Philipp Thomas wrote:

Webforums are a pain in the a**:

Amen.

- There are no useable editors and the editors built into most forum software pale when compared to any MUA. - There are no offline readers - Too expensive for people without flatrates. - Are more or less clumsy to navigate.

And if you happen to want to follow more than 1 forum at a time, you're stuffed. Give me a newsreader anytime. (I pipe all mailinglist mail into my innd). /Per Jessen, Zürich

--- Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005, Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

...

so it might be considered rude to propose a webforum.

Webforums are a pain in the a**:

- There are no useable editors and the editors built into most forum software pale when compared to any MUA. - There are no offline readers - Too expensive for people without flatrates. - Are more or less clumsy to navigate.

Just to name a few reasons against them. Even though I have dsl with flatrate, I'd prefer a mailing list anytime.

While this holds true for "experienced" / "technical" users, I don't think it is valid for "new" / "unexperienced" users. I'll take this suggestion to the next openSUSE meeting...

Regards Christoph

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I certainly agree that a mailing-list is something of a commitment .... in my case I set up a new mail-account & I check it at least once day ... I think if someone joins a mailing-list they really want to make their voice heard whereas things can more easily get overheard on a forum. And most communicating here is via the list whereas a forum I know (bjoerk one .. so non-linux) people create groups via the various instant-messaging "things" .. leaving outsiders bit out .. must say Ive never experienced a Linux-forum.... but forums are a must I think if we want total-newbees approaching openSuSE . Concern of mine would be that discussions wander between list & forum or that discussions are e.g. just on the forum & list people dont know of it . ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 04:04:17PM +0100, Winston Graeme wrote:

I certainly agree that a mailing-list is something of a commitment .... in my case I set up a new mail-account & I check it at least once day ... I think if someone joins a mailing-list they really want to make their voice heard whereas things can more easily get overheard on a forum.

Indeed.

And most communicating here is via the list whereas a forum I know (bjoerk one .. so non-linux) people create groups via the various instant-messaging "things" .. leaving outsiders bit out .. must say Ive never experienced a Linux-forum....

Problem with the webforums I have seen is that threading is almost never done and it is very hard to follow discussions

but forums are a must I think if we want total-newbees approaching openSuSE .

I can see questining how many are interested in a new feature something that could be done on a web based solution. I also can see that people will abuse this much easier and start pushing their own agenda much easier, because for most people web is anonymous and mail is less so.

Concern of mine would be that discussions wander between list & forum or that discussions are e.g. just on the forum & list people dont know of it .

If there are going to be two discussion places, the web one should be highly moderated and be a `second stage` forum where questions are asked after much of the discussion. This to see how the newbies like certain things. OTOH, people who want to just follow the list can look at the history files. So for these people, there already IS a webinterface. My personal choice would be to have moderated newsgroup. Even easier to use (for me) then a mailinglist. houghi -- Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future. -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly

On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 08:32:43PM +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

You can often find the mailinglists at news://news.gmane.org/ - personally, I feed all mailinglists straight into my local news-server, which makes it so much more easy to read/post etc.

What do you use and would it work with leafnode as well (wich I use). houghi -- Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold

houghi wrote:

On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 08:32:43PM +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

...

You can often find the mailinglists at news://news.gmane.org/ - personally, I feed all mailinglists straight into my local news-server, which makes it so much more easy to read/post etc.

What do you use and would it work with leafnode as well (wich I use).

I don't know enough about leafnode to say yes or no, but what I do is basically: mail -> postfix -> lmtp2nntp -> inn. All my "external" groups are moderated, which allows me to intercept postings and divert them to the right list addresses. For instance, I am subscribed to this group on two addresses: per@computer.org and a 2nd called opensuse@<domain> Email sent to the latter is fed through lmtp2nntp and posted to a group called list.linux.opensuse.general. The mapping from opensuse@<domain> to list.linux.opensuse.general is done by a standard postfix virtual lookup. If leafnode speaks nntp, this setup should work too, perhaps with one or two alterations. However, unless you want to do this "just because", gmane.org will help you - I've just now asked them to subscribe/carry this list too. In one or two days you shou8ld be able to get the group under news://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.suse.opensuse.general /Per Jessen, Zürich

Moin, I have got a bit lost in this discussion, however, I want to point out that there are quite a few Web-Forums mentioned on the Communicate page of the Wiki (any missing ?). While Web-Forums are definitive important for some user groups, I do not see the need to define one of them the official one. There are already multiple suse linux communities alive out there and declaring one the official one would hurt the others IMHO. different opinions ? bye adrian -- Adrian Schroeter SuSE AG, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany email: adrian@suse.de

...

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On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 7:34 pm, in message <8b1a1e10508220034242a0dcc@mail.gmail.com>, pflodin@gmail.com wrote: While Web- Forums are definitive important for some user groups, I do not see the need to define one of them the official one.

I think this is actually the critical bit. Where else could you have an authorative discussion on wishlist features just to reuse an example? Mailing list is just not good enough as discussions don't have the presence of more than a few days (in general).

...

There are already multiple suse linux communities alive out there and declaring one the official one would hurt the others IMHO.

different opinions ?

No I agree, creating an official openSUSE forum will hurt other SUSE forums, but I think the resulting benefit to the community will outweigh the losses (sacrifices) made by other forums.

Seriously, why do you need more than one webforum? The power comes from being THE place to discuss openSUSE, it is this that builds community, that builds word of mouth, that puts SUSE on top at distrowatch.

Amen brother ... Could not agree more ........ Andreas

Winston Graeme wrote:

Concern of mine would be that discussions wander between list & forum or that discussions are e.g. just on the forum & list people dont know of it .

Unless the forum and the list are bi-directionally gated, in my experience no such wandering/transition ever happen. Generally the webforum and the mailinglist communities live in blissfull unawareness of each other. (I don't know of any gateway software that will gate a forum and list and still maintain proper threading etc.). /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.ch/freetrial - managed anti-spam and anti-virus solution. Ab Sfr30/Jahr - überzeugen Sie sich - 30 Tage kostenlos und unverbindlich!

Philipp Thomas wrote:

I'm convinced that having a forum will split up users, with mostly the newbies in the forum and the rest on the mailing list and this would not be in the projects interest.

Exactly. Well said. /Per Jessen, Zürich

...

...

On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 6:38 am, in message , davor.trex@gmail.com wrote: On 8/21/05, Per Jessen wrote: Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

I'm convinced that having a forum will split up users, with mostly the newbies in the forum and the rest on the mailing list and this would not be in the projects interest.

Exactly. Well said.

Not really well said ;) IMHO .... Experience with other distro's shows that mailing lists will be used by developers and forum's by normal users. That does not really split anything, just helps to focus each group on their task at hand. Helping newbies in the forum and developing the distro on a mailing lists. Each media has its advantages and using a forum for development would be unhelpful, since it splits the focus of the developer community and ommits coherence. Using a mailinglist to help people would be unhelpful, since this would be high volume and people then tend to switch off. In a forum a person can truely focus on what they want to read instead of receiving millions of email that to them is useless. IMHO a forum is a must for a consumer oriented distro. Without it we do not have an effective helpdesk and without that we won't attract 90% of today's linux user.

In my opinion, if a newbie is *really* interesed in the project, he or she wouldnt have any problem subscribing in the maillist and setting up an account to use bugzilla.

That assumes that newbies actually want to read thousands of emails that do not concern them. A newbie rather is interested in getting their system up and running and additional apps loaded. A forum is better for that since it allows to search and focus on a specific topic instead of having to receive/ search the archive fpr thousands of emails just because of one specific problem. People who are really interested in the project want others to have the lowest possible point of entry. To put the bar high creates an elitist and unapproachable distro, which to be honest is uninteresting as there are plenty of those out there.

Probably in a near future we will need more mailing list, like opensuse- kernel, opensuse- devel, etc..

Yes agreed. More mailing lists for developers .... IMHO. A forum to help those 90% of users out there, that have an issue and just want to use it. An openSUSE internal forum creates a sense of community that an external forum never will, since it will create regulars and competitions, which help with the marketability of the products. This list should probably become the entry point for users who are interested in getting closer to development. In the end one just has to see which distro's today are successful and have a great community (I won't name any, since the term successful is relative to ones view ...) and I bet ya they have a forum ..... Andreas

...

Experience with other distro's shows that mailing lists will be used by developers and forum's by normal users. That does not really split anything, just helps to focus each group on their task at hand. Helping newbies in the forum and developing the distro on a mailing lists.

I suspect you have a good point here, but how did normal users get any help earlier? Did SuSE have a forum before? Mailinglists such as suse- linux- e and - d are full of fairly ordinary users.

Well IMHO as usual .... There are plenty suse specific forum (actually plural surely must be fora .. from latin?) sure ..... there are plenty of those.. The difference would be that as an openSUSE community we would take pride and help users in our own forum. That creates a strong feeling of belonging with those who have been helped at "THE" openSUSE website as opposed to one of the many anonymous linux help places ..... this strong feeling will help us create momentum and attract more people as we grow, since the perception will transpire in time that as an openSUSE community we go the extra distance to help even the greatest Noob as opposed to other places where you nearly get flamed if you haven't got your LPI cert and are not able to roll your own kernel..... I am sure you know what I mean. I like the feeling our own forum creates. It does need some strong contributors though. A handful up to a dozen of people who will make sure no post is unanswered are probably the basis, but those numbers can happen after some time. It is great tool for learning as a linux enthusiast ...... and you get to help others and make them "feel" part of the openSUSE community from day 1 and give them a good and positive feel about it all.

...

Each media has its advantages

You're asking for it :- ) - what are the distinct advantages of the webforum?

In general it is really a question if we want to be user driven or developer driven. If we want to be developer driven mailing lists are just fine and a forum is probably a pain and does not add anything positive. As a user driven distro we need IMHO to go after the lowest common denominator. Having been part of an ISP helpdesk years ago I can only say how often I wondered how the lowest common denominator when it comes to computers is very low. I suspect that as technical people we often assume that others know what a mailinglist or a netiquette or NNTP is ..... well I would argue that most actually don't. They know the Web and that is just about it. Those are the type of users I am interested in, when creating a distro, really, since they are 80-90% of the worls computer using population. Even though creating a distro itself is something we technicians will do. Just imagine one poor Noob getting told off by one of our loving purists that top posting is VERY bad .... that user will go and never come back. A web driven place is more permissive ... and allows editing of content by admins to put things in line if they go outside the stated rules of engagement. A few points: 1.) Most people think there is only the web and email just happens across that somehow magically. A web based place in which one can post and receive messages is what your normal Joe will associate with a proper help system. Email sounds more like volatile SPAM. 2.) In a forum one can be very selective in not having to deal with thousands of messages in a high volume list, but only with a sub selection according to a search function or menu items. 3.) It can easily integrate with running user driven competitions, that require posting of pictures. Something that increases the sense of belonging if users get hats or other goodies as prices. A forum is a great marketing tool! 4.) The forum is completely timeless. A question can be answered in 1 month or in 6 month and the post still makes sense. I have seen threads go on for years and be fantastic. Just imagine that on email! If an issue has not been answered in 1-2 days it is gone and forgotten and the user will have the feeling of not being cared for, just because we all are just busy and maybe were not able to read that particular post. 5.) Being webbased it just is so much more graphically appealing than simple text email. Screenshots, attachments and so on ............. all very easy with a forum.

...

Using a mailinglist to help people would be unhelpful, since this would be high volume and people then tend to switch off. In a forum a person can truely focus on what they want to read instead of receiving millions of email that to them is useless.

This is partially why gmane.org exists. But granted, we probably don't want to start teaching new users about using a newsreader too :- (

correct .. and how many ISP's these days choose not to host News? Most I dare to say. Just think of all those consumer ISP's who do not give users the ability to post to public newgroups.

...

Yes agreed. More mailing lists for developers .... IMHO. A forum to help those 90% of users out there, that have an issue and just want to use it.

Who do you expect to help out in this forum? Will it be the blind leading the blind or do you expect Novell/SuSE staff to help out?

My philosophy with that is: If you are interested in learning and are sort of talented with Computers and can use Google, then you will be an excellent forum admin and will learn heaps about Linux by helping users. That is all what one requires. I certainly enjoy helping people since it makes great learning and cerates happy users ...... A forum will grow in time ..... and the more one helps the more people stay and help others. I think it is a great tool for any help desk to use. Personally I think it is our responsibility as a community to ensure that even the greatest Noob has the most positive experience, when he comes into contact with us as a community and as a distro. Even if the person decides not to use our distro, they will still remember, how well they got helped and treated. Hope that explains .... Regards, Andreas Girardet openSUSE is SUPER: To help in the the SUSE Performance Enhanced Release project visit http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/SUPER

The discussion that was sparked by my original question is so good on this mailing list, that my impressions of mailing lists have improved. ;-) On 22/08/05, Per Jessen wrote:

You're asking for it :-) - what are the distinct advantages of the webforum?

I think the biggest advantage can be summed up in one word, and that is "scale". If we for the moment assume that openSUSE will have a community that rivals ubuntu, fedora, mandriva, then just look at the number of posts and members on those forums: http://forums.fedoraforum.org Threads: 102,226, Posts: 482,098, Members: 44,477 http://www.ubuntuforums.org Threads: 58,737, Posts: 315,435, Members: 36,182 ** The mandriva one doesn't show stats (and I have to admit that it looks horrible and univiting, although I like the ubuntu one). Who do you expect to help out in this forum? I would be very surprised if there were a lack of people to help, or unanswered posts. Will it be the blind leading the blind

Don't underestimate the power of a blind mob ;-) or do you expect Novell/SuSE staff to help out? I expect that it would be welcomed by all if the Novell sponsorship extended to the webforum.

On Monday 22 August 2005 09:35, Per Jessen wrote:

If it goes the way Andreas Girardet expects (normal users in the forum, experienced users developers on the mailing-lists), I don't see it working unless Novell provides some staffing.

The Novell support forums (linked on the communicate page as first) do have some dedicated moderators. -- Adrian Schroeter SuSE AG, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany email: adrian@suse.de

But this is pointless debate without the maintainers weighing in on whether Novell will support this. I think it was a useful debate, however I will agree that there is probably nothing more to add, and it is now up to Christoph (or other @suse.de) to let us know of the outcome when he takes the suggestion to the next openSUSE meeting, as he mentioned earlier.

Actually, that is a _result_ of lots of people being attracted by the

webforum, it is not a distinct _advantage_ of the forum- medium itself.

...

...

Who do you expect to help out in this forum?

I would be very surprised if there were a lack of people to help, or unanswered posts. I expect that it would be welcomed by all if the Novell sponsorship extended to the webforum.

If it goes the way Andreas Girardet expects (normal users in the forum, experienced users developers on the mailing- lists), I don't see it working unless Novell provides some staffing.

As Gentoo shows a forum is also something for techies. But the appeal of a mailing list is just not for non technical users IMHO. That is what I said. A forum is closer to what non technical users are used to and is graphically appealing.

One technical question - I certainly agree the webforums are popular

(and

your stats prove it), but the main thing that's keeping me away is -

1) having to login

Cookies solve that .... you do it once and never log in again.

2) being unable to track multiple forums on multiple sites on one screen (like I can in my newsreader).

From a normal users perspective: What is a newsreader? Is that the guy who reads the news every night?

;)

OK, (1) I _could_ live with, even if I consider it a major nuisance, but (2) is the killer. I currently track about 35 lists, some more actively than others. If they were webforums, how do you do that in an efficient manner?

Maybe you are just not one of those people that use forum's, but does that make a forum a bad idea? Anyhow ... Personally I can live without it, but as I explained in my last email I know that for a fact an official forum for openSUSE is a must if we want to be Noob friendly and create a vivid fast growing community. I am sure that SUSE did not need a forum in the past, but openSUSE is very different from the past approach SUSE had and with such a different open approach also the audience changes. It is also a chance to review some things and try new ones out. Let's just look at what other distro's do well and learn from that IMHO. A form can be very influential if properly run and also used by a marketing department to do polls and competitions. It is a great place to directly interact with the common user and get feedback or create as I keep repeating a very strong sense of unity and belonging ..... apart from being mightily useful to help users. Since I start repeating myself ... I just stop now ..... Andreas

On Sunday 21 August 2005 19:03, Philipp Thomas wrote:

In the good old days of mailbox networks like Fido or Zerberus, it was no problem to 'spool' mailing lists and making them accessible via the BBS. That way you had both worlds combined.

Philipp, you are giving away your age.. Talking about Fido like that. Boy, that brings back memories.. ;-) Mike -- Powered by SuSE 9.3 Kernel 2.6.11 KDE 3.4.0 Kmail 1.8 For Mondo/Mindi backup support go to http://www.mikenjane.net/~mike 8:09pm up 0:03, 3 users, load average: 3.05, 1.53, 0.60

On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 06:49:50PM +0200, mike wrote:

You set up a new mail account? Or do you mean another folder? Hopefully the latter.. ;-) Took me all of about 2 minutes to set up a filter and new folder for opensuse.

I had to reconfigure mutt, because it kept sending responses to the machine I send from, instead to the mailbox I wanted it to go to. Just needed to add in ~/.muttrc: set envelope_from=yes The filter I have added in ~/.procmailrc is: #openSUSE :0: * 1^0 ^X-Mailinglist:.*opensuse opensuse Mailboxes are monitored by wmbiff (I run WindowMaker) http://houghi.org/shots/susescreen003.jpg and look at the left. The yellow numbers in the clock are the unread messages. houghi -- Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats.

Christoph Thiel wrote:

While this holds true for "experienced" / "technical" users, I don't think it is valid for "new" / "unexperienced" users. I'll take this suggestion to the next openSUSE meeting...

You probably have a point, but is it really sufficient reason for splitting the user community? Did SuSE have webforums in the past? /Per Jessen, Zürich

Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Did SuSE have webforums in the past?

To my knowledge, SUSE didn't create webforums in the past. But Novell has some great support forum at http://support.novell.com/forums/2su.html

Anyway, why are you asking that question?

Because I wanted to understand if setting up webforums indicated a change in policy. And also because I wanted to point out that SuSE did quite well _without_ webforums in the past. /Per Jessen, Zürich

...

Did SuSE have webforums in the past?

To my knowledge, SUSE didn't create webforums in the past. But Novell has some great support forum at http://support.novell.com/forums/2su.html

These are the official openSUSE forums, and are linked to from http://opensuse.org/index.php/Communicate#Web_Forums. They have http and nntp access for online and offline browsing. Kirk Coombs Linux Server Specialist, Novell Product Support Communities http://support.novell.com/products/ Phone: (801) 861-8174 Email: kcoombs@novell.com Participate in the Novell forums! HTTP: http://support.novell.com/forums/ NNTP: forums.novell.com

...

...

On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 3:17 am, in message <43099836.7DFE.0068.0@novell.com>, kcoombs@novell.com wrote: Did SuSE have webforums in the past?

To my knowledge, SUSE didn't create webforums in the past. But Novell has some great support forum at http://support.novell.com/forums/2su.html

These are the official openSUSE forums, and are linked to from http://opensuse.org/index.php/Communicate#Web_Forums.

They have http and nntp access for online and offline browsing.

Kirk Coombs Linux Server Specialist, Novell Product Support Communities http://support.novell.com/products/

Hi Kirk The Novell forum is perfect for help desk purposes of a commercial nature and is web-based email/nntp, straight to the point and without graphical fluff. A real web-based forum is something completely different. It is graphically appealing and allows many other things to be done (like polls, competitions and so on) and allows users to upload images and so on. Webbased forums (not email based ones) are community oriented places of a non commercial Open Source nature. They are very popular and some distro's would not even exist were it not for the intensity/quality of their forum. Something that would suit openSUSE nicely and would allow us to create a "regular" normal user visitor on our site (With the size of our distro I suspect around 30 - 50 thousand single visitors a day). This could be turned into advertising $$, but also into a great tool for marketing to launch special promotions. The Novell forum is a place you visit once, when you have a question. The following forums are places where regulars hang out,even if they have no question and just want to meet a likeminded person and promote the distro for free. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/ http://forums.gentoo.org/ http://www.yoper.com Regards, Andreas openSUSE is SUPER: To help in the SUSE Performance Enhanced Release project visit http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/SUPER

Christoph Thiel wrote:

While this holds true for "experienced" / "technical" users, I don't think it is valid for "new" / "unexperienced" users. I'll take this suggestion to the next openSUSE meeting...

in fact, they should be an entry point in opensuse for unexperienced users, at least as soon as SUSE 10.0 is released. Until then, unexps are not too welcome :-( jdd -- pour m'écrire, aller sur: http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.net http://arvamip.free.fr

Op zondag 21 augustus 2005 20:50, schreef Michael Ostermeier:

Am Sonntag, 21. August 2005 01:27 schrieb Peter Flodin:

...

This is my first email to the mailing list so it might be considered rude to propose a webforum.

But nevertheless I think openSUSE,org should have its own webforum for these reasons: 1. New users are less likely to join and post in a mailing list.

True...

...

2. Web forums are much more effeicient at providing messages to the user that they are interested in.

I doubt that...

...

3. The various existing webforums at other sites, are not central enough to the project to build a community.

True...

...

4. There are various things in the wiki, (like wishlists) that would be better handled in a webforum, with discussions around each wish item. At the moment there is no clue to if there is 1 or 1000 people who want a particular feature. (Unless each one is searched for in the mailing list archive perhaps).

There IS a discussion (at least possible) at each Wiki-page...

I think, Novell had syncronized a forum, mailinglist and newsgroup for mono-support... though I couldn't find it anymore... but I think this would be a great solution...

...just some thoughts....

Michael Ostermeier

Sometimes i like to work with forums, because then you can handle a problem at the time. But a mailing list is just the way to oversee all of whats going wrong or wright, sometimes its better to use a forum because you can discuss with others on 1 item. But that is also a danger, when to agree. Why not try to use them both on the case of SuSE 10. O.k i know its not a solution from my site. Ben Henderson