Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
I'm sure if I thought about it longer I would find some more arguments. I have one to add: You need a graphical desktop in order to deal with the web forum because 'browsing' this forum with Lynx is a PITA (this is one of the rare occasions that I use this acronym ;-) Agreed, and this is why I wouldn't like the forum either. Currently writing this from pine within a screen in a screen in a console of a linux box, and X is down at the moment to free the memory for a kernel rebuild. V - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Jon Stockill wrote: Alex Perry wrote: I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? I'd also hate to look in two places. On the other hand, changing how we present the mailing list archives so they look like a forum _and_ allow replying if you have logged in ... would be really useful. Logging in implies an account whose email address has been verified in the same way that mailman does. So it can't be used for spamming unless you could easily have spammed with the mailman list system. Mailman has the facility to gate mailing lists to usenet groups. There's also a PHP based news client, which presents it all just like a forum. gmane.org is already doing doing that for the flightgear lists. Is what they provide forum-like enough? Tim -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFbqSkeDhWHdXrDRURAmdTAJ9Ru4LLenB/r7RFvG85I6SpeiYHcgCgr7Wp 5g9+7uh3MPWbEBe53i2Pxhw= =FTkQ -END PGP SIGNATURE- - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
From: Curtis Olson Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Is it worth having both options available? Would end user support benefit from forums? Would forums be useful for those that have trouble with sourceforge's spam blockers? A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? Thoughts? Curt. Ummm...this email makes it sound like we are doing forums just because we can. I think it's already been said, why this isn't such a great idea. My vote would be to just ditch the three development categories. To be honest, I'd sort of expect to see the forum format with third party groups and not the core project. Keeping track of all these channels of dialog is just something I won't be able to do. That said... I do have a fairly complete archive of mail in unix format going back 5 or 6 years (only for the -devel, -model, and -cvs lists). This data could be used to build an archive on flightgear.org. Is this idea of interest to anyone? Best, Jim -- Jim Wilson Kelco Industries PO Box 160 Milbridge, ME 04658 207-546-7989 - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
I don't really care about which form is used for user support. If passers-by prefer a web-based forum, then this *may* be the better choice. (But also consider that someone has to do the support. These are to a certain degree developers, so even here it's not unimportant what those prefer. Unless we expect users to help themselves, of course.) But for development the answer is IMHO very clear. Mailing lists are absolutely preferable, and forums are a big annoyance. 1. mail clients are made and optimized for message exchange, while web browsers are made for mere *display* of information. As a consequence, mail clients have decent editors, elaborated search functions, tagging, spell-checking, address books, address completion, filters and personal message categories (rather than cheesy sub-forums). One can easily CC messages to people who are not subscribed etc. In a web browser you get a small box where you have to write with often limited editing capabilities. It's easy to lose all one has written, too. 2. web forums often mangle messages: they have to convert all html-critical stuff (such as to lt; etc.), and they often replace or even remove(!) tabs. As a consequence, one can't take such a forum message and pipe it into the patch program, whereas it's quite normal to save a whole email and pipe it into patch with no problems whatsoever. 3. one can easily edit and reply to several emails while being offline. This is a pain with forums if you don't have DSL/ISDN, but an expensive dial-up connection. 4. this may not mean much to some people, but *I* prefer to see the sender's email address, the date header (with time zone information) etc. On forums all you get is a cheesy nick behind which people hide (I do :-). Sure, the admin has the mail address. But I'm not the admin. 5. it might be easier to explain POP3 scanning of the local provider's mail server to one's employer, than it might be to explain scanning the same game server in the U.S. all day long (yes, I'm speaking of www.flightgear.org ;-) I'm sure if I thought about it longer I would find some more arguments. Why is it that none of the *many* development projects that I know uses a forum for development communication? Those are always only used for users, if at all. We have already had the same discussion in the past, and the mailing list clearly won. Please don't bring the same thing up in regular intervals, in the hope that people eventually give up their resistance. The only effect would be that developers continued on an inofficial list, basically ignoring the official development forum. :-P m. PS: yes, I created an account on the users forum ... :-} - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Melchior FRANZ wrote: I'm sure if I thought about it longer I would find some more arguments. I have one to add: You need a graphical desktop in order to deal with the web forum because 'browsing' this forum with Lynx is a PITA (this is one of the rare occasions that I use this acronym ;-) Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
+1 for users forum -1000 for developers forum just my 0.01 cents. On 11/30/06, Martin Spott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Melchior FRANZ wrote: I'm sure if I thought about it longer I would find some more arguments. I have one to add: You need a graphical desktop in order to deal with the web forum because 'browsing' this forum with Lynx is a PITA (this is one of the rare occasions that I use this acronym ;-) Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
* Curtis Olson -- Wednesday 29 November 2006 05:24: I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. Exactly. I can't imagine to take part in forum based development. Is this anything that is worth exploring? No. Is it worth having both options available? Not that I knew. Would end user support benefit from forums? The end user doesn't need to benefit from developer communication other than by getting a better program. The developer is in the center of development, not the user. (I wouldn't mind if the users list would migrate, but I'd not take part there more often than on the avsim forum either. Which is rather seldom.) A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? A broken archive is no reason to dump development altogether. m. - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
--- Curtis Olson wrote: Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Yes. I think the user community would benefit from a forum as it is more granular and easier to browse for newbies. It would also help to foster a sense of community c.f. the various MS FS fora. I think this is a major benefit. As the number of FG users ramps up, the number of messages will inevitably increase, so some form of structure becomes critical. At some point we may want to move all -user discussion to the forum and close the -user list. However development is more time-specific and populated by people who can search the archives. Plus it integrates much better into peoples messaging systems. I can't see any benefit to having a development forum at all. In fact, as others have mentioned, having to search two locations would be a pain. I'd suggest that the fora topics explicitly exclude development discussions other than possible a wish-list. So, my tuppence worth: - Have a structure user forum, and possibly wind down the -user list in the future. - Leave the -devel list as-is. Is it worth having both options available? Yes - I can't see any benefit in moving to a forum for devel. Would end user support benefit from forums? Absolutely. With appropriate structure it would reduce the number of repeated question and new users would find it easier to browse. For example I wouldn't have to provide a link to the manual section on the I/O replay mechanism every couple of months ;) -Stuart Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Stuart Buchanan wrote: So, my tuppence worth: - Have a structure user forum, and possibly wind down the -user list in the future. I'd disagree - if anything you should create another mailing list to gate the forum messages to. -- Jon Stockill [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
For FlightGear developers. I think a good idea keep development discussions into mailing lists, because this way is driven to developers only. Maybe with a forum, questions with no relevance, help developers give no focus to important development questions. For end users For end users, forum seems to be great and the easiest method to help find information about flightgear. For developer in general (using latest flightgear stable release to interface it with own projects) Forum is a good start and quoting myself experience. During all this year I was working on a project using flightgear, but I did want only support to questions not related to flightgear internal development and I did search for a official forum, just to find simple questions about flightgear interoperability. This could be easy to find on forum with a topic Flightgear interoperability. Leidson Campos PlanetaMessenger.org On 11/29/06, Curtis Olson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Is it worth having both options available? Would end user support benefit from forums? Would forums be useful for those that have trouble with sourceforge's spam blockers? A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? Thoughts? Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://baron.flightgear.org/%7Ecurt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Curtis Olson wrote: On 11/28/06, Ron Jensen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And this is the biggest argument against forums. They're only accessable when the server is up This is similar with email lists ... you can only post and receive postings when the list server is running and configured correctly, and unfortunately, sourceforge seems to have more than it's fair share of downtime and issues. and its impossible to archive them locally. That is true, but the posts get indexed and archived by google, and we all trust google with our lives, right? :-) Curt. I disagree. I use my local archive of e-mail as a reference all the time. I only go to the web to search the complete archives when I can't find what I am looking for locally. Josh - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Jon Stockill wrote: Stuart Buchanan wrote: So, my tuppence worth: - Have a structure user forum, and possibly wind down the -user list in the future. I'd disagree - if anything you should create another mailing list to gate the forum messages to. Of course, at some point in the future *that* mailing list will have to be migrated to its own forum :) Josh - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? I'd also hate to look in two places. On the other hand, changing how we present the mailing list archives so they look like a forum _and_ allow replying if you have logged in ... would be really useful. Logging in implies an account whose email address has been verified in the same way that mailman does. So it can't be used for spamming unless you could easily have spammed with the mailman list system. --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:27:29 -0800, Alex wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? I'd also hate to look in two places. On the other hand, changing how we present the mailing list archives so they look like a forum _and_ allow replying if you have logged in ... would be really useful. Logging in implies an account whose email address has been verified in the same way that mailman does. So it can't be used for spamming unless you could easily have spammed with the mailman list system. ..I too like this way of doing it. -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Hi Curt, I prefer the mailing list. I think there are much tot little contributions for splitting the topics in a forum (how many contributors we have?). Up to now it's no problem to have the survey of all contributions. If someone prefer the thread-sorted view: we have it on http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=flightgear-devel. The forum preferring people need a reply button there. Maik Curtis Olson schrieb am 29.11.2006 05:24: Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Is it worth having both options available? Would end user support benefit from forums? Would forums be useful for those that have trouble with sourceforge's spam blockers? A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? Thoughts? Curt. - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
On Wednesday 29 November 2006 13:29, Arnt Karlsen wrote: On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:27:29 -0800, Alex wrote in message I'd also hate to look in two places. On the other hand, changing how we present the mailing list archives so they look like a forum _and_ allow replying if you have logged in ... would be really useful. Logging in implies an account whose email address has been verified in the same way that mailman does. So it can't be used for spamming unless you could easily have spammed with the mailman list system. ..I too like this way of doing it. Same here. Ampere - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
On 11/29/06, Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: On Wednesday 29 November 2006 13:29, Arnt Karlsen wrote: On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:27:29 -0800, Alex wrote in message I'd also hate to look in two places. On the other hand, changing how we present the mailing list archives so they look like a forum _and_ allow replying if you have logged in ... would be really useful. Logging in implies an account whose email address has been verified in the same way that mailman does. So it can't be used for spamming unless you could easily have spammed with the mailman list system. ..I too like this way of doing it. Same here. This sounds good and I've seen one place that had this set up (egroups?) but I've not run across open-source software package that can actually do this and I'm not at a point in my life where I have time to write a custom list archiver/bbs hybrid system myself. I don't know ... I'm not sold on the idea of forums exactly, but I do sense that a different group of users will probably latch onto the forums and feel a lot more comfortable using them versus email lists. I think that email lists are intimidating to some people ... and perhaps forums are intimidating or seem like a pain to other people. Maybe there's something to be said about forcing/funneling all the discussions through one mechanism, but on the other hand there's something to be said about giving people options and letting them choose what they are most comfortable with. I just realize I have said absolutely nothing. :-) I think I'm going to let them run just a bit longer and then maybe we can an idea if enough people think they are useful and are using them. Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
Curt wrote: I just realize I have said absolutely nothing. :-) I think I'm going to let them run just a bit longer and then maybe we can an idea if enough people think they are useful and are using them. If the community is split into two different camps, communication is going to suffer, plain and simple. I can receive email wherever I am and reply or not. I can set up filters and rules in my email program to sort the email posts. If the mails to the FlightGear-devel lists are archived in a forum, that's fine. If posts to a forum are likewise echoed to the -devel list, that's fine. In other words, if there are two ways to view a single communication venue, that's fine. But if there are two completely independent venues to discuss issues (say, the Users list), that would be very, very bad. It really defeats the purpose of having any kind of discussion group/list/forum at all. Jon - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
On 11/29/06, Jon S. Berndt wrote: If the community is split into two different camps, communication is going to suffer, plain and simple. I can receive email wherever I am and reply or not. I can set up filters and rules in my email program to sort the email posts. If the mails to the FlightGear-devel lists are archived in a forum, that's fine. If posts to a forum are likewise echoed to the -devel list, that's fine. In other words, if there are two ways to view a single communication venue, that's fine. But if there are two completely independent venues to discuss issues (say, the Users list), that would be very, very bad. It really defeats the purpose of having any kind of discussion group/list/forum at all. All good points, but consider that we aren't really starting anything new here. There are FlightGear forums that exist already (i.e. Avsim) where useful discussion occurs and where people actually expect to post questions or comments and get help and feedback. So the forum thing is already in play, I'd just like to see if I can consolodate it under one roof rather than being spread around the world. There's things I like about mailing lists and things I like about web based forums. Someday I'm going to follow in the footsteps of Knuth and refuse to use email or forums at all. When I get a secretary (probably in a future life) their first task will be to start printing out all my emails for me. :-) Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
On 11/29/06, Jon S. Berndt wrote: If the community is split into two different camps, communication is going to suffer, plain and simple. I can receive email wherever I am and reply or not. I can set up filters and rules in my email program to sort the email posts. If the mails to the FlightGear-devel lists are archived in a forum, that's fine. If posts to a forum are likewise echoed to the -devel list, that's fine. In other words, if there are two ways to view a single communication venue, that's fine. But if there are two completely independent venues to discuss issues (say, the Users list), that would be very, very bad. It really defeats the purpose of having any kind of discussion group/list/forum at all. All good points, but consider that we aren't really starting anything new here. There are FlightGear forums that exist already (i.e. Avsim) where useful discussion occurs and where people actually expect to post questions or comments and get help and feedback. So the forum thing is already in play ... Curt. True, the forum thing is already in play, and communication is likewise already suffering because of it. I know this from experience. I'll be doing a Google search and find a reference to JSBSim, for instance, with questions in it that simply go unanswered. I don't have a problem with people discussing FlightGear or JSBSim or whatever in a forum in Avsim, for instance, but it should be stated and understood that if the question cannot be answered there, then the official mailing list should be turned to. I'd just hate to see people pick and choose one venue over the other, and pretty soon one Subject Matter Expert disappears from view from those who have chosen the other venue. I'd hate to see the mailing lists watered down, diluted. Jon - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
Jon S. Berndt wrote: On 11/29/06, *Jon S. Berndt* wrote: If the community is split into two different camps, communication is going to suffer, plain and simple. I can receive email wherever I am and reply or not. I can set up filters and rules in my email program to sort the email posts. If the mails to the FlightGear-devel lists are archived in a forum, that's fine. If posts to a forum are likewise echoed to the -devel list, that's fine. In other words, if there are two ways to view a single communication venue, that's fine. But if there are two completely independent venues to discuss issues (say, the Users list), that would be very, very bad. It really defeats the purpose of having any kind of discussion group/list/forum at all. All good points, but consider that we aren't really starting anything new here. There are FlightGear forums that exist already (i.e. Avsim) where useful discussion occurs and where people actually expect to post questions or comments and get help and feedback. So the forum thing is already in play ... Curt. True, the forum thing is already in play, and communication is likewise already suffering because of it. I know this from experience. I'll be doing a Google search and find a reference to JSBSim, for instance, with questions in it that simply go unanswered. I don't have a problem with people discussing FlightGear or JSBSim or whatever in a forum in Avsim, for instance, but it should be stated and understood that if the question cannot be answered there, then the official mailing list should be turned to. I'd just hate to see people pick and choose one venue over the other, and pretty soon one Subject Matter Expert disappears from view from those who have chosen the other venue. I'd hate to see the mailing lists watered down, diluted. Jon I like the forum because, being web-based, I can keep an eye on it at work and (occasionally if workload permits) answer questions that I would normally have to wait until I got home. I like the mailing lists because the full post is emailed to me and I can apply rules that sort the FG-User and FG-Devel posts in to their respective folders. I like the mailing lists because to monitor the mailing lists I need only one application open, the email client (Thunderbird for me), whereas with forums I need a browser open too. I agree that having split formats is not desirable. I like the idea of different forums as I can track the ones that are high priority to me (ones that I can actively participate in because of limitations in ability) but when I check those forums I can also keep an eye on other forums that might not be of immediate interest but contain issues of interest (mush the same way as Curt's CVS emails give me an overview of what's going on in CVS. in conclusion --- at the moment I don't know --- lets keep the forum going for a while longer and see if the 16 registered users grows. I notice the Devel forum has been locked, presumably because the overwhelming negative response from prominent developers... can't think of a benefit directly but that seems like a neat feature and there is my $NZ0.03 (= $US0.02) worth. Cheers Dene NZWN - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Hi, On Wednesday 29 November 2006 05:24, Curtis Olson wrote: Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Is it worth having both options available? Would end user support benefit from forums? Would forums be useful for those that have trouble with sourceforge's spam blockers? A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? Thoughts? I do not like forums in any form. I am subscribed on many mailing lists and I have filters that sort them into local archives that I can handle all in the same way. I do not want to look at many different web pages that all look different and that are searchable different and in a less comfortable way I can search my private mails. I had that often problems with forums or other web browser based applications that I have put together some statement and then the web browser happened to crash before that is submitted to the server ... That said I will most probably switch to many more private offlist mails if we switch of the mailing list. Greetings Mathias - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums integration thought
On Thursday 30 November 2006 06:20, Jon S. Berndt wrote: Curt wrote: I just realize I have said absolutely nothing. :-) I think I'm going to let them run just a bit longer and then maybe we can an idea if enough people think they are useful and are using them. If the community is split into two different camps, communication is going to suffer, plain and simple. I can receive email wherever I am and reply or not. I can set up filters and rules in my email program to sort the email posts. If the mails to the FlightGear-devel lists are archived in a forum, that's fine. If posts to a forum are likewise echoed to the -devel list, that's fine. In other words, if there are two ways to view a single communication venue, that's fine. But if there are two completely independent venues to discuss issues (say, the Users list), that would be very, very bad. It really defeats the purpose of having any kind of discussion group/list/forum at all. Yep a mail gateway to such forums would do the trick. To be honest, I do not see an advantage of inventing and driving such a gateway in favour of using a mailing list that is already set up. Greetings Mathias - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
On Wednesday 29 November 2006 14:48, Josh Babcock wrote: Curtis Olson wrote: On 11/28/06, Ron Jensen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And this is the biggest argument against forums. They're only accessable when the server is up This is similar with email lists ... you can only post and receive postings when the list server is running and configured correctly, and unfortunately, sourceforge seems to have more than it's fair share of downtime and issues. and its impossible to archive them locally. That is true, but the posts get indexed and archived by google, and we all trust google with our lives, right? :-) Curt. I disagree. I use my local archive of e-mail as a reference all the time. I only go to the web to search the complete archives when I can't find what I am looking for locally. Me too. Mathias - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Is it worth having both options available? Would end user support benefit from forums? Would forums be useful for those that have trouble with sourceforge's spam blockers? A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? Thoughts? Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Curtis Olson wrote: Now that I am hosting the FlightGear web site with a commercial hosting service, it becomes quite easy to setup online forums using phpBB2. I know our development culture is built around mailing lists. I'm sure the FlightGear community will be decisively split between forums versus mailing lists if I ask people's preferences ... so I'm not expecting a consensus here. Is this anything that is worth exploring? Is it worth having both options available? Would end user support benefit from forums? Would forums be useful for those that have trouble with sourceforge's spam blockers? A backup communication mechanism for when the sourceforge email lists experience their inevitable down time? Thoughts? Anything you can do to foster communications, increase awareness, reduce newbee initiation, and expand levels of understanding is positive. Forums seem to be a bit more structured but some folks like that when searching for a specific topic JW - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
I'm just fiddling around and anything can be changed, but here is a first whack. http://www.flightgear.org/forums/ As Dave said we can setup any structure of categories and forums. Right now I've created one category with all the forum topics inside, but we could certainly split things out more ... especially as we see how the discussion proceeds. I'm open to suggestions here, but I'm leaning towards making this forum available as an option for those that want to use it. I would still like to keep develop discussions funneled to the existing sourceforge list. The above forum link is live so feel free to create an account, reserve your favorite user name, make a few posts, suggest different forum topics, whatever you like: Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
And I'm a moron and just wiped out the whole thing 2 seconds ago. Let me try again ... thanks for your patience ... :-( Curt. On 11/28/06, Curtis Olson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm just fiddling around and anything can be changed, but here is a first whack. http://www.flightgear.org/forums/ As Dave said we can setup any structure of categories and forums. Right now I've created one category with all the forum topics inside, but we could certainly split things out more ... especially as we see how the discussion proceeds. I'm open to suggestions here, but I'm leaning towards making this forum available as an option for those that want to use it. I would still like to keep develop discussions funneled to the existing sourceforge list. The above forum link is live so feel free to create an account, reserve your favorite user name, make a few posts, suggest different forum topics, whatever you like: Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://baron.flightgear.org/%7Ecurt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
A backup communication method might be good, but I'm not keen at all on the idea of having to look two places for the same kind of content. My feeling is that it should be one or the other. Agreed. I think a forum has advantages over say a mailing list. But then having both might not do any good. It's as hard to argue whether things should go into the wiki or the manual. I've seen many forums ended up having like 20 sticky posts at the top for useful information/FAQs. A note on phpbb: I have 3 phpbb setup for friends on my server and it constantly get spams and, and got hacked in multiple times (just the phpbb part, not the server/system). Now I'm not going to debate here where php/phpbb is good or bad, but my point is it might bring in quite a bit of administrating/monitoring/baby sitting work. Pigeon. - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 23:01 -0600, Curtis Olson wrote: And I'm a moron and just wiped out the whole thing 2 seconds ago. Let me try again ... thanks for your patience ... :-( Curt. And this is the biggest argument against forums. They're only accessable when the server is up and its impossible to archive them locally. Ron - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:29:05 +1100, Pigeon wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]: A backup communication method might be good, but I'm not keen at all on the idea of having to look two places for the same kind of content. My feeling is that it should be one or the other. Agreed. I think a forum has advantages over say a mailing list. But then having both might not do any good. It's as hard to argue whether things should go into the wiki or the manual. I've seen many forums ended up having like 20 sticky posts at the top for useful information/FAQs. A note on phpbb: I have 3 phpbb setup for friends on my server and it constantly get spams and, and got hacked in multiple times (just the phpbb part, not the server/system). Now I'm not going to debate here where php/phpbb is good or bad, but my point is it might bring in quite a bit of administrating/monitoring/baby sitting work. ..most mail clients can do searches and I get the impression most people are unaware of this fact. Maybe setup a mail list search engine web gui and offer the offline mail list search engine gui option too? ;o) -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
On 11/28/06, Ron Jensen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And this is the biggest argument against forums. They're only accessable when the server is up This is similar with email lists ... you can only post and receive postings when the list server is running and configured correctly, and unfortunately, sourceforge seems to have more than it's fair share of downtime and issues. and its impossible to archive them locally. That is true, but the posts get indexed and archived by google, and we all trust google with our lives, right? :-) Curt. -- Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ http://www.flightgear.org Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Forums?
Curtis Olson wrote: On 11/28/06, *Ron Jensen* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And this is the biggest argument against forums. They're only accessable when the server is up This is similar with email lists ... you can only post and receive postings when the list server is running and configured correctly, and unfortunately, sourceforge seems to have more than it's fair share of downtime and issues. and its impossible to archive them locally. That is true, but the posts get indexed and archived by google, and we all trust google with our lives, right? :-) Curt. Hi, Had a lookregisteredwould like to give it a go I like the local archiving of posts using a mailing list and agree the forum format is only as reliable as the server, but then again, so is the mailing list... I like the overall view of the different topics.. for me, mailing list posts are a bit of a quandary, is scenery development a user or developers topic... the forum format makes it very easy to choose ... yes I like it! Dene NZWN (scenery developer) - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
