In the effort of better managing our resources Apache wide, and specifically in our case in the scope of the Jakarta project, here is a little new addition to our set of "tools". A web-based forum system.
Some of you have asked "why" do we need a forum, aren't our mailing lists enough to support our needs? My reply is simple, we need both. The on-line forum, first of all, allows you do a couple of nifty things that people asked: search messages in an intelligent way (our mail archives already do so, but most of the time, the precision of their search engine is not, well, the best you can get). Plus, each question there is organized and threaded better than any Email client can do (there is a big discussion about how to interpret the In-Reply-To header, and some popular email clients "forget" to include it in messages), and the topics are way more visible than on a mailing list with an average of more than 200 messages a day. There are some more features, like: wouldn't it be nice to be able to be notified and receive replies only to MY particular question, avoiding all the other hundreds of emails that flow daily to your mail client? Well, a web forum allows you to do that, you can create a thread, the one with your little particular problem, and "watch it", being notified via email about what replies I got only to my problem. Or looking and being notified about that little problem I had and was reported by another guy... All that can be done only thru a well-managed forum, and the current internet-mail system is not sufficient to achieve that. And PLUS, every message you send thru the web-forum is actually "mirrored" on our mailing list (I'm still figuring out how to do the opposite, but given enough brainpower -which I don't have at the moment - I'm sure I can do that!), so everyone will see it (nope, you won't loose visibility, and you don't have to post your messages twice). I just a couple of little favors to ask you all. If you see a message coming from the web-forum (and you will recognize it by the lines at the bottom of the message, take this one for example), and you want to reply, don't simply hit "reply" on your client, but instead click on the link at the bottom, and respond on-line. Your message will be archieved, stored, and you won't have to reply to the same question anymore. And if you want to reply to someone on the list, before doing so, check whether the same question has already been answered on the forum. The more we use it now, the less we'll have to use it in the future. Last little question, please, if you see something wrong or offensive on the forum, please notify <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, and we'll be able to remove it... Thanks for listening... Pier --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message has been posted through the Jakarta Tomcat 4.0 F.A.Q. on line forum, and can be seen at: <http://nagoya.apache.org:8080/jive/thread.jsp?forum=1&thread=3> For more informations about the on-line Jakarta forums, please go to: <http://nagoya.apache.org:8080/jive/> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
