Dimi Paun wrote:
On Sat, April 22, 2006 9:45 pm, Molle Bestefich said:
Can you explain what's so different between Google and a forum search?
That's pretty obvious: the Google search is just a lot better.
Remember when we used to offer our own search on WineHQ? It
sucked so badly it wasn't even funny. I'm pretty sure that even
now the Google search is way better than anything the forum can
ever provide.
This is of course not an argument against the forum. It's just
that the search argument is not for forum either :)
On the contrary, I think out of all the times I have searched for
something I knew was in a forum, I found it quicker and easier using
phpbb's builtin search than I did using google., or even a google search
box within the forum.
Folks, I think these debates are a bit pointless. I know, I absoutely
detest forums too, but this is irrelevant. For reasons I can not fathom
it looks like some people like them. Let's not debate the reasons, we're
not going to get anywhere: de gustibus non dispudandum est and all that.
The only thing that is of concern is whether by creating them
we are going to harm rather than help the community. For one,
I think it will have very little, if any, impact on wine-devel,
as most folks here can't stand them anyway. So it is purely a
wine-users kind of thing.
So what can happen? The only negative thing would be for the forum
to not get used, unsuspecting users would use them, and get no real
support, resulting in frustrated newbies. One cool thing that we can
do to avoid that is to simply automatically forward forum posts to
wine-users, and maybe automatically post replies from wine-users on
to the forum. That would be ideal.
Bottom line: let's implement a forum, and see how it goes. If we can
get the wine-users <--> forum gateway, it would be perfect. If not,
we have to give it a few months and see if it catches on. If it does
not, we'll take it out of its misery. Problem solved.
I like your willingness to compromise.. And in response to my most
recent posting (with the idea i have in my head how it could work),
maybe it could be better explained like this. Instead of having
everything posted to wine-users (trust me you don't want this because it
will be like 30,000 emails a day once the forums catch on), kill off
wine-users and make several smaller mailing lists, one for each
category, like this:
Note this is just an example and not necessarily how I would like it
worded, or the order I would like the items to be in, just what comes to
mind first....
In the forums:
Main page
| Compilation problems
| | configure failures
| | make failures
| | etc
| Running problems
| | Crashes
| | | Crashes running winelib apps (winecfg, winefile, explorer,
regedit, etc)
| | | App crashes
| | | Game crashes
| | Unimplemented functions
| | Glitches
| | err's spit to console
| Q&A
Then in the mailing lists have
wine-forums-compile -> Compilation problems
wine-forums-running -> Running problems
wine-forums-qanda -> Q&A
Sure what is done above is covered by bugzilla, BUT.. I believe this
will cut down on duplicate and invalid posts, as users will see and go
for the forums first, then when we determine it to be a bug, we just let
them know ok, now that we are sure it is a bug, either post to this bug
on bugzilla, or create this new one in bugzilla. Then when that is
done, one of us can cc: (in the bug) the developer who takes care of
that component...
All of this provides for a better interaction with the users because
someone is acknowledging their problem immediately and by doing so,
demonstrating that we are working to fix it, even if it may take a
while. Whereas when they just post something to bugzilla and dont
mention something on the lists, then it gets ignored unless someone
watching wine-bugs knows what's going on or how to find out what's going on.
