[Mageia-discuss] Mageia Forums

Wed Sep 22 20:50:49 CEST 2010

+
+
+
+
+________________________________
+From: Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org>
+To: Mageia general discussions <mageia-discuss at mageia.org>
+Sent: Wed, September 22, 2010 11:39:57 AM
+Subject: Re: [Mageia-discuss] Mageia Forums
+
+Le mercredi 22 septembre 2010 à 04:32 +0200, Tux99 a écrit :
+
+> While I'm in no position to influence this, I believe that Mageia 
+> and it's community would greatly benefit if the Mageia devs would use a 
+> reserved section of the Mageia forum (a subforum where only devs can 
+> post) for cooker discussions rather than a mailing-list, since it would 
+> bring devs and users closer to each other and facilitate interaction.
+
+Well, no for several reasons:
+
+1) a restricted forum is not really the spirit of openess I would see.
+And a restricted forum would not be really a way to bring dev and
+non-dev closer if this is restricted to dev. ( not to mention that the
+simple existence of the idea "dev and users" is harmful, IMHO ). 
+
+2) forums are IMHO not adapted to the work:
+
+- depending on the forum, some will mark messages as read while you
+didn't , fluxbb for example, and this is stressing ( at least, it does
+stress me, since each time, I wonder if I forgot to read something
+important or not )
+
+- you have to read the whole page to follow a thread, while evolution
+allow me to mark just a subthread as read when I know it doesn't
+interest me ( like thread about kde or nvidia driver on cooker )
+
+- you cannot have subthread, which basically make everything a mess
+
+- you cannot do any kind of filtering ( like some people do with gnus,
+to highlight post with keyword ) 
+
+- you cannot cross post between forum ( which can be required when
+specialized ml will appear )
+
+- you basically cannot automate much task ( like applying a patch for
+git with git am )
+
+- you cannot read them offline ( in, when you commute, like what I do )
+
+- most of the time, you cannot read them on your phone ( see the commute
+part )
+
+So basically, for my workflow, and I think I am not having a so uncommon
+one among the  FOSS crowd, a forum is less adapted than a ML.
+
+
+Regarding devs on forums, I have already expressed myself on cooker ml,
+seek my name around august this year. Of course, I may appear like a ass
+in theses mails,( maybe because I am one ), but I think that basically
+changing the name of the project will not impact much my opinion, and
+that still reflect my thoughts.
+
+Of course, some packagers will read forums, and some used it ( like
+Nicolas Lecureil, Samuel Verschelde and likely others ) for various
+task, but personally, I would prefer rely on people to help me by doing
+the triaging, and let me focus on issues where I can be more useful for
+everybody. I think this would scale more than asking every developer to
+get on the forum. 
+
+So while I do not want to actively ignore users, it must be clear that
+not everybody will/can pass a significant time on forum. And well, while
+reading is sufficient in theory, if you just read, people do not know
+and feel neglected. But answering requires more time. For example, I
+have devoted my full afternoon on reading -discuss and I have still many
+mails to read and maybe to answer, so I really do not think I could cope
+with a user forums. 
+
+When you take a forum, you need to take one that can show "hot topic",
+or something like that, ie think of infrequent readers that may want to
+only have the more important discussion ( ie, a
+packager/designer/coder/whatever that just pass from time to time ). 
+
+-- 
+Michael Scherer
+
+
+
+I am torn, on the ML vs Forums thing. I like forums, and I think for normal 
+users it would be easier for them. but; for more active devs/user other Mageia 
+personnel a ML would be better. 
+
+
+not, sure how to resolve it, its an age old question.
+
+-Nex6
+
+
+
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