[tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-10-07 Thread Marc Paré

Hi Sophie,

Le 2012-10-07 05:08, Sophie Gautier a écrit :

The projects mailing was about the transverse communication between the
different project and the native language communities. Unfortunately
nobody understood this purpose (may be not well communicated) and when
there is a need of information, translation, whatever exchange or
interaction, the l10n mailing list is/was used. There is a technical
difference between translation and localization, but there is a big lack
of communication between the different projects and the native language
communities, where marketing, QA, documentation, etc are done. It should
not be a discussion area but a working area.

Kind regards
Sophie


Thanks for clearing this up. There should be timely reminders on that 
particular list when the information does not coincide with its purpose. 
I find that it is turning out to be another level of mailing list 
discussion rather than a projects announcement.


This explanation help a lot.

Cheers,

Marc

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-10-07 Thread Simon Phipps
I agree with this too.

Well, apart from the bit about building a team for marketing. When we
actually attempt a marketing project, we do pretty well; we had CDs for
OSCON and we've a conference coming up for example. With more, more
concrete projects (with fixed timescales and clear deliverables) for
volunteers to gather around, I believe we would both see successful
marketing and less unproductive bikeshedding. But that's probably a
discussion for another thread :-)

S.
 On Oct 7, 2012 12:59 PM, "Charles-H. Schulz" <
charles.sch...@documentfoundation.org> wrote:

> Marc,
>
> I agree with Sophie. On the rest I strongly suggest we focus on an users
> forum, not on a function based forum (marketing, qa, etc) as we have enough
> trouble building a team for marketing...
>
> Best,
>
> Charles.
> Le 7 oct. 2012 11:09, "Sophie Gautier"  a écrit
> :
>
> > Hi Marc,
> > On 06/10/2012 22:30, Marc Paré wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > >> Discuss should be joined into 'projects' (the third forum with
> > > announcements in
> > >> the description). If you 'discuss matters affecting the LibreOffice
> > > project' it
> > >> should better be relevant to the projects too.
> > >
> > > I have no problems with this either. Although, I can see others having
> > > problems with it. I was never too clear on what the "projects" mailing
> > > list was all about as it seems we are all advertising on it and
> > > discussions are happening more and more on it. It may be better to have
> > > a "Discuss" forum with a sub-forum "Projects" where only decided
> > > projects are announced. The discuss list is very active and it is hard
> > > to pull projects from any of the threads.
> >
> > The projects mailing was about the transverse communication between the
> > different project and the native language communities. Unfortunately
> > nobody understood this purpose (may be not well communicated) and when
> > there is a need of information, translation, whatever exchange or
> > interaction, the l10n mailing list is/was used. There is a technical
> > difference between translation and localization, but there is a big lack
> > of communication between the different projects and the native language
> > communities, where marketing, QA, documentation, etc are done. It should
> > not be a discussion area but a working area.
> >
> > Kind regards
> > Sophie
> > --
> > Sophie Gautier 
> > Tel:+33683901545
> > Membership & Certification Committee Member - Co-founder
> > The Document Foundation
> >
> > --
> > Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-10-07 Thread Charles-H. Schulz
Marc,

I agree with Sophie. On the rest I strongly suggest we focus on an users
forum, not on a function based forum (marketing, qa, etc) as we have enough
trouble building a team for marketing...

Best,

Charles.
Le 7 oct. 2012 11:09, "Sophie Gautier"  a écrit :

> Hi Marc,
> On 06/10/2012 22:30, Marc Paré wrote:
> [...]
>
> >> Discuss should be joined into 'projects' (the third forum with
> > announcements in
> >> the description). If you 'discuss matters affecting the LibreOffice
> > project' it
> >> should better be relevant to the projects too.
> >
> > I have no problems with this either. Although, I can see others having
> > problems with it. I was never too clear on what the "projects" mailing
> > list was all about as it seems we are all advertising on it and
> > discussions are happening more and more on it. It may be better to have
> > a "Discuss" forum with a sub-forum "Projects" where only decided
> > projects are announced. The discuss list is very active and it is hard
> > to pull projects from any of the threads.
>
> The projects mailing was about the transverse communication between the
> different project and the native language communities. Unfortunately
> nobody understood this purpose (may be not well communicated) and when
> there is a need of information, translation, whatever exchange or
> interaction, the l10n mailing list is/was used. There is a technical
> difference between translation and localization, but there is a big lack
> of communication between the different projects and the native language
> communities, where marketing, QA, documentation, etc are done. It should
> not be a discussion area but a working area.
>
> Kind regards
> Sophie
> --
> Sophie Gautier 
> Tel:+33683901545
> Membership & Certification Committee Member - Co-founder
> The Document Foundation
>
> --
> Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org
> Problems?
> http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
> Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
> List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
> deleted
>

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-10-07 Thread Sophie Gautier
Hi Marc,
On 06/10/2012 22:30, Marc Paré wrote:
[...]

>> Discuss should be joined into 'projects' (the third forum with
> announcements in
>> the description). If you 'discuss matters affecting the LibreOffice
> project' it
>> should better be relevant to the projects too.
> 
> I have no problems with this either. Although, I can see others having
> problems with it. I was never too clear on what the "projects" mailing
> list was all about as it seems we are all advertising on it and
> discussions are happening more and more on it. It may be better to have
> a "Discuss" forum with a sub-forum "Projects" where only decided
> projects are announced. The discuss list is very active and it is hard
> to pull projects from any of the threads.

The projects mailing was about the transverse communication between the
different project and the native language communities. Unfortunately
nobody understood this purpose (may be not well communicated) and when
there is a need of information, translation, whatever exchange or
interaction, the l10n mailing list is/was used. There is a technical
difference between translation and localization, but there is a big lack
of communication between the different projects and the native language
communities, where marketing, QA, documentation, etc are done. It should
not be a discussion area but a working area.

Kind regards
Sophie
-- 
Sophie Gautier 
Tel:+33683901545
Membership & Certification Committee Member - Co-founder
The Document Foundation

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[tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-10-06 Thread Marc Paré
I am adding this post that from Bjoern Michaelsen as well as my reply 
for you to consider. -- Marc


Le 2012-10-06 12:26, Bjoern Michaelsen a écrit :

>   - Marketing and Marketing US should be joined (unless we have a 20 
head US
> marketing team that I dont know about and that would overwhelm 
the rest with

> their posts)

Not sure about this. We were given the mandate to concentrate on the US 
market specifically. You may have noticed that there are already few 
mails on the US mailing list (of which I am part), but I believe that we 
are set to re-buid post-LibOCon. From what I can see, the largest 
problem with the US is the lack of marcons for the group, which has 
always been front-and-centre of all serious discussions. I would favour 
keeping the US separate and closing the mailing list. The US-forums will 
get better exposure on the forums and be able to get more participation 
from the general user-population.


>   - 'Installation and Configuration' for all non-Windows users should 
be joined.

> While we have enough Linux talent to warrent an own forum,
> on OSX the userbase is thinner and the linux users can often help 
out on OSX too


no problem with this.

>   - LibreOffice Applications should start as _one_ buzzing forum when 
we do
> 'open beta'-testing of the forum. Once we announce the forum as 
'official',
> we can split out forums from there _if_ they warrant that by 
their traffic.


not sure if I like that idea. I would rather see what most users looking 
for help are looking for on arrival on our forums -- a breakdown in 
forums where they can locate their application section and leave a 
message. Sending our users in need of help to a soup-bowl mix of 
messages will only confuse them and add more stress. I would rather have 
the obvious breakdown on our forums site. If there are alpha-beta 
problems with any of the modules, then it would seem to me better for 
our users to see them already in their own categories.


This will also help devs who are monitoring the forums to zoom in on 
their own particular interests.


I would rather see the bulk of our philosophy with regards to the user 
forums to be that of helping out users. From there, the contributors can 
extrapolate the data they need to bug report and to trouble-shoot or to 
even contribute.


>   - Templates are unlikely to support a forum on their own from the 
start.


Yup, but on the other hand, it is a good collection point where we can 
encourage ideas on templates and hope some devs will pick up on it. Its 
a two-way street. If we hope to attract users to our contributor 
forums/mailing lists, then we should also hope to attract devs to our 
user forums. Let's give this one a shot. I am interested in this one, 
particularly considering the lack of template ideas on the lists. It 
will be a good collection point for ideas.



> I would suggest to split 'Extensions LibreOffice' into 'Extension 
Users and

> Support' and 'Extension developement (incl. macro and UNO)'.

No problem with the name change. I think users would have an easy time 
reading into it.


>
> Also we have way too many meta- and announcement forums in the 
proposal. That
> will lead to cross-posting and people missing out on announcements 
because they

> only check one forum etc.
> Everything we say 'officially' to our users should be relevant to our
> contributors. And since we want our users to become contributors, we 
shouldnt

> exclude them from 'contributor announcements'. Thus join those forums.

No argument with this. Sure, sounds reasonable to join both 
Announcement/News forums into one. I would suggest leaving this at the 
top of the list, so that it is the first forums for all to see.


> Discuss should be joined into 'projects' (the third forum with 
announcements in
> the description). If you 'discuss matters affecting the LibreOffice 
project' it

> should better be relevant to the projects too.

I have no problems with this either. Although, I can see others having 
problems with it. I was never too clear on what the "projects" mailing 
list was all about as it seems we are all advertising on it and 
discussions are happening more and more on it. It may be better to have 
a "Discuss" forum with a sub-forum "Projects" where only decided 
projects are announced. The discuss list is very active and it is hard 
to pull projects from any of the threads.


BTW, both of these threads are quite active.

>
> Finally, 'LibreOffice goes social/Lounge/Off the wall/whatever' can 
have any
> name that wins the competition, but it should _not_ have LibreOffice 
or TDF in
> the title as it is specifically intended to be for offtopic stuff. 
And yes,

> having that forum is essential, if only to be able to move irrelevant or
> offtopic posts from other forums there without offending the author 
too much

> (compared to deleting).

Not sure about this. I would prefer the marketing punch of a LibOLounge 
(where some of

Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-10-03 Thread Lucian Oprea

Hi Christian,

See inline below.

Best regards,
Lucian

---
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Telefon: 0745 592602

Pe 28.09.2012 01:18, Christian Lohmaier a scris:

Hi Marc, *,

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:38 PM, Marc Paré  wrote:

Le 2012-09-27 08:11, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Marc Paré  wrote:

Users who have problems with installs generally do not come to a forums/list
with the idea that the be directed to a tutorial, they are more interested
in advice with a real person. Tutorials are nice as extra resource, but the
primary reason for a user who has come to a forums for installation help is
to get help by an informed person, which is what we are offering.

Oh, you're oversimplifying things here, while of course the goal is
that people get help by informed person, just creating separate
categories will not magically assure this.

for Christian
I prefer an forum for help and not an tutorial. The tutorial is a good 
ideea for a suplimentar resource.



* Catch-all/General (also the place to ask installation/configuration
problems if not covered by the tutorials) - might even consider to put
Base into this forum as well.

For installation related questions, people can be asked in a sticky to
prefix their topics with [win] [lin] [mac] (, [sol], [and] [ios],...)

We tried to do this on the contributor mailing lists and the results are
that even the contributors do not do this.

I'll scream the next time someone comes with a "but on mailinglist.." argument.
For heavens sake: We're setting up a forum because it is *NOT* a mailinglist.

On a mailinglist new posters don't see existing posts. While they
could visit the archives, they usually don't, and existing posts
cannot be modified. So when someone doesn't follow the rules, it
cannot be corrected.

This is all the opposite for forums. When people see the tag being
used, they'll use it. If it is forgotten once, a moderator will add
it.

Coming with the argument that it is more work for moderators is only
halfway true.
Moderators are initially expected to scan every message that is posted
for valid content/whether it matches the forum it was posted in or
needs to be moved. So the more in effort is in actually editing the
topic. But that IMHO is a rather small burden.


So, if the people engaged in the
project do not follow this rule, how could we justify asking users to do
follow this rule?

Again: It is the moderators' job that the forum rules are followed.
And contrary to mailinglists, those rules are enforceable. In a well
maintained forum you'll see many existing topics following that
schema. And if the person asking a new question is not mentally
retarded, he might get the idea just by viewing the existing topics,
without having read the sticky post/some rules on a separate page.


I find it easier to categorize the forums to make it easier on both the
users and moderators-helpers; thereby making prefixes unnecessary.

Empty forums / forums with only a handful posts are a nuisance.
But hey, that's exactly the reason I didn't want to be coordinator,
but leave the decision to someone else :-)

for Christian
Some forums will be empty if they can delete.



[...]
Whether a forums has fewer questions are not, IMO, is not a good reason to
combine them.

I personally disagree on this. Within the OOo-Project there were many
such dead mailinglists, and that just lead to people posting to more
general lists just to reach more people, either leaving out the
dedicated mailinglist completely, or only including it in cc.
And yes, now I did myself come up with "but on mailinglists" argument :-)


ciao
Christian




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[tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-09-27 Thread Marc Paré

Le 2012-09-27 18:18, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :

Hi Marc, *,

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:38 PM, Marc Paré  wrote:

Le 2012-09-27 08:11, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Marc Paré   wrote:


Users who have problems with installs generally do not come to a forums/list
with the idea that the be directed to a tutorial, they are more interested
in advice with a real person. Tutorials are nice as extra resource, but the
primary reason for a user who has come to a forums for installation help is
to get help by an informed person, which is what we are offering.


Oh, you're oversimplifying things here, while of course the goal is
that people get help by informed person, just creating separate
categories will not magically assure this.


Agreed about the help, but separate categories will help direct the user 
to a more refined area of the site for her/his particular help.





* Catch-all/General (also the place to ask installation/configuration
problems if not covered by the tutorials) - might even consider to put
Base into this forum as well.

For installation related questions, people can be asked in a sticky to
prefix their topics with [win] [lin] [mac] (, [sol], [and] [ios],...)


We tried to do this on the contributor mailing lists and the results are
that even the contributors do not do this.


I'll scream the next time someone comes with a "but on mailinglist.." argument.
For heavens sake: We're setting up a forum because it is *NOT* a mailinglist.

On a mailinglist new posters don't see existing posts. While they
could visit the archives, they usually don't, and existing posts
cannot be modified. So when someone doesn't follow the rules, it
cannot be corrected.

This is all the opposite for forums. When people see the tag being
used, they'll use it. If it is forgotten once, a moderator will add
it.

Coming with the argument that it is more work for moderators is only
halfway true.
Moderators are initially expected to scan every message that is posted
for valid content/whether it matches the forum it was posted in or
needs to be moved. So the more in effort is in actually editing the
topic. But that IMHO is a rather small burden.



Give me a warning next time you feel like screaming ... I need to cover 
my ears! :-)


If you re-read my remark, I was not comparing the two systems as they 
are obviously different. However, human nature is not. People in general 
will not add tags to their posts and my comment was that even where a 
group of people are engaged in a project (such as LibreOffice), tags are 
not added. Asking people to tag their messages is IMO asking too much, 
we would have to go force users to go through a learning process which 
would most likely turn them off our forums.


HOWEVER, if there is a process whereby tags are offered to users at the 
point of posting a message on our forums, now that is different. Is this 
possible with jForums?




So, if the people engaged in the
project do not follow this rule, how could we justify asking users to do
follow this rule?


Again: It is the moderators' job that the forum rules are followed.
And contrary to mailinglists, those rules are enforceable. In a well
maintained forum you'll see many existing topics following that
schema. And if the person asking a new question is not mentally
retarded, he might get the idea just by viewing the existing topics,
without having read the sticky post/some rules on a separate page.



I've looked through a few of my forums and tags are not used, I also 
visited the Ubuntu forums where tags are part of the message posting 
process, but even there, some parts of site-forums do not make use of 
tags (they have handled almost 4 million messages).


Anyway, sure, I am all for tags if there is a way to add tag-choices at 
the message posting process, then we could help users with this learning 
experience. Not so much for it, if we find that we are spending a good 
bulk of our time moderating it.


But, getting back to categorization, this, I would prefer, as there is 
no need to moderate tagging of messages.



I find it easier to categorize the forums to make it easier on both the
users and moderators-helpers; thereby making prefixes unnecessary.


Empty forums / forums with only a handful posts are a nuisance.
But hey, that's exactly the reason I didn't want to be coordinator,
but leave the decision to someone else :-)


[...]
Whether a forums has fewer questions are not, IMO, is not a good reason to
combine them.


I personally disagree on this. Within the OOo-Project there were many
such dead mailinglists, and that just lead to people posting to more
general lists just to reach more people, either leaving out the
dedicated mailinglist completely, or only including it in cc.
And yes, now I did myself come up with "but on mailinglists" argument :-)




Thanks for not forcing me to point out the "but on mailinglists ..." 
thingy back to you, and, for saving my ears from the screamin

Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-09-27 Thread Christian Lohmaier
Hi Marc, *,

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:38 PM, Marc Paré  wrote:
> Le 2012-09-27 08:11, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :
>> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Marc Paré  wrote:
>
> Users who have problems with installs generally do not come to a forums/list
> with the idea that the be directed to a tutorial, they are more interested
> in advice with a real person. Tutorials are nice as extra resource, but the
> primary reason for a user who has come to a forums for installation help is
> to get help by an informed person, which is what we are offering.

Oh, you're oversimplifying things here, while of course the goal is
that people get help by informed person, just creating separate
categories will not magically assure this.

>> * Catch-all/General (also the place to ask installation/configuration
>> problems if not covered by the tutorials) - might even consider to put
>> Base into this forum as well.
>>
>> For installation related questions, people can be asked in a sticky to
>> prefix their topics with [win] [lin] [mac] (, [sol], [and] [ios],...)
>
> We tried to do this on the contributor mailing lists and the results are
> that even the contributors do not do this.

I'll scream the next time someone comes with a "but on mailinglist.." argument.
For heavens sake: We're setting up a forum because it is *NOT* a mailinglist.

On a mailinglist new posters don't see existing posts. While they
could visit the archives, they usually don't, and existing posts
cannot be modified. So when someone doesn't follow the rules, it
cannot be corrected.

This is all the opposite for forums. When people see the tag being
used, they'll use it. If it is forgotten once, a moderator will add
it.

Coming with the argument that it is more work for moderators is only
halfway true.
Moderators are initially expected to scan every message that is posted
for valid content/whether it matches the forum it was posted in or
needs to be moved. So the more in effort is in actually editing the
topic. But that IMHO is a rather small burden.

> So, if the people engaged in the
> project do not follow this rule, how could we justify asking users to do
> follow this rule?

Again: It is the moderators' job that the forum rules are followed.
And contrary to mailinglists, those rules are enforceable. In a well
maintained forum you'll see many existing topics following that
schema. And if the person asking a new question is not mentally
retarded, he might get the idea just by viewing the existing topics,
without having read the sticky post/some rules on a separate page.

> I find it easier to categorize the forums to make it easier on both the
> users and moderators-helpers; thereby making prefixes unnecessary.

Empty forums / forums with only a handful posts are a nuisance.
But hey, that's exactly the reason I didn't want to be coordinator,
but leave the decision to someone else :-)

> [...]
> Whether a forums has fewer questions are not, IMO, is not a good reason to
> combine them.

I personally disagree on this. Within the OOo-Project there were many
such dead mailinglists, and that just lead to people posting to more
general lists just to reach more people, either leaving out the
dedicated mailinglist completely, or only including it in cc.
And yes, now I did myself come up with "but on mailinglists" argument :-)


ciao
Christian

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[tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

2012-09-27 Thread Marc Paré

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your comments, (see my in-line comments)

Le 2012-09-27 08:11, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :

Hi *,

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Marc Paré  wrote:

Please note that
the categories and forums shown on the page[2], at this point, are only
suggestions and may be modified (some may be removed or added) after we have
discussed this as a group.


OK, my 0,02€ :-)

Where's the difference between "General Discussion"&  "Lounge" (or
whatever name will be chosen) - it is not clear to me.
###


Hmm, I guess there could have been a better description for this 
particular forum. It's a place where people hold discussions on topics 
that are not necessarily and most probably not related to 
TDF/LibreOffice. This will also allow moderators the option of pointing 
users who wish to hold off-topic discussions to this area of our forums. 
It's also a way to help with community building, where we can make users 
feel like they can come back and socialize at a more familiar level and 
hold friendly conversations that are not related to LibreOffice --a 
lounge to "kick off your shoes, relax and talk to the community".


The "General Discussion" forums should have topics related to 
LibreOffice. Some examples would be LibreOffice in the media 
(newspaper/magazine articles mentioning LibreOffice, or seen on video); 
general thoughts on how to improve the suite as a whole; or ideas on 
marketing etc.



I don't think there is a need for an installation&  configuration
category, let alone individual forums for each OS.

Installation is best covered using "Tutorials"/The existing
installation documentation.
so I'd remove the Installation category&  forums and instead cover it
in Tutorials and in a catchall/general questions section in
libreoffice apps category. After all installing is not black magic...
###


I don't think that installation is as easy as you think for a new user 
or someone who has found themselves in a mess after 
installing/upgrading. The first thing a user would do on a forums is to 
look for a specific category. If these are separated right from the very 
start, we will be able to help users more efficiently, and as a plus, 
user-helpers (those who are interested in helping out with 
trouble-shooting with us) will be able to visit their own particular OS 
installation forums section without having to wade through the others. 
The benefits work both ways for users and helpers.


Users who have problems with installs generally do not come to a 
forums/list with the idea that the be directed to a tutorial, they are 
more interested in advice with a real person. Tutorials are nice as 
extra resource, but the primary reason for a user who has come to a 
forums for installation help is to get help by an informed person, which 
is what we are offering.



In LibreOffice Applications, I wouldn't split them out as much, but
rather shrink them to:
* Writer&  Math
* Calc
* Impress&  Draw
* Base
* Catch-all/General (also the place to ask installation/configuration
problems if not covered by the tutorials) - might even consider to put
Base into this forum as well.

For installation related questions, people can be asked in a sticky to
prefix their topics with [win] [lin] [mac] (, [sol], [and] [ios],...)


We tried to do this on the contributor mailing lists and the results are 
that even the contributors do not do this. So, if the people engaged in 
the project do not follow this rule, how could we justify asking users 
to do follow this rule?


I find it easier to categorize the forums to make it easier on both the 
users and moderators-helpers; thereby making prefixes unnecessary.



###
The SiteFeedback&  Website contributor forums seem to overlap


Yes, and this is on purpose.

Site feedback is for feedback of the forums site from the users -- 
whether they like the layout; whether they like certain forums; whether 
they like to visual aspects of the site ...


"Contributor" Website: The contributor forums mirror those of the 
mailing lists and these are to give the option to those mailing lists 
who would prefer to use the forums instead of mailing lists. We are 
hoping to hear from the various mailing-list-leads as to whether they 
would like to:


* move to a forums OR

* not use the forums at all (at which point the forums would be deleted 
from the forums site OR


* test try using both forums and their own mailing lists for a period of 
time after which they would decide on which one to keep.


So, for example, the "contributor" website forum would have the same 
exchange of discussions that are now happening on the website mailing list.


The contributor section of the website is where serious contributor work 
get done for the project -- a clear distinction from the user section 
which is there to help users in need.



###
And I assume that the Admin-Category will be hidden for Anonymous&
regular Users, right?


Yup.



So I'd rather start with fewer forums, and if