Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
On 7/25/07, Steven ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Um... That doesn't seem to get Gmail to thread the messages at all. You're solution is Just don't use Gmail. Duh!. That's not a valid answer to my question. Before you suggest it, the following is also an invalid response: use Outlook or Thunderbird and download all your messages via POP. I use Gmail. Accept it. Now, if you had a Greasemonkey script that made Gmail thread the messages, that would be acceptable. Threaded view in Gmail client works fine ( running under Firefox 1.5 ). There are few messages here and there which jump out of thread. Maybe you should check your settings or write to google. regards VK PS:- I am also using Gmail. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
You are talking about flat, web forum style threading, though. What he wants is tree style threading like in the ML archives, Slashdot comments etc. Ortwin On 7/26/07, vivek khurana [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/25/07, Steven ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Um... That doesn't seem to get Gmail to thread the messages at all. You're solution is Just don't use Gmail. Duh!. That's not a valid answer to my question. Before you suggest it, the following is also an invalid response: use Outlook or Thunderbird and download all your messages via POP. I use Gmail. Accept it. Now, if you had a Greasemonkey script that made Gmail thread the messages, that would be acceptable. Threaded view in Gmail client works fine ( running under Firefox 1.5 ). There are few messages here and there which jump out of thread. Maybe you should check your settings or write to google. regards VK PS:- I am also using Gmail. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
Ehrm.. try looking at the settings, maybe you habe simply deactivated it. Because for me it works pretty fine with the threated view. oh, yes, and by the way, the possibility to format text and include images/links/wathever would be really good for the average user. On 7/25/07, Steven ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Um... That doesn't seem to get Gmail to thread the messages at all. You're solution is Just don't use Gmail. Duh!. That's not a valid answer to my question. Before you suggest it, the following is also an invalid response: use Outlook or Thunderbird and download all your messages via POP. I use Gmail. Accept it. Now, if you had a Greasemonkey script that made Gmail thread the messages, that would be acceptable. Thank you, -Steven On 7/25/07, vivek khurana [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/25/07, Steven ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, my questions: 1. Is there a way to get Gmail to thread the messages based on who it was in response to? Yup, admins can set archiving at www.gmane.org. This way you will have archiving as well as threaded view regards VK ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community -- My corner of the web: http://ramsesoriginal.wordpress.com My dream, my world: http://abenu.wordpress.com ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not trying to prove something -- trying to give benefit of long experience in similar situations. Email is substantially more efficient, because it is intrinsically more powerful. For example: 8) Staying in touch directly with the community from my OpenMoko phone in a year using an expensive GPRS connection: - E-Mail: Loading everything via POP3 or even better compressed UUCP on my phone, reading with my favorite mail client that suits the display. Uses minimum bandwidth and I can cut the connection after loading mail. Cheap. - Web forum: Suffer with the web browser on a forum design not suitable to the small display. Using tons of bandwidth for every request, staying online all the time. Really expensive. Sebastian ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
On the other hand, via email you load everything while on a forum you choose what to view. The screen size argument also doesn't work too well as the Neo has 640*480 which is plenty and an official forum would obviously make sure to fit well into that resolution. How about continuing the discussion in the forum? :P Ortwin On 7/25/07, Sebastian Krause [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not trying to prove something -- trying to give benefit of long experience in similar situations. Email is substantially more efficient, because it is intrinsically more powerful. For example: 8) Staying in touch directly with the community from my OpenMoko phone in a year using an expensive GPRS connection: - E-Mail: Loading everything via POP3 or even better compressed UUCP on my phone, reading with my favorite mail client that suits the display. Uses minimum bandwidth and I can cut the connection after loading mail. Cheap. - Web forum: Suffer with the web browser on a forum design not suitable to the small display. Using tons of bandwidth for every request, staying online all the time. Really expensive. Sebastian ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
On 7/25/07, Sebastian Krause [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not trying to prove something -- trying to give benefit of long experience in similar situations. Email is substantially more efficient, because it is intrinsically more powerful. For example: 8) Staying in touch directly with the community from my OpenMoko phone in a year using an expensive GPRS connection: - E-Mail: Loading everything via POP3 or even better compressed UUCP on my phone, reading with my favorite mail client that suits the display. Uses minimum bandwidth and I can cut the connection after loading mail. Cheap. - Web forum: Suffer with the web browser on a forum design not suitable to the small display. Using tons of bandwidth for every request, staying online all the time. Really expensive. Sebastian -E-mail: loading hunderts of e-mails with questions that have been discuted at least 300 times and hunderts of flaming e-mails, and maybe dozends of i need this and that app e-mails, just to see that there's no kews in the development of the navigation system (the info you where looking for) -Webforum: click on a shortcut in the favorites, log in, jump to category application development - navigation system, seeing that there's nothing new, closing the connection. With the support of rss this would be even better: open feedreader, scan through new posts in application development-navigation system, close feedreader. -- My corner of the web: http://ramsesoriginal.wordpress.com My dream, my world: http://abenu.wordpress.com ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
ramsesoriginal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -E-mail: loading hunderts of e-mails with questions that have been discuted at least 300 times and hunderts of flaming e-mails, and maybe dozends of i need this and that app e-mails, just to see that there's no kews in the development of the navigation system (the info you where looking for) -Webforum: click on a shortcut in the favorites, log in, jump to category application development - navigation system, seeing that there's nothing new, closing the connection. Just that a few page views on a heavily bloated forum web site already means more traffic than a bzip2-compressed UUCP batch of 300 mails. And still, if you just only want to quickly view if there are new messages on the server, you're free to use IMAP. Sebastian ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
On 7/25/07, Sebastian Krause [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ramsesoriginal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -E-mail: loading hunderts of e-mails with questions that have been discuted at least 300 times and hunderts of flaming e-mails, and maybe dozends of i need this and that app e-mails, just to see that there's no kews in the development of the navigation system (the info you where looking for) -Webforum: click on a shortcut in the favorites, log in, jump to category application development - navigation system, seeing that there's nothing new, closing the connection. Just that a few page views on a heavily bloated forum web site already means more traffic than a bzip2-compressed UUCP batch of 300 mails. And still, if you just only want to quickly view if there are new messages on the server, you're free to use IMAP. nice. And now explain this to your Grandmother. Because as Einstein said: you have only understood something whe you can explain it to your grandmother. For you it's easy to say that you simply have to use IMAP, but the average consumer that only needs to knoe the answer to his question probably isn't going to learn how to set it up. -- My corner of the web: http://ramsesoriginal.wordpress.com My dream, my world: http://abenu.wordpress.com ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
AW: Re: email vs forum
The average customer won't wait for the few simple web clicks, at least not on a device that has only a GPRS connection. The Nokia E61 browser has a nice KB counter and it's incredible how huge current web sites have gotten. (and there is only limited hope of improvement, as we want the websites to have the functionality, don't we). Email download OTOH can happen in the background. And before you assert that this is not true ;), let me provide a simple example, www.sms.at. Just downloading the SMS send form (using a direct URL) is 300KB. Posting it takes around 150KB. Now that's a small and valid example, slashdot frontpage is way bigger. With GPRS speeds that means about 2 minutes before you can start typing, and over a minute to see that the SMS has been posted. In practice that's unusable even for a hardcore user like myself. btw, that process gets barely useable with UMTS speeds. Andreas -- Ursprüngl. Mitteil. -- Betreff:Re: email vs forum Von:ramsesoriginal [EMAIL PROTECTED] Datum: 25.07.2007 13:44 On 7/25/07, Sebastian Krause [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ramsesoriginal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -E-mail: loading hunderts of e-mails with questions that have been discuted at least 300 times and hunderts of flaming e-mails, and maybe dozends of i need this and that app e-mails, just to see that there's no kews in the development of the navigation system (the info you where looking for) -Webforum: click on a shortcut in the favorites, log in, jump to category application development - navigation system, seeing that there's nothing new, closing the connection. Just that a few page views on a heavily bloated forum web site already means more traffic than a bzip2-compressed UUCP batch of 300 mails. And still, if you just only want to quickly view if there are new messages on the server, you're free to use IMAP. nice. And now explain this to your Grandmother. Because as Einstein said: you have only understood something whe you can explain it to your grandmother. For you it's easy to say that you simply have to use IMAP, but the average consumer that only needs to knoe the answer to his question probably isn't going to learn how to set it up. -- My corner of the web: http://ramsesoriginal.wordpress.com My dream, my world: http://abenu.wordpress.com ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Re: email vs forum
On 7/25/07, Andreas Kostyrka [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The average customer won't wait for the few simple web clicks, at least not on a device that has only a GPRS connection. The Nokia E61 browser has a nice KB counter and it's incredible how huge current web sites have gotten. (and there is only limited hope of improvement, as we want the websites to have the functionality, don't we). Let's not forget the device also has wifi. Considering how slow gprs is, more likely than not, the average consumer will be surfing the web on a wifi connection... especially if they don't have unlimited gprs. Waiting for the page to load becomes a non issue. As has been mentioned a few times, the average user _does not_ want to know every single thing going on with the community and will only be interested in finding the information they need and moving on. Assuming the neo's browser is as good as the symbian browser, navigating a forum on the neo will be as painless as navigating a forum on a laptop. A forum caters to the end users who will go cross eyed if you mention pop3 or imap. Yes, yes, there are no end users to think of yet, but better this issue is resolved now than have this discussion in October. This ML is filled with people with technical know-how. If all this bandwith that has been wasted going back on forth on this issue had been shoveled into coming up with a solution, I bet there would be an efficient way to communicate between forum and ML by now. Throwing in my 10 cents. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
I've been mostly silent in this discussion (partially because it's taken me two days to catch up on it), but I have some thoughts/questions. The gist of the argument for email seems to be: 1. You can download all the messages and view them offline 2. Standalone email clients group messages by who they replied to instead of grouping by subject line and then by date 3. Forums suck (in your opinion) I understand that now, but I didn't before because: 1. I use gmail and am always online 2. I use gmail, which does not group messages based on replies 3. I check several forums daily and don't think they suck Forums work for me because: 1. I'm always online 2. Forums have categories. So, I never check the hardware category because I don't do low-level stuff. I watch some other category closely reading every message closely (and reply to some). I occasionally check out the other catagories as well, but only if I have free time. 3. If I post a question or response in a thread, I often have the forum notify me when there is a response. So, even if I don't have a lot of free time, I'll see an email come in saying someone has responded to something I'm directly involved in, so I will take a minute to see what the new message is. 4. In a forum, you can edit a post and easily format your message (I could use HTML in an email, but seems like a lot of people here view email in plaintext and my HTML would just annoy them). So, my questions: 1. Is there a way to get Gmail to thread the messages based on who it was in response to? 2. Is there a way to get a mailing list with categories? So that I can see that a particular category and not worry about the other stuff? I thought that was the point of separate mailing lists, but I get messages ranging from questions on ordering and shipping the phone to problems setting up a build environment to marketing ideas to feature suggests etc. The traffic is getting unmanageably large. (perhaps you manage better than me. but I don't have time to sift through 20 threads with 5-50 responses every day). The result is that I delete entire threads based on the subject. I will probably miss valuable information that might have even been relevant to me because of this. Any ideas on how to reduce the traffic or make it more relevant? -Steven On 7/24/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 10:45:32AM -0700, Daniel Robinson wrote: The fact that you are subscribed to 20 different mailing lists and you would find it difficult to read all of that information on 20 different forum's is your issue, and it is not the responsibility of this community to address. Probably it is. There are many people *in this community* in the same boat, and in general, those people will be the most knowledgeable and the most valuable sources of information, since they will tend to be more technically oriented, and be the most experienced internet users, and will be plugged in to more numerous sources of information (since email is indeed more efficient for being connected to many different information sources). To state, axiomatically, that mailing lists are more efficient is to attempt proof by assertion. Not trying to prove something -- trying to give benefit of long experience in similar situations. Email is substantially more efficient, because it is intrinsically more powerful. For example: 1) Essentially any functionality a forum can support can be supported by good email clients -- threading, sorting (or categorization), searching, restricted visibility. Converse isn't true (see below). 2) Forums cannot be viewed when you are offline, but email is a store and forward protocol, and works perfectly with only occasional connections to the internet -- you can read your email on a plane; you can't read a forum. 3) A forum, and indeed any web-based application by definition, is fundamentally restricted to the functions that can be provided by a browser. Web-based email suffers the same restrictions, but email clients can make full use of the OS interface. And contrariwise, email also supports pure text-based clients -- try using a text-based browser on typical forum applications for an exercise in frustration. 4) With email, you get to pick what you want to keep and don't want to keep. With a forum you have no control -- garbage stays there unless removed by an admin. 5) Email is accessible to a far larger population. Email supports both web-based and client based interaction. It supports text and graphical UIs. It gives a decent user experience over less bandwidth. It works better with mobile devices (eg blackberry). 6) Email has far better support for exchanging documents, media, and other kinds of information. (Web interfaces have good support for *display*, but lousy support for *sending*.) 7) When you get really good at using a particular email client, that real down to the fingers expertise generalizes to every email list. Forums
Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
On 7/25/07, Steven ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, my questions: 1. Is there a way to get Gmail to thread the messages based on who it was in response to? Yup, admins can set archiving at www.gmane.org. This way you will have archiving as well as threaded view regards VK ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
Um... That doesn't seem to get Gmail to thread the messages at all. You're solution is Just don't use Gmail. Duh!. That's not a valid answer to my question. Before you suggest it, the following is also an invalid response: use Outlook or Thunderbird and download all your messages via POP. I use Gmail. Accept it. Now, if you had a Greasemonkey script that made Gmail thread the messages, that would be acceptable. Thank you, -Steven On 7/25/07, vivek khurana [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/25/07, Steven ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, my questions: 1. Is there a way to get Gmail to thread the messages based on who it was in response to? Yup, admins can set archiving at www.gmane.org. This way you will have archiving as well as threaded view regards VK ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: email vs forum
Ortwin Regel wrote: The screen size argument also doesn't work too well as the Neo has 640*480 which is plenty and an official forum would obviously make sure to fit well into that resolution. I'm sure it will fit well...but will you actually be able to read it without a magnifying glass? - John ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: email vs forum
Giles Jones wrote: On 25 Jul 2007, at 23:09, John Seghers wrote: I'm sure it will fit well...but will you actually be able to read it without a magnifying glass? Having owned a VGA PDA with similar screen size I can say that the resolution helps with readability. Hopefully with adjustable font sizes people can tailor the resolution to match their eyesight. Hell, you could even have an eyesight test in the phone :) The resolution does help, and it should have some truly awesome font glyphs once you specify larger fonts...but that's just the problem when trying to read a forum formatted even for a VGA desktop... To have it formatted correctly, you have to use the pixel-to-height ratio that a desktop would use, which means you need the borgstrap Ian mentioned :) If you use large enough characters to read, it won't format well. - John ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
John Seghers wrote: Ortwin Regel wrote: The screen size argument also doesn't work too well as the Neo has 640*480 which is plenty and an official forum would obviously make sure to fit well into that resolution. I'm sure it will fit well...but will you actually be able to read it without a magnifying glass? Diddn't you get the Neo Borgstrap? Holds the neo 15cm in front of an eye of your choice, with a lens in front of it to bring it in focus. Seriously though - 16*10 is about the resolution of text on it most times, and have it sanely readable at normal phone distances. If you bring it very close, 32*20 is readable. You _can_ do 80*25 - but... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
On Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 03:39:08PM +0200, ramsesoriginal wrote: nice. And now explain this to your Grandmother. Because as Einstein said: you have only understood something whe you can explain it to your grandmother. For you it's easy to say that you simply have to use IMAP, but the average consumer that only needs to knoe the answer to his question probably isn't going to learn how to set it up. I don't know what kind of grandmother you have, but not even my mother would participate in either an OpenMoko mailing list or a forum. If your grandmother is anything like mine, the first time she has an issue or a question, she will call me (you) and you will have to find the answer. And the average user of an OpenMoKo phone (At least at this stage in the game) is going to have to setup e-mail anyway. If the e-mail reader on the platform is any good, it will be able to handle multiple accounts and filter incoming/outgoing messages anyway. -KW ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum
On 25 Jul 2007, at 23:09, John Seghers wrote: ficial forum would obviously make sure to fit well into that resolution. I'm sure it will fit well...but will you actually be able to read it without a magnifying glass? Having owned a VGA PDA with similar screen size I can say that the resolution helps with readability. Hopefully with adjustable font sizes people can tailor the resolution to match their eyesight. Hell, you could even have an eyesight test in the phone :) ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 10:45:32AM -0700, Daniel Robinson wrote: The fact that you are subscribed to 20 different mailing lists and you would find it difficult to read all of that information on 20 different forum's is your issue, and it is not the responsibility of this community to address. Probably it is. There are many people *in this community* in the same boat, and in general, those people will be the most knowledgeable and the most valuable sources of information, since they will tend to be more technically oriented, and be the most experienced internet users, and will be plugged in to more numerous sources of information (since email is indeed more efficient for being connected to many different information sources). To state, axiomatically, that mailing lists are more efficient is to attempt proof by assertion. Not trying to prove something -- trying to give benefit of long experience in similar situations. Email is substantially more efficient, because it is intrinsically more powerful. For example: 1) Essentially any functionality a forum can support can be supported by good email clients -- threading, sorting (or categorization), searching, restricted visibility. Converse isn't true (see below). 2) Forums cannot be viewed when you are offline, but email is a store and forward protocol, and works perfectly with only occasional connections to the internet -- you can read your email on a plane; you can't read a forum. 3) A forum, and indeed any web-based application by definition, is fundamentally restricted to the functions that can be provided by a browser. Web-based email suffers the same restrictions, but email clients can make full use of the OS interface. And contrariwise, email also supports pure text-based clients -- try using a text-based browser on typical forum applications for an exercise in frustration. 4) With email, you get to pick what you want to keep and don't want to keep. With a forum you have no control -- garbage stays there unless removed by an admin. 5) Email is accessible to a far larger population. Email supports both web-based and client based interaction. It supports text and graphical UIs. It gives a decent user experience over less bandwidth. It works better with mobile devices (eg blackberry). 6) Email has far better support for exchanging documents, media, and other kinds of information. (Web interfaces have good support for *display*, but lousy support for *sending*.) 7) When you get really good at using a particular email client, that real down to the fingers expertise generalizes to every email list. Forums use different interfaces. Well, then, why not have forums for people who want them, and leave email for people who don't want them? The thing is, it doesn't work very well in practice. If experience is any guide, then the technically knowledgable people will use email, and won't waste much time on the forums. But a project at the current stage of the openmoko project will require lots of *technical* help for everyone, so what will happen is that you will have to follow the email lists anyway... I mean -- I could be wrong, but that's the way things seem to go with this kind of project. Kent -- Kent Crispin Technical Systems Manager ICANN ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: email vs forum (was Re: OK, the forum is coming..)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, then, why not have forums for people who want them, and leave email for people who don't want them? The thing is, it doesn't work very well in practice. If experience is any guide, then the technically knowledgable people will use email, and won't waste much time on the forums. But a project at the current stage of the openmoko project will require lots of *technical* help for everyone, so what will happen is that you will have to follow the email lists anyway... I mean -- I could be wrong, but that's the way things seem to go with this kind of project. I agree with you, but no amount of debate will convince anyone and it is just wasting bandwidth. We're going to find out by experimentation but I expect a repeat of the Golgafrincham civilisation from the Hitchhiker's Guide. There are already similarities, re what people expect from fire and what color the wheel should be. ;-) Those with the questions will hang out on the forum and those with the answers will use the mailing lists, and people will grumble about the unhelpful developers not coming over to the forum to help. I'm actually looking forward to the forums, to reduce that kind of traffic on this list. Sadly, I know of several people who have unsubscribed from this list because of it, and switched exclusively to the devel lists instead. Come on over to distro-devel and let's talk about builds and drivers! Let's get started working on the apps on the openmoko-devel list! -Jeff ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
