Since this discussion has come up again, I've decided to sum up my reasons for supporting a forum, as well as how I see this forum existing within the community.
In support of a forum: * Knowing it isn't going anywhere - Now don't get me wrong, I really doubt suseforums.net and suselinuxsupport.de are going anywhere, but one of the very big things I like about an official forum is that its here to stay. Its not going to be sold off, be replaced by advertising, or forgotten about by the owner. I have recently (and not so recently) experienced this on too many forums to list here; several of which being major forums for major F/LOSS software and several being completely unrelated, but the result was the same. The site was sold, and because of the popularity, became a place for advertisers to easily get links and prominent google results, or the new owner really didn't care and was only interested in advertising revenue, and the site went downhill, etc, etc. Knowing that an official forum exists means knowing this will never happen to the official forum. * openSUSE is the community, and an openSUSE forum shows a more linked community. - There are people who go on mailing lists, people who go on newsgroups, people who go on forums, so on, and so on. Sometimes they go on several of these. The fact is, many new users are very familiar with forums, and know that if these forums exist, they are there to support them in some way. Not having an official forum, imho, does not show us to be a contiguous community, but more of what we seem today - scattered, uncommunicative, and disinterested in cooperation. * openSUSE.org is the known hub for SUSE now - SUSE & openSUSE as a community has been all over the prominent Linux magazines as of late, and openSUSE.org is the first place people end up going. Knowing this, and knowing the desire to get new users involved in more than just downloading or just keeping the torrent up, openSUSE.org must be the place to grab their attention and maintain it. The revised main page is a start toward this, but there needs to be a variety of options for new users to communicate directly on there. Yes, there is a list of forums now, but people will tend to think "but which is the one I'm supposed to join", or "which one has the guy who maintains xyz package", etc, etc. An official forum is a first step - even if a maintainer stays over at suselinuxsupport.de, by joining the official openSUSE forum, one of the members of this list (or of the existing forums who is on both), will be able to guide the new user where they need to go. The fact is, new users are familiar with forums, and it would be good to be able to get them right into one. * The evils of DRM, patents, etc, will have more visibility - I think its beneficial to say "We can't answer that question here, because it would be illegal. Read <link> for more information. There are other forums you can find this information at." I think it will help expose (as titled) the evils of DRM, patents, HDCP, etc, etc. Other examples are posted on the opensuse wiki at http://en.opensuse.org/Forum-discussion-results Against a Forum: * Angering existing forum maintainers - This is the only reason I'd have against a forum, and I don't believe its a good reason either. I don't believe they should be angry honestly, because I don't think an attempt at unifying our community into a cohesive whole could possibly be something to be against. How an official forum would work within the existing community: * Act as a central place of discussion - Bugs, packaging problems, wishlist items, etc, etc all pop up all over the existing forums. If the maintainers of those forums post on the official forum about the topic, there is only one place developers, maintainers, wiki guys, etc need to look. Theres no reason to have to monitor (yes, I know its basically 2 - but there are smaller ones elsewhere) multiple forums if theres one place for these topics to be reviewed. * Another means for direct interaction and discussion - As was seen from this discussion on the list, theres a number of people out there who are very influential within the community, and will post to forums, but have little or no interest in ever being a part of a mailing list. Since we've obviously had various areas of breakdown in communication, this will provide another (while not perfect, it is quite visible) means of interaction. Discussions on the list which continue on the forums, and vice-versa, will allow messages to be easily forwarded to and from the list and the forums. Again, not a perfect solution, but quite better than what there is now. There is definitely a feeling among users not on the list that there is a small group deciding the who/what/when/where/why of openSUSE, and this could be a start to bridging that gap. * Current moderators and administrators, perhaps along with additional moderators and administrators, will cooperatively form the staff of the official forum - Obviously, there are many who are experienced within the openSUSE community who would make ideal administrators and moderators for an official forum. As part of their job with the official forum, these existing moderators and administrators responsibilities should include the management of the information across their current forum and an official forum. Cross-posting, forwarding to the list as well, etc. * Single sign-on - The current openSUSE wiki (and thus, Novell site) logins should be the same as the forums. By doing so, new registrants to an official openSUSE forum could be told of how they can contribute to the wiki as well. Many posters will do lengthy tutorials, complicated packaging information, etc, and all this information is extremely valuable and welcomed as documentation on the wiki. * openSUSE project integration - Forums could be dedicated to specific projects, and perhaps even limited in posting vs. visibility; ie: a member of Better Desktop, SUPER, SLICK, JackLab, etc projects can post to their specific subforum, while all members will be able to view the posts. New members could then opt to contact project maintainers and get involved in the various subprojects, allowing these to grow as well. The project participants can post updates, and start a thread in a general forum outside of their specific subforum, noting to community members of significant updates. These types of updates may then be noted on some sort of news update on the wiki (pending main page redesign). Well, I think that about sums up my position. Imho, there are scores of benefits, but I tried to list what I felt to be the major ones here. I'm not exactly sure what the precise final answer is about what was discussed about FOSDEM, but if its technical ability, I think we should discuss how the final decision will be made. If the decision was made, then I believe we should begin discussing the incorporation of the community, and what should be happening with official openSUSE forums. Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
