* dwgallien [07-20-10 09:14]:

Would someone please explain the difference in purpose between this mailing list and the openSUSE forums? I try to provide assistance on both, but do notice there is often overlap, i.e., occasionally questions posted here have been previously asked/answered at the forums and vice-versa. (I ask the question only in the interest of everyone's most efficient use of time.)

Welcome Dennis. Short answer is few utilize both venues and mostly due to personal preference. And, they do not overlap. Questions posed in one forum do not automagically appear in the other. There is also a third forum which suffers similarly, the chat rooms. I guess the shorter answer is: You picks yer poison. -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan skrev:

* dwgallien [07-20-10 09:14]:

...

Would someone please explain the difference in purpose between this mailing list and the openSUSE forums? I try to provide assistance on both, but do notice there is often overlap, i.e., occasionally questions posted here have been previously asked/answered at the forums and vice-versa. (I ask the question only in the interest of everyone's most efficient use of time.)

Welcome Dennis.

Short answer is few utilize both venues and mostly due to personal preference. And, they do not overlap. Questions posed in one forum do not automagically appear in the other. There is also a third forum which suffers similarly, the chat rooms.

I guess the shorter answer is: You picks yer poison.

It seems like you can sometimes have it all. A probably well known thing I found while investigating how to consolidate communication in a similar situation outside my own control: http://www.citadel.org/ BR, Gudmund -- This message and any replies to it is scanned by http://www.fra.se. Please direct any complaints about this to them. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2010/07/20 09:11 (GMT-0400) dwgallien composed:

Would someone please explain the difference in purpose between this mailing list and the openSUSE forums? I try to provide assistance on both, but do notice there is often overlap, i.e., occasionally questions posted here have been previously asked/answered at the forums and vice-versa. (I ask the question only in the interest of everyone's most efficient use of time.)

In many many years on the internet, I've found people tend to prefer one or the other. Forums: 1-invariably mousetype (rude, tiny text; certainly applicable to forums.opensuse.org) 2-higher ratio of unanswered questions to answered questions 3-higher ratio of good answers to unhelpful answers 4-better moderation 5-subject miscategorization widespread (leads searches in wrong directions) 6-pulled (more work to get, but get no processing forced) Mailing lists: 1-displays text legibly and comfortably at users preferred size 2-better ratio of questions asked to questions answered 3-better ratio of good answers to unhelpful answers 4-poorer moderation 5-topics lack categoration within particular lists (hard to narrow searches) 6-pushed (less work to get, more work to process) My only contact with most forums is whatever shows up in Google results. I can only deal with mousetype on an as-needed basis. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan skrev:

* Gudmund Areskoug [07-20-10 09:30]:

...

It seems like you can sometimes have it all.

A probably well known thing I found while investigating how to consolidate communication in a similar situation outside my own control: http://www.citadel.org/

Yes, *you* can have it all, but in a very narrow window. Your neighbor cannot w/o the same or similar software packages. To truly "have it all" the three forums would have to be combined, somehow.

As I understood it, Citadel allows just that, so that the users can access one and the same forum using whatever means they like, be it via e. g. web or e-mail, because it's all stored in a database, web and e-mail just being different ways to communicate with it. But I may have misunderstood the Citadel documentation. BR, Gudmund -- This message and any replies to it is scanned by http://www.fra.se. Please direct any complaints about this to them. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 Jul 2010 14:38:48 Felix Miata wrote:

On 2010/07/20 09:11 (GMT-0400) dwgallien composed:

...

Would someone please explain the difference in purpose between this mailing list and the openSUSE forums? I try to provide assistance on both, but do notice there is often overlap, i.e., occasionally questions posted here have been previously asked/answered at the forums and vice-versa. (I ask the question only in the interest of everyone's most efficient use of time.)

In many many years on the internet, I've found people tend to prefer one or the other.

Forums: 1-invariably mousetype (rude, tiny text; certainly applicable to forums.opensuse.org) 2-higher ratio of unanswered questions to answered questions 3-higher ratio of good answers to unhelpful answers 4-better moderation 5-subject miscategorization widespread (leads searches in wrong directions) 6-pulled (more work to get, but get no processing forced)

Mailing lists: 1-displays text legibly and comfortably at users preferred size 2-better ratio of questions asked to questions answered 3-better ratio of good answers to unhelpful answers 4-poorer moderation 5-topics lack categoration within particular lists (hard to narrow searches) 6-pushed (less work to get, more work to process)

My only contact with most forums is whatever shows up in Google results. I can only deal with mousetype on an as-needed basis.

I may have misunderstood, but your items 3 above seem to claim the same thing for both forums and mailing lists. A high ratio of good:unhelpful answers means there are more good answers than unhelpful answers. Bob (in pedant mode) -- Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.2, Kernel 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop, KDE 4.4.4 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan skrev:

* Gudmund Areskoug [01-01-70 11:34]:

...

Patrick Shanahan skrev:

...

Yes, *you* can have it all, but in a very narrow window. Your neighbor cannot w/o the same or similar software packages. To truly "have it all" the three forums would have to be combined, somehow. As I understood it, Citadel allows just that, so that the users can access one and the same forum using whatever means they like, be it via e. g. web or e-mail, because it's all stored in a database, web and e-mail just being different ways to communicate with it.

But I may have misunderstood the Citadel documentation.

No, I don't believe so. It is I not making myself understood. If you utilize Citadel, *you* will see things combined but anyone not using Citadel and not having it configured similarly will not. And how would someone intrepret an answer posed in a forum where the question did not exist? I understand that this would not happen if proper quoting rule were followed but....

What I was thinking of was if Citadel were used as server for the openSUSE fora, configured to allow users whatever access tools they like. BR, Gudmund -- This message and any replies to it is scanned by http://www.fra.se. Please direct any complaints about this to them. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 09:38 -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

It seems like you can sometimes have it all. A probably well known thing I found while investigating how to consolidate communication in a similar situation outside my own control: http://www.citadel.org/ Yes, *you* can have it all, but in a very narrow window. Your neighbor cannot w/o the same or similar software packages. To truly "have it all"

* Gudmund Areskoug [07-20-10 09:30]: the three forums would have to be combined, somehow.

You can come the two that are operational similar. See how mono does it http://www.go-mono.org/forums/ their forums and mail lists are linked. Chat is another thing to itself. -- Adam Tauno Williams LPIC-1, Novell CLA http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2010/07/20 10:43 (GMT-0400) Greg Freemyer composed:

Felix Miata wrote:

...

Forums: 1-invariably mousetype (rude, tiny text; certainly applicable to forums.opensuse.org)

Do you know <cntrl> +

In firefox at least it increases the font of the displayed web-page.

How many bugs have you filed on bugzilla.mozilla.org? I've filed 300, even fixed one myself https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=253316. 46 of those I filed include text or font in the summary.

<cntrl> -

Does the opposite.

I just tried it at the forum and it seemed to stick while I browsed a few threads.

Here, it's required 5 times to almost reach comfort level, 6 to overshoot comfort level. In SeaMonkey I can type in a percent that results in a match to my preference. Minimum text size and zoom functions built into browsers were put there to allow users to defend against bad web design. Absent the offense, defense needn't be applied. It shouldn't need to be applied, first because the web is too old for bad design to be standard practice, second because it's unnecessary, and third because it's rude. Text sized in px, as is forums.opensuse.org and most web forums, completely disregards user preferences. That's an excellent definition of rude. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 20/07/10 17:15, Gudmund Areskoug wrote:

Patrick Shanahan skrev:

...

* Gudmund Areskoug [01-01-70 11:34]:

...

Patrick Shanahan skrev: [...] What I was thinking of was if Citadel were used as server for the openSUSE fora, configured to allow users whatever access tools they like.

BR, Gudmund As a workaround for yourself you can use now for example Thounderbird both for the mailinglists with 'normal' mails and for the fora via NTTP (newsgroups). And on http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2010-07/msg00315.html is already an discussion on the run about aromatically adding the/some information for the URL of a posted newsgroup mail - maybe you can link in?

Greetings pistzienfresser P.S.: "forums" for people without Latin education ;-) (I do not know why it is used from openSUSE as plurale tantum - maybe the singular name/URL was already gone or one forum for every topic?) and according to my information the alternative with plural "-s" is mostly used in English: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forum#Usage_notes -- - openSUSE profile: https://users.opensuse.org/show/pistazienfresser -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:09:31 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:

Text sized in px, as is forums.opensuse.org and most web forums, completely disregards user preferences. That's an excellent definition of rude.

Can you make a screenshot of what you see available, and indicate what your display's DPI setting is? I find the font size to be fairly comfortable, but have noticed that my DPI settings (which get whacked on my laptop depending on whether I boot in the dock or not) really affect that significantly. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 Jul 2010 16:26:00 Brian K. White wrote:

On 7/20/2010 10:35 AM, Bob Williams wrote:

...

On Tuesday 20 Jul 2010 14:38:48 Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2010/07/20 09:11 (GMT-0400) dwgallien composed:

...

Would someone please explain the difference in purpose between this mailing list and the openSUSE forums? I try to provide assistance on both, but do notice there is often overlap, i.e., occasionally questions posted here have been previously asked/answered at the forums and vice-versa. (I ask the question only in the interest of everyone's most efficient use of time.)

In many many years on the internet, I've found people tend to prefer one or the other.

Forums: 1-invariably mousetype (rude, tiny text; certainly applicable to forums.opensuse.org) 2-higher ratio of unanswered questions to answered questions 3-higher ratio of good answers to unhelpful answers 4-better moderation 5-subject miscategorization widespread (leads searches in wrong directions) 6-pulled (more work to get, but get no processing forced)

Mailing lists: 1-displays text legibly and comfortably at users preferred size 2-better ratio of questions asked to questions answered 3-better ratio of good answers to unhelpful answers 4-poorer moderation 5-topics lack categoration within particular lists (hard to narrow searches) 6-pushed (less work to get, more work to process)

My only contact with most forums is whatever shows up in Google results. I can only deal with mousetype on an as-needed basis.

I may have misunderstood, but your items 3 above seem to claim the same thing for both forums and mailing lists. A high ratio of good:unhelpful answers means there are more good answers than unhelpful answers.

Bob (in pedant mode)

No, he said nothing illogical.

He merely used two different forms to say things on opposite sides of a single comparison, which is more work to parse and thus can be less immediately clear. But, after parsing what was said, it works out to being perfectly valid and meaningful.

He said "higher ratio" and then "better ratio" which are neither the same words, nor imply the same ultimate meaning in this context. A better ratio of good to bad answers is not a higher one.

It is merely a little inconsistent to use two different forms for the two sides of a comparison. It's more work to parse.

It would have been more clear to say "worse" and then "better" or to say "higher" and then "lower". Pick one form and use it everywhere for consistency and clarity. Instead of "higher" and then "better", but, what he did say was not actually wrong or meaningless.

As long as were being pedants. :)

Thanks for the explanation. I never said Felix was wrong, merely that I didn't understand. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'pedant'. :) I'm still unclear which of forums or mailing lists produce more good answers compared to unhelpful ones. I rarely visit the forums, but lurk here a lot, where I find an abundance of useful answers. I often find, however, that long threads have a lower signal-to-noise ratio than shorter threads ;) Bob -- Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.2, Kernel 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop, KDE 4.4.4 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

pistazienfresser wrote:

Greetings pistzienfresser

P.S.: "forums" for people without Latin education ;-)

That is an oddness, who knows where from. Personally, I shall continue to refer to 'fora'. Oh, and I prefer salted sunflower seeds over pistachios. :-) -- Per Jessen, Zürich (30.1°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2010/07/20 17:56 (GMT+0100) Bob Williams composed:

I'm still unclear which of forums or mailing lists produce more good answers compared to unhelpful ones.

In many moons of experience, I've found Google hits on forum URLs produce far more questions asked than good responses, and a frustrating number of questions with no responses at all. Likely many of these went to the FAQ after asking the question, but FAQs don't always have the answers needed. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Felix Miata wrote:

On 2010/07/20 17:56 (GMT+0100) Bob Williams composed:

...

I'm still unclear which of forums or mailing lists produce more good answers compared to unhelpful ones.

In many moons of experience, I've found Google hits on forum URLs produce far more questions asked than good responses, and a frustrating number of questions with no responses at all.

+1. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.4°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 7/20/2010 3:47 PM, Per Jessen wrote:

Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2010/07/20 17:56 (GMT+0100) Bob Williams composed:

...

I'm still unclear which of forums or mailing lists produce more good answers compared to unhelpful ones.

In many moons of experience, I've found Google hits on forum URLs produce far more questions asked than good responses, and a frustrating number of questions with no responses at all.

+1.

Or worse, you find wrong answers. 37 how do I do X, and yeah I wanna know too, followed by one "OK I been trying to do this forever too and after 18 solid days of torture I finally got it..." (translate: I have no freaking slightest clue what the heck I'm actually doing thus I flopped around for 18 days....) and goes on to describe a bunch of flat out wrong things and has no idea that half of what they're saying is only true in the narrowest of coincidental circumstances that just happened to be true for them one time one day, and the other half of what they say basically breaks their system but they don't know it yet because they have no idea what they're doing and next week when they encounter the problems todays actions caused, they will have no idea that todays actions are the cause and won't come back to the thread and update it with the epilogue that says "uh actually don't do any of that stuff it was all wrong because I had no freaking slightest clue what I was doing..." -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 Jul 2010 21:39:17 Brian K. White wrote:

On 7/20/2010 3:47 PM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2010/07/20 17:56 (GMT+0100) Bob Williams composed:

...

I'm still unclear which of forums or mailing lists produce more good answers compared to unhelpful ones.

In many moons of experience, I've found Google hits on forum URLs produce far more questions asked than good responses, and a frustrating number of questions with no responses at all.

+1.

Or worse, you find wrong answers.

37 how do I do X, and yeah I wanna know too, followed by one "OK I been trying to do this forever too and after 18 solid days of torture I finally got it..." [...] and won't come back to the thread and update it with the epilogue that says "uh actually don't do any of that stuff it was all wrong because I had no freaking slightest clue what I was doing..."

Of the few forums I do frequent, e.g. http://forum.joomla.org/, they try to encourage OPs to revisit their first post and edit the subject to say "[SOLVED] original-question-about-joomla!". Unfortunately, not many do this, but it makes browsing the forum for meaningful answers a lot easier. I've seen this technique used here as well. Bob -- http://brightonbelle.org/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:39:17 -0400, Brian K. White wrote:

On 7/20/2010 3:47 PM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2010/07/20 17:56 (GMT+0100) Bob Williams composed:

...

I'm still unclear which of forums or mailing lists produce more good answers compared to unhelpful ones.

In many moons of experience, I've found Google hits on forum URLs produce far more questions asked than good responses, and a frustrating number of questions with no responses at all.

+1.

Or worse, you find wrong answers.

That's going to be true wherever you look on the 'net, though. Part of the challenge is having a good problem description; a second piece is having a good solution provided. Then it comes down to the searcher's ability to equate the situation reported in the venue (whether it be forums, MLs, etc) to what they're experiencing. Often times a problem can be described in similar terms but have a completely different underlying problem. You may well see this more frequently in forums where there are 50,000 members than in other venues where there are probably fewer people contributing. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

pistazienfresser wrote:

On 20/07/10 20:02, Jim Henderson wrote:

...

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:34:50 +0200, Per Jessen wrote: [...]

...

In defence of Basil, I think his description was actually pretty accurate, with the appropriate exceptions to prove him right. Webfora users do appear to have a fondness of avatars and fun[nk]y aliases. I assume it is something that has evolved with the media.

True, I don't disagree with that; my dispute is more with regards to the 'seriousness' - I think there's plenty of silliness to go around. :-)

Maybe in the forums are many of the generation that is not fond of giving there data away without a good reason -

You mean people between 15 and 100? -- Per Jessen, Zürich (21.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

dwgallien@gmail.com : Would someone please explain the difference in purpose between this mailing list and the openSUSE forums?

Also, from http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp Q: How do I set up my news reader? A: Though each newsreader differs in it's method of setup, there are some general guidelines to consider. The name of the news server to specify is forums.opensuse.org This server is on port 119 and does not require authentication and is not a 'secure' news server. Once you have the news server defined in your reader, you will need to subscribe to individual news groups to be able to read and post messages. -- Architecte Informatique chez Blueline/Gulfsat: Administration Systeme, Recherche & Developpement +261 34 56 000 19 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* Carlos E. R. [07-21-10 15:26]:

The only problem I still have is carrying the list of already read messages from one computer to another (nntp).

I ssh into a central location and read/send mail/news from there. That way I am *usually* up-to-date and, at my age, that is dealing with a lot :^) -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org