On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 12:14 PM, Tom H. Lautenbacher <mailingli...@lautenbacher.biz> wrote: > 1. If you come to Samba (or any other community project) as a NEW user, you > could find all the previous information and communication nicely organized > in the forum. The forum serves as a knowledgebase, which helps new users to > integrate quickly and supports them in getting the things setup without > pain. You can find the threads sorted in different subject-categories and > start browsing them, or you can start a forum search, which has a much > higher relevance of results, than a global google search.
I don't find forums all that useful as a knowledge base. The search capabilities of most are generally sub-optimal and the information isn't all that well organized. > Opposed to this: If you join NEW to a mailing list initially you do not find > ANYTHING, but have to start collecting emails in a personal archive over the > years (as you do). But if you need certain information NOW, the only > alternative is to do a Google-Search which is very sub-optimal to do, > compared to a forum search, or the logical division of subjects in a Forum. Not true there are other alternatives. Here's one: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.samba.general And with a good newsreader you have much flexibility. > As a result what a mailing list does is: It servers super for long-time > members of a project, who have collected all emails over the last past years > on their private harddisks and it makes it very difficult for new users to > access information. It serves well to the hard core of a project but makes > unnecessary barriers for newcomers. Again: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.samba.general (and with a good newsreader you can have your own local copy) > 2. Forum software commonly enables the threads to be enriched with binary or > with html-code. Thus explanations/help/etc. can be enriched with > screenshots, photos, links, diagrams, etc. Picasa, Flickr, your own site, etc. Pastebin for code. Links are allowed here, lets the reader decide on whether or not to use the time and bandwidth. > 3. A Forum has the advantage that I can subscribe to certain subjects! E.g. > I can say: Send me all future postings about "Windows 7 & Samba PDC". And you can star/filter a conversation or thread with email readers and news readers. > 4. And last but not least: Since a forum does not only gather messages but > also users, with profiles, maybe even pictures, etc. helps > community-spirit-building, a subject that gains importance those days. But will you recognize them in a dark alley? > As for the CONS: > I know them all. It is exactly the same discussion as with the never-ending > comparison of Usenet ("News servers") and Webforums. I lament the loss of newsgroups - always seemed just right. Post once, read many. Chris -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba