On Fri, 2012-01-06 at 19:32 -0500, Rob Weir wrote: > On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 5:56 PM, Hagar Delest <[email protected]> wrote: > > Le ven. 30 déc. 2011 09:57:45 CET, Andrew Rist <[email protected]> a > > écrit : > > > >> This is great stuff - any way this could be posted as a blog post on the > >> main AOO blog? > >> > >> Andrew > > > > > > Here is a proposal. > > ___________________________________ > > > > The Community Forum: New Year Status > > > > After 4 years of existence, the Community Forum has moved on the ASF servers > > end of October 2011. Here are some figures about how we are doing on the > > English forum. I will try to make this kind of report on a monthly basis in > > the forum > > (http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=46497) > > but not on the blog. This post is just to announce it. > > > > Some history first. To make a long story short: fearing the disappearance of > > the first forum (http://www.oooforum.org) due to spam especially, a group of > > users decided to create a new forum managed by the users themselves. Topics > > about the whole story can be found on both forums. By luck, Sun offered to > > host the forum on their servers in Hamburg (for free) but our independence > > was part of the deal. The forum has been tagged “official” rather wrongly: > > even if we were on Sun then Oracle hardware, they both have never interfered > > in the running of the forum and we are deeply grateful for that. > > To manage the forum, a group of Volunteers has been settled. It was first > > made of the users who departed from oooforum (some still contribute to it) > > and then users have been integrated when their contribution showed a true > > dedication to the forum (steady activity and quality of posts). We had a > > private area (not visible by standard users) where the management of the > > forum could be discussed like moderation, forum software features, … So the > > forum is really managed by a group of users helping other users (for free, > > on their spare time). > > I don't know if you saw it or not, but we already had a blog post on > the forum migration: > > https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/openoffice_org_migration_the_community > > That dealt with the history, etc. I think you could get straight to > the "New Year Status". > > Also, I think we should avoid saying negative things about > oooforum.org. Remember, they are part of our ecosystem as well. >
Hello Hagar, I like it. Two things to add to the last emails, I think. One - I think you could do without the second paragraph also, otherwise for a first post (see below :-} long is ok I'd think, but I've often been told all written material is made better, when shorter. Second - I really would like to see you actually publish to the blog on your own. I know that you have made a practice to put stats such as this to the forum a few times a year, I like the usual attending graph. I know it means setting up another account, but I think it would really be nice if you could simply expand to include a blog post at the same time, the same 2 paragraph and graph type post. There is my editorial opinion :) So, again thanks that's great. //drew > > > Participation is really easy: just register and post your question! (a > > search before is of course welcomed but well, we are prepared to the eternal > > September). A survival guide is available, covering all the basic questions > > a new forum user could have. And if you want to have your say, you can apply > > for the Volunteer status. You can also subscribe to topics (no need to post) > > to be notified when new replies are posted. > > Note that the forum has never been a marketing tool. Our target is not to > > promote OOo blindly but to give the best advice as possible to get the users > > out of the trouble he is facing. Therefore, advising to keep other software > > (including proprietary suites) is part of our replies. > > The forum is also dedicated to OOo derived products and for them, the only > > limit is the user base visiting the forum. Many of us run LibreOffice in > > parallel for example. > > Power users are OOo users like you and me, we usually use one or two > > components much more than the others and we reply with our own experience > > (trials and a kind of reverse engineering sometimes). Some have also great > > skills for macros and give their code snippets (dedicated section). We are > > from all over the world and the success led to the creation of other native > > language sections. > > As you can see, the forum is really a major part of the OOo project. The > > dedication of the helpers has led to a steady rate of the registration as > > you can see below. The figures start at day 1 when the creation of the forum > > has been announced on the mailing list. > > > > We could almost skip to this, with a brief intro. Otherswise this > post is very, very long and few will actually read this far. Much of > the other material above is good stuff, but you could make another > blog post of that. > > > Some basics then: > > - The number of posts, members and topics is taken from the phpBB > > information bottom of main index page > > - Solved topics are counted in all the forums except admin and archives > > sections (not visible to standard users) > > Note that the ratio solved topics vs. total topics is slightly biased since > > the topics in the archives and admin sections are counted (in phpBB > > statistics) but not the solved ones (custom search). However, there are less > > than 550 topics there (in more than a 40,000 grand total, so less than > > 1.5%). These last figures shouldn't change very much since the private > > sections are not very active. > > > > Here it is (since the solved topics is a new metric, there is only one point > > for the moment). > > [img]http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/download/file.php?id=13066&mode=view[/img] > > The blue line (number of posts) is not that important, it just shows that > > the trend is consistent with the other metrics. > > The most interesting statistics are the red lines for the members and the > > topics (with triangles, giving the time when the figures have been > > recorded). Note that the ratio topics vs. members is 0.9 for the English > > forum and above 1.5 for the French and Japanese forums. We tend not to be > > too harsh for the rules on the English section and topics are not often > > split when different users ask questions (still related of course) in the > > same thread. > > > > Activity has a slightly higher slope during the first 2 years. It may be > > linked to the building of the knowledge database. Once the main issues and > > common questions have been discussed, users find their answers more and more > > easily with a mere search, hence less topics needed. > > Neither the release of LibreOffice (Oct 2010), nor the move to the ASF > > servers (Oct 2011) have changed anything for the activity. > > > > The decrease in the number of members (end of 2011) is linked to the > > cleaning of banned users. They had just been banned until now but to keep > > only the "real users", their account has been deleted (nearly 1800). This > > was the first cleaning ever done from the launch of this forum 4 years ago. > > 1550 of them had been identified as spammers because of their post(s). 250 > > were passive spam (link in signature or interest field of the profile, > > without any post). > > > > The ratio of the solved topics is rather good: 14,000 solved (green > > triangle) in 41,000 (red triangles), that makes more than 1 in 3 (all users > > don't bother to tag their topic as solved). > > > > For the record, last quarter has been in line with the rest: 2100 new users > > from Oct 1st to end of this year, meaning 1800 new topics. > > As for the spam, we have had 1800 users in 1500 days, it makes 1.21 spammer > > a day, still rather low, thanks to the registration process (hard to cheat > > for bots). > > > > Last figures: 2011 has shown an increase in the max number of online users > > along the months. Peak reached 232 beginning of October. The counter has > > been reset on Jan 1st 2012 and is already at 214, proving the audience is > > still there. > > > > Some words about the team. Let's not forget Terry Ellison who was the main > > maintainer of the forum until the move to ASF servers. His huge involvement > > has made it possible for both a clean running of the forum during 4 years, > > making it a great place for those needing/providing help, and contributing > > to the transfer of the forum to the ASF servers with a minimal impact for > > the users. > > As for the Volunteers, 4 new users have been promoted in December 2011 (the > > last approval was in April). Total is nearly 100 now. > > > > To conclude, the constant dedication of the Volunteers shows that they are > > still eager to help users through the forum. We are now waiting for the next > > release of Apache OpenOffice for a new bunch of questions and users... > > > > Hagar Delest, > > On the behalf of the Forum Volunteers >
