suggestion are below. But first, some background.
The wtr-general mailing list
On several occassions the Watir community has clearly indicated that
it did not want to see separate lists for users and
developers. Instead we have a common mailing list called wtr-general
hosted at Rubyforge.org. This mailing list is open to anybody and only
accepts posts from members. It is very active and encourages
discussions of testing with Ruby whether or not Watir is specifically
being used.
List maintenance is minor; mostly it consists of approving occassional
posts that have either large attachments (over 40 KB) or are from
members who are using a different email address from their
subscription (although i wouldn't mind another volunteer to help with
this).
The biggest drawback to the list is the difficulty of searching the
archives. However, this is a less of a problem than it used to be
because we've added a search feature to the project web page, and the
list is also mirrored to another site with better archiving.
For further details, see http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/wtr-general
The Current OpenQA Watir Forums
The standard Open QA hosting arrangement includes two web-based
forums, one for users and one for developers. These were set up for
Watir when we first set up at Open QA, but they have gone largely
unused and neglected.
According to the Open QA website, there are also corresponding mailing
lists for these forums, but in my discussions with Patrick, I
understood that these haven't actually been set up. He also tells us
that he can synchronize forums with existing email lists hosted at
other sites.
These forums have the advantage of being easy to browse and search for
casual users. They also have an interesting feature that allows
tracking which questions have been answered and who is answering the
most questions. And they offer RSS feeds, which offers an alternative
way of tracking a discussion without subscribing.
For details, see http://forums.openqa.org/category.jspa?categoryID=4
The Proposal
I am proposing that the current wtr-general mailing list be mirrored
at OpenQA. The Watir community has recently requested that we create a
new mailing to handle support of the Watir code currently in
development (namely Watir 1.5 and FireWatir). I am proposing that a
new list be created at Rubyforge (wtr-development) and that it be
mirrored by a new forum at OpenQA (Watir Development).
The following is a detailed action plan for how to make this all
happen. If this plan is approved by the community, i will work with
Patrick and Charley on the implementation.
Setting Up Watir General
1. Delete the Watir Users and Watir Developers Forums.
2. Create a new Forum called Watir General.
3. Set up Watir General to include the traffic from wtr-general.
4. Get the pre-transfer archives of wtr-general from rubyforge and
have these placed in the Watir General Archives.
Setting Up Watir Development
1. Create a new mailing list wtr-development at Rubyforge.
2. Create a new Forum at OpenQA called Watir Development.
3. Open up the list to new subscribers.
_______________________________________________ Wtr-general mailing list [email protected] http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/wtr-general
