[Mageia-dev] Release cycles proposals, and discussion - messages from the forum

Tue Jun 14 16:43:06 CEST 2011

'Twas brillig, and Lee Forest at 14/06/11 13:52 did gyre and gimble:
+> mailing list might work best for a couple people but is it worth
+> inconveniencing the rest of the word because you are a die hard mailing
+> list user
+
+I've posted the arguments before and I'll do it again, despite this
+thread going dangerously off topic.
+
+I find the use of forums to be a great drawback to project engagement as
+an upstream developer. I have to read communities from several updateam
+projects and I get as annoyed about forums as I do about people posting
+in HTML on mailing lists.
+
+Forums are disjoint and individually styled. When you are jumping from
+one project to another to get through your daily grind of information,
+it is exceptionally annoying to have to adjust your eyes and the way you
+operate to cope with the styles, features, login system etc. of each
+individual forums (forii, forum?).
+
+I want the information from these 30 or so projects I'm involved in to
+be available to me in one place, not have a series of inconvenient
+bookmarks and a procedure of checking one, then the next then the one
+after that until I've done the rounds (and of course repeating that
+procedure throughout the day if I want to see any new topics!). It's
+much less time consuming to have a single UI and central store of
+information in which I can look.
+
+Perhaps if all the forums could be aggregated into one handy feed per
+project and stripped of all their styling I could agree, but then that
+would just be reinventing mailing lists!
+
+It's all too easy to get lured by the guise of a forum-based system when
+you only follow a couple of projects, but please consider those of us
+who have several projects to follow.
+
+
+
+As for the server traffic argument, this is what NNTP is for and GMane
+does an excellent service of collecting and aggregating mailing list
+from most open source projects. When you look at the size of their feeds
+you'll realise just how many projects are run on mailing lists.
+
+
+Just like IRC, the fresh faced and full of wonder souls (not to mention
+many other types of souls too, I'm just picking on one demographic that
+suggests it more often than others!) often comment about how some more
+"modern" system is more appropriate for interaction. I don't dispute the
+lower barrier of entry for forums, and they can be a good way to engage
+with a less technical audience, but I will never be able to get involved
+in them (except when people specifically ask me to comment on topics) as
+it's just far too much of an intrusion in my daily grind.
+
+
+Build a nice forum to mail gateway (and vice versa) and it would likely
+please everyone. Technology can solve this!
+
+I won't comment again on this topic (at least on this thread!).
+
+Col
+
+
+
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+mageia(at)colin.guthr.ie
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
+Day Job:
+  Tribalogic Limited [http://www.tribalogic.net/]
+Open Source:
+  Mageia Contributor [http://www.mageia.org/]
+  PulseAudio Hacker [http://www.pulseaudio.org/]
+  Trac Hacker [http://trac.edgewall.org/]
+