On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 22:40, Olivier Méjean
<omejean@yahoo.fr> wrote:
Le dimanche 3 octobre 2010 06:25:58, Tux99 a écrit :
>
> I hope it will be useful for those of us who prefer a web forum rather
> than mailing lists, but still want to partecipate in the mailing list
> discussions!
>
Well, that's a great job, really, nice to see such a thing is possible.
However i would like to point something very important for me, forum users are
quite different from ML users.
In fact, throught this system we face one goal of Mageia. Will it be a
distribution for "developers" or for "end-users" (well i know developers are
also end-users).
I thought the aim was to be a community distribution, so ideally it would be for both.
End-users, well just users may come from Windows (i hope we
will attract some to the good side of the force :D ) and they feels a forum
must easier than a ML. Just look at rules on the ML here, no html, no top
posting, just quote well are things that needs to use mail correctly. And just
use mail correctly is sometimes hard for just users. I do not work in
computing and i just see how computers are seen, how they are used and how
theses 3 rules would be hard to use. No HTML ? well i guess few users (outside
those working in computing) knows how to do it, no top posting ... ouch quite
impossible, quote well ... hum what do you calll quoting ?
The advantage of a forum, for these problems, is that there is only one interface : the forum, and the administrator can configure it as much as he wants (or is able).
So : no HTML is decide by the administrator, not by the 'end user'.
(I just saw that 'wobo' explained it better than I do)
Let's face it, ML is a tool for developers not a tool for users.
That's just the reason for the gateway : to provide a way to communicate between users and developpers : developers usually hate forums, end-users usually are unable to use ML's properly.
The fear has allready been expressed that if we open that communication channel, developers will be flooded.
That is a real problem, and I think we have to use (existing, and eventually new) tools to limit that problem.
As a user i
do prefer forums, on one topic i can have the full discussion no need to
navigate between mails, there are colors, it is (or it give the feeling) more
attractive and newbies or users will prefer using forums. That's the same
thing between using GUI or CLI, i know CLI is powerful, faster, very efficient,
but for users GUI is better, they feel at ease when using their mouse to point
and click, validate.
I have also praticed a lot web forum, and a very little usenet and it is also
two differents audience. Anyone here on alt.os.linux.mandriva (hum yes Marc
Paré is on) ?
So, even if there is a good tool to have a bidirectional Gateway between ML
and web forum i don't think we will meet efficiency with it. The best way for me
is to have these different tools since they have different audiences,
How can you have a community if you have no means to communicate ?
(Off topic example : I am belgian, Belgium is in danger of disintegrating because (amongst other factors) there are 2 'public opinions' with 2 different languages, that do not communicate : there are no common mass media)
some of us
will be on both tools but most will use just one.
Yes but it is better to manage a communication problem, rather than just make sure that communication is very hard, so you can ignore the problem.
I hope I don't come across as too opiniated.
These communication problems are universal. I just think that Mageia is in a position to do better, because it can manage it's tools. And that it could greatly benefit by doing it.
--
Olivier Méjean
Président de l'Association des Utilisateurs Francophones de Mandriva Linux
http://mandrivafr.org
twitter : obagoom
identi.ca : goom