, why?” with simple answers “Read
http://mapserver.org/ogc/wms_server.html and set "wms_enable_request" "*" “
But then we have rather much stuff like this
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.mapserver.user/51482
Discussion and problem solving like that does not suit very well into
Stackexchange, and it is not so easy to find the comments from inside
the answers. I think that Stackexchange is not an ultimate help desk
solution. There are also similar sites like Stackoverflow but I do not
know what differences they have.
“Power-users, would you be willing to participate to another support
channel?”
I miss-read that “Would you be willing to participate to yet another
support channel?”. I would say that not really, for me it is enough to
handle one channel per each project I am following. If Stackexchange
would be the main channel, then perhaps. I still wonder where would we
handle the kinky but interesting problems which are not solved without
using brain and perhaps gathering more information and sample data and
mapfiles for repeating the problem.
-Jukka Rahkonen-
Umberto Nicoletti wrote:
+1
I already have a mapserver filter in place on gis.stackexchange.com
<http://gis.stackexchange.com/>
So should it be gis or all stackexchange sites?
I am for gis, as it more relevant to the mapserver community and
mapserver is already listed in the ads:
http://meta.gis.stackexchange.com/ads/display/1968
Umberto
On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 12:32 PM, thomas bonfort
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi MapServer Users and Power-Users,
As FrankW pointed out during our FOSS4G presentation, I would like to
propose that we add stackexchange as an "official" support channel for
MapServer. You can check and subscribe to mapserver related questions
here: http://stackexchange.com/filters/90617/mapserver
Why?
- Stackexchange questions and answers are very well referenced through
search engines, which would avoid recurring questions from being
brought up on the mailing list
- The answers get up or down-voted by the community, allowing a user
to immediately flesh out relevant information for a given question
- Asking a question on stack-exchange might help new users to seek for
help, instead of having to subscribe and post to a public mailing list
(which can be intimidating)
How?
- By referencing stackexchange in our "getting help" documentation section
- Most importantly, by having MapServer power users subscribe and
participate to the stackexchange questions, providing answers or
upvoting correct existing answers.
Users, is this something that you would find beneficial?
Power-users, would you be willing to participate to another support
channel, knowing that in the long run the aim is to reduce your
workload as the most common questions will answer themselves ?
PSC, should we have some kind of motion to vote and officialise this?
best regards,
Thomas
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