On Friday 27 January 2006 16:02, Per Jessen wrote: > Joseph M. Gaffney wrote: > > Now, in regards to the wiki forum discussion results page, I have to > > comment on a few things: > > > > "unless such a forum is bi-directionally gated to e.g. this > > mailing-list, it will only cause a split in the community" > > > > How? The primary people who would be using the forums aren't on the > > mailing list now, nor will they ever. > > OK, fair enough. So you're for maintaining a split community? All can > I say is then - if the existing webforum communities are working > perfectly fine, is there really a need yet another one? (YAW ... not > to be mistaken for a yawn).
Yes, the benefit to it being an additional interface for those who are on both this lift, and would be active in the forum. I can say (and I think this is obvious) that I would certainly remain active in both. As such, there is now a gained advantage in a connection between the two - without having to force extra mails down list subscribers. As I've mentioned, the volume would increase drastically with messages most would want to blow off, and probably put quite a few people off from being on the list. I don't much think this is a good idea, I'd much rather see a few offer up help to act as the interface for the commonly appearing issues, and noting them on here and bugzilla. The need comes into play a bit further down... > > They should be two different entities, with two different purposes. > > I'm listening. The mailing list is more of a discussion about OpenSUSE, with project updates, status, requests, comments, etc. It does not much come across as a place to get help, despite the rare few questions asked here. The reason is, as mentioned in other emails, these questions are more commonly asked in a forum. So, as I see it, the mailing list remains as is, an OpenSUSE discussion list, with the forum being a place for new users to get the information and replies they are specifically looking for. It will also serve as a place for those considering SUSE, but want to get a few questions answered, like "Will XX hardware work with SUSE?". > > "if there is no "moderation" or guidance, a forum wont work" > > > > I'm sorry... this one I just don't get at all. Of course there would > > be administrators & moderators... its a crucial forum element. > > Just for my personal education - why is that? Most mailing lists do not > need moderation; moderation tends to evolve. Does that not happen in > webfora? I am genuinely interested in understanding this. Generally they do not require much maintenance effort at all. Sometimes, a few users get mildly out of hand, and a discussion needs to be closed off. Also, if it goes OT, personal information gets posted, etc, etc - but nothing major. Thats the reason why I mentioned also that the community can do much of this work, and does not require a Novell employee's constant eye. > > They also might only be interested in a subforum that has 5-10 posts > > per day. Consider and compare the volume of this list to a few posts > > in a subforum of interest, > > that they can access, read, and leave at their liesure. Are you sure > > an email client/mailing list is friendly by comparison? > > Yep. Try comparing participating in just 10 forums with 10 different > user interfaces each on their own screen to participating in 10 > mailing-lists with one user-interface on one screen. Which is why we should have *one* forum thats an official SUSE forum, one place to go thats the end all be all for legal issues that can be dealt with. As a new user, wouldn't you prefer a forum you can look at here and there, or would you want to get a barrage of emails day in and day out? As a new user, your interest level probably isn't that high that you would want the kind of information a list will offer. > > Ok, I'm done again - sorry for all the long posts everyone :) > > I like your posting above - in a way I appreciate your argument to > maintain multiple communities. If that is advantageous, given the > different user-profiles, I for one don't see any advantage is creating > an "official" opensuse forum. When the existing fora are catering to > their matching user-profiles, what good would an "official" opensuse > forum add? Unfortunately, my good reason for an "official" forum relates to many bad reasons. If anyone here reads up on the dev blogs, you probably have heard about the recent qtforum issue, and many have taken a new home at qtcentre.org, a new, trolltech sponsored site. I won't get into it, but qtforum was purchased, apparently the same with kde-forum, and the site was broken shortly after. It appeared to many of the moderators that the site was purchased and disregarded, perhaps for resale or ad revenue. As a result, they contacted TT, and QtCentre.org was started. With the recent (as yet, not explained, to me atleast) issues with suseforums.net, I have only one reason. As long as Novell/SUSE is around, I know that forum will be around. It won't experience random downtime, be sold to some unknown person(s) who doesn't really care about SUSE or even Linux in general, etc, etc. As a user, and a member of the Linux community as a whole, I'd greatly appreciate knowing that theres one forum out there that I know won't suddenly disappear and become another web billboard, with popups all over, and nothing to do with SUSE at all. Thats why. And I'm glad atleast someone can appreciate my lengthy emails ;) Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
