Hi, On Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 15:38:06, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 03:35:07PM +0100, Johannes Kastl wrote:

...

BTW: How about a newsgroup? Or a (working) mail2news-Gateway?

Ok, I forgot to mention that, sorry: the Novell forums have a NNTP gateway. Henne, do we have plans for mail to NNTP?

We will use the existing ones ;) gmane.org + nomail subscription Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

Hi, On Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 16:43:55, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 01/25/2006 03:46 PM Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

On Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 15:38:06, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

...

Henne, do we have plans for mail to NNTP?

We will use the existing ones ;)

gmane.org + nomail subscription

I tried posting to the suse-linux (german) list some years ago, and that was a mess. Ill have a try again now.

What was a mess? Could you be a little more specific? Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

Hi, On Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 17:19:45, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 01/25/2006 04:45 PM Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

What was a mess? Could you be a little more specific?

Whatever I did, I could not "post" to the newsgroup. I dont know what went wrong.

But I'll have a try this evening, and see if it works. Ill tell you.

No need to. It does not work with the current mailinglist setup. But it will in the future.. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 01/25/2006 05:21 PM Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

No need to. It does not work with the current mailinglist setup. But it will in the future..

Are you talking of the OpenSuse-list now or the suse-linux-german?

Both. Regards Christoph

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 12:36:41, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/26/2006 1:27 AM Christoph Thiel wrote:

...

...

Are you talking of the OpenSuse-list now or the suse-linux-german?

Both.

OK, then could you inform us when it should work?

Sure will do... Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

On 2006-01-25 16:39:37 +0100, Johannes Kastl wrote:

Also, "Threading" is not possible in forums. You dont see who someone is replying to.

sorry to tell you ... modern forums can do threading. vBulletin is one example where it know it definitely. IPB i think aswell. and i think one could add a few more here. darix

At 05:04 AM 26/01/2006, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 01/25/2006 05:14 PM Marcus Rueckert wrote:

...

sorry to tell you ... modern forums can do threading.

OK, then I was wrong. But all the forums I know are not able, thats why I thought it was not possible.

OJ

just look at W3's own Forum, It does it magnificently. If we MUST go dual system, they would be the perfect way to go. scsijon

On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 04:01:16PM +0100, houghi wrote:

Also it would be nice to know what the maintainers of the larger Linux forums are thinking about this, so ask them. :-)

I had hoped that one or two of them were lurking on this list and would speak up now. Before I "officially" address the other forums I would like to know what we, you, the opensuse community would want to offer them. Besides, anybody can go to to the forums and invite them to join this discussion, you don't need a @suse.de address for that ;-)

For me personally the ideal solution would be an integrated system of usenet, email and forum. Let me explain. There is software available that can convert usenet and email. There also is software that handles usenet as a forum (e.g groups.google) Subscribtion will be needed for posting, reading will be possible without subscribing, just as this would be done with the mailinglist and a forum.

I don't like this for one reason: the communication styles of mailing lists, usenet, and web forums are drastically different. This is not a technical problem, but a result of the historical development of communication on electronic networks. A merger of the three would result in a hybrid thing that nobody wants to use. Mailing lists with NNTP gateway are fine, and a forum with email notification (and maybe even a mail interface, though I haven't seen this working so far) is fine too. The difference between web forums, lists and newsgroups is not the frontend. We need the opensuse lists for coordinating the actual work, and I don't want them rendered unusuable by a forum gateway. Yes, that arrogant too, but I'm not talking about user support lists here ;-) Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:36:49PM +0100, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/26/2006 1:14 PM Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

...

I had hoped that one or two of them were lurking on this list and would speak up now. Before I "officially" address the other forums I would like to know what we, you, the opensuse community would want to offer them. Besides, anybody can go to to the forums and invite them to join this discussion, you don't need a @suse.de address for that ;-)

I would say it is the job of one official at suse to write to the forum guys.

Maybe, but then, as explained above, I need a clear picture what "openSUSE" as a project "wants". Be aware that the sword is double-edged - if you insist on the officials doing everything, you end up with the officials doing everything... This is a different topic, though. ;-) Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:14:24PM +0100, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

I had hoped that one or two of them were lurking on this list and would speak up now. Before I "officially" address the other forums I would like to know what we, you, the opensuse community would want to offer them. Besides, anybody can go to to the forums and invite them to join this discussion, you don't need a @suse.de address for that ;-)

Or the other way around. One of the regulars here who also has some weight on the forum. If I go there I am sure they will shoot ne down befor I can press send. If nobody in the comunity has such a weight, I am sure that an suse.de adress will have such a weight and will be able to get a discussion going on such a list or at least with the list maintainers on a much more serious level. What we could at least do is point them to this discussion and see what happens. So who is active on forums and can either just post the URLs or start a discussion about what we are doing here and give feedback?

...

Subscribtion will be needed for posting, reading will be possible without subscribing, just as this would be done with the mailinglist and a forum.

I don't like this for one reason: the communication styles of mailing lists, usenet, and web forums are drastically different. This is not a technical problem, but a result of the historical development of communication on electronic networks. A merger of the three would result in a hybrid thing that nobody wants to use.

I agree. I am just thinking out loud and see where we get with ideas. I try to be as open minded so the best solution comes to the top. houghi -- ... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!

On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 04:03:16PM +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote: <snip>

1. Don't work against the community ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <snip> 2. Legal ~~~~~~~~ <snip> 3. Don't split the expertise ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 and 3 can be solved by asking what the people of the existing comunities tell. 2 I will explain at the end. <snip>

- From my experience, web forums are more for less experienced users, more for basic questions (installation, hardware support, "how can I play my MP3s", etc...) and mailing lists are preferred by more experienced users, mostly because they are very active on such communication channels and have witnessed that it is much more effective to work with.

I believe that we should indeed leave the existing mailinglists as they are, especialy the more specialized ones, like factory. What I asume is that we are talking about a generic openSUSE forum.

Now, that being said, if there is an "official" Novell/SUSE/openSUSE web forum and there is a very low concentration of "experts" in there, what's the point of it ?

The main problem that there are only these more technical savy people is BECAUSE there is no forum. At this moment the technical less savy people do not have a say on openSUSE. I see on Usenet people asking for enhancements or sugesting things. When I tell them to either post a bugreport or subscribe to the mailinglist, the people find this to cumbersome to do. When you have a forum, the people will contribute easier. It would be nice to have less tech-savy people say what they think. This brings be to point 2 from above. The legal part is an extremely valid point. I have very quickly looked at the forums and what all miss id feedback to and from SUSE itself. If the legal part is an issue, you could point to the existing forums for support and still have a smaller forum for sugestions Agin, only do this after speaking with the major forums. What are their ideas. houghi -- "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."

On Wednesday 25 January 2006 13:07, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 01/25/2006 04:35 PM houghi wrote:

...

I see on Usenet people asking for enhancements or sugesting things. When I tell them to either post a bugreport or subscribe to the mailinglist, the people find this to cumbersome to do.

When you have a forum, the people will contribute easier. It would be nice to have less tech-savy people say what they think.

I think this is not solved by a web forum. If you tell them to use bugzilla on Usenet or in a forum doesnt matter. They wont know what to do.

Unless you post your bugreports not on bugzilla but in the forum. But I guess thats not what you wanted.

OJ

I think what he means is, if the error can be duplicated by someone who is familiar with bugzilla/is on the mailing list, they can make the bug report/post to the list. The average use is very familiar with forums, and feels comfortable there. Not to mention they tend to believe they will get a quicker answer that way - so more bugs/other issues end up on forums. Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin

houghi wrote:

The main problem that there are only these more technical savy people is BECAUSE there is no forum. At this moment the technical less savy people do not have a say on openSUSE.

Sure they do. Anyone is perfectly welcome to participate, regardless of level of technical expertise. However, if you're saying "technical less savvy" = "unable/unwilling to use a mailing-list", I'm not convinced that's a helpful attitude.

I see on Usenet people asking for enhancements or sugesting things. When I tell them to either post a bugreport or subscribe to the mailinglist, the people find this to cumbersome to do.

People who participate on USENET, but find it cumbersome to subscribe to a mailinglist have a problem that we cannot solve here. Posting a bugreport can be cumbersome, I agree, but that's life and a webforum won't have any effect on that. /Per Jessen, Zürich (-0.57 °C)

At 02:03 AM 26/01/2006, Pascal Bleser wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

Sonja Krause-Harder wrote: ...

...

The first question is: do we need/want an official openSUSE web forum? Why? What would you expect from it, compared to the existing SUSE community forums?

I'm not a friend of forums myself, but it seems like many people were asking for it.

The point is that I'm against the idea of an "official" openSUSE web forum.

The reasons are:

1. Don't work against the community ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As I said during the IRC meeting, if I was one of the guys investing so much of my free time to help others and moderate one of the currently existing SUSE community forums, I would be really p***ed to be left standing in the rain by Novell/SUSE.

agree, Novell MUST AGREE to support FULLTIME and LONGTERM if they want this to be worthwhile. cut

3. Don't split the expertise ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As in every Linux/FOSS/... community, there is a "kernel" of people who have more experience than most others - in this case e.g. long-time (SUSE) Linux users, developers, sysadmins, packagers, SUSE staff members, etc...

When you create more communication channels, you also split the "concentration" of such people on every single channel, because no one has the time to be active on all of them.

- From my experience, web forums are more for less experienced users, more for basic questions (installation, hardware support, "how can I play my MP3s", etc...) and mailing lists are preferred by more experienced users, mostly because they are very active on such communication channels and have witnessed that it is much more effective to work with.

so we have them primarily targetted for beginners and "silly" type questions, that shouldn't be in the current system now, with the moderators (PLUREL not singular) having the rights to move them between the Forum <> Lists

Now, that being said, if there is an "official" Novell/SUSE/openSUSE web forum and there is a very low concentration of "experts" in there, what's the point of it ?

To make it short: let's keep our communication channel as now (mailing-lists + IRC), where many experts are present, and let the community run web forums - when complex or seemingly unresolvable issues arise, they can redirect to the mailing-lists.

the only problem i ,and i think others, have with the current system is the absence of a inbuilt Search facility however, personally (as one who uses both systems) I like the current system best, I just want a search facility added so I can go back into the history when I find I need too. my 2 bits scsijon

On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 06:12:38PM +0100, email.listen@googlemail.com wrote:

In the fields of user motivation / user management/supervision there is a enormous potential which isn't activated yet.

I agree. The tendens seems to go towards not having a forum. Not realy a surprise. It is as if you were asking what the best sport is at a soccer club. ;-) Perhaps we are asking the wrong question and should we not need to ask: do we need a forum, but must we ask: how can we reach, motavate and supervise the enourmous potential that is out there and that we do not reach now. houghi -- Do you have lysdexia?

On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 11:11:06PM +0100, email.listen@googlemail.com wrote:

May be it is interesting to have a mailing campaign, snail mail might be the best, to invite lost users to join the new openSUSE community and become an active member (again). The addresses of all those who ordered SUSE boxes in the past will be a base for this.

That will be called Spam, no matter what the intentions are or how much people have told to accept occosional mail. Let the people find their way (again) to the comunity through quality, not through marketing. I don't think we are looking for subscribers, we are looking for participants. houghi -- "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?"

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:16:22AM +0100, email.listen@googlemail.com wrote:

What I wanted to say is that a lot of former SUSE users where very busy in promoting SUSE in their local region. Which in my eyes can be seen as an active participation. Those people often plowed the fields where SUSE later on made it's buisines (according to the OSDL survey [1] it where theese users who asked for Free Software in their companies or as administrators installed the first 'inofficial' SUSE servers in their companies) And such a 'plowing the fields' will be very helpfull for Novell too. Some of those people _have_ experience in promoting SUSE so thats why I think it might be interesting to have a focus on them first. It should be more efficient reactivating theese people than only qualifying novice participants (nevertheless that should be done too).

I agree with you. It is the way how to reach these people is where we have a different opinion. I would want to do this by quality. Giving the people what they want and expect as openSUSE. A forum might be one of the things they would want. If you do it by sending mail or other form of advertisement, you will get perhaps more people. But also for the wrong reason. houghi -- Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain

On 1/26/2006 1:25 PM Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

Right now the first feedback newbies get when they ask a user question about openSUSE is 1. that what they are using is SUSE Linux, not openSUSE, and 2. that they are on the wrong list and please go ask again on suse-linux-e.

While I of course know the reasons for this I think it is a bad thing - we are actively turning away new users from this "openSUSE" thingie.

Maybe we should change the opensuse list to opensuse-discussion or project or whatever, and separate it from the "normal list for normal questions" suse-linux list. OJ -- I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design. (Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds)

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 02:13:22PM +0100, jdd wrote:

* a list for the very last official release (not betas), prone to have many more problems/questions than the others

This will be even more confusing. When 10.1 comes out, should I move, because it is not the latest, or should I stay, because I still use 10.0? So if I do not change anything, then I must change mailingslists, but If I do change, I must stay? I am just a newbiet who want to know how to change the background, because I am afraid of lizzards. Why would I need to subscribe to a heavy load mailinglist? When I subscribe to a webforum, I go when want help, otherwise I might not even go there. In two months time, I just go back, ask another simple question, read the answer and am gone again. With a mailinglist I have to subscribe, mail the question, read another few hundred things I am not intersted in and after reading my answer figure out how to unsibscribe, otherwise my mailbox is a complete mess. houghi -- "I drink to make other people interesting." -- George Jean Nathan

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 04:46:58PM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* houghi [01-26-06 08:49]:

...

With a mailinglist I have to subscribe, mail the question, read another few hundred things I am not intersted in and after reading my answer figure out how to unsibscribe, otherwise my mailbox is a complete mess.

Not if you use a capable client. You read the threads that interest you and delete the others. No mess, no fuss, and the reason that thread hijacking is frowned upon.

key: use a capable client, properly.

key: knowledge, something that the avarage newbie does not yet have. So you subscribe, get 200+ emails a day, delete them except for the 5 or so you like and then for the next 2 years you keep downloading and deleting them? Why? Anyway. We are not here trying to convince each other what is better or how people should do things. People like webforums as we can see by their success. If the openSUSE mailinglists are any reference (and they are not) people like the webforums more then they do mailinglists for whatever reason. Linux and especially OSS is about choice, so let's give the people the choice. houghi -- He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue. -- Jonathon Swift

Christian Boltz wrote:

Unfortunately, this will split up parts of the existing lists @suse.com to the new one.

it's the scope. I do _not_ subscribe to suse-e, because the traffic is really to high

Or something like suse-linux-dinosaur@opensuse.org? ;-)

suse-linux-current... suse-linuse-past... 9.02 and 10.1 questions are very different

IMHO many problems are not version-specific, so the same question will appear in several lists and create unnecessary traffic (and duplicate work for those who answer it).

?? not if the archives are correctly searchables (at least with a google search). Anyway a question not asked for three wekks is prone to be asked again (3 weeks? sometimes 3 days :-)

Additionally: should all these lists be in english? IMHO: No - many people don't understand english good enough or just want to write in their native language. For me, english is OK for development, bugzilla etc. - but not for the users list, please. [2]

this is a very good question. as long as the wiki is in english, yes. and if there are i18n's lists, one list may be enough for them jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

Kenneth Schneider wrote:

On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 18:04 +0100, Christian Boltz wrote:

...

Additionally: should all these lists be in english? IMHO: No - many people don't understand english good enough or just want to write in their native language. For me, english is OK for development, bugzilla etc. - but not for the users list, please. [2]

So you are advocating that there -not- be a users list in english.

I think Christian just left out an "only":

Additionally: should all these lists be _only_ in english?

/Per Jessen, Zürich

email.listen@googlemail.com wrote:

The number of postings to SUSE mailing list decreased dramatically over the last year.

Because the support-type questions have moved to suse-linux-e. They were being asked on opensuse@ because of a less clear definition of the mailing list purpose. Perhaps you should compare traffic on suse-linux-e + opensuse to that of fedora. That would be more accurate. There is one thing that was said on opensuse@ at the beginning: SUSE developers read this list, but they fear the traffic. So if this list has a good signal/noise ratio for _development_ this is a Good Think (TM).

Daniel Bauer wrote:

So I personally would highly appreciate an official Suse-forum, as long as developpers and experts will receive new topics per e-mail and are willing to do the same brilliant helpers job as they do here on the mailing lists.

Ideally, one should be able to subscribe to the "whole forum" (i.e. receive all entries just like in a mailing list), to one ore more specific group(s) of topics (like "compiling" or "video" or what ever), or to individual topic(s). If then it would even be possible to answer to the forum by e-mail (without logging into the forum online) it would be great My thoughts exactly!

Regards, Kenneth Aar http//min.virkelighet.net

Hello, Am Donnerstag, 26. Januar 2006 12:32 schrieb Sonja Krause-Harder:

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:11:58PM +0100, Kenneth Aar wrote:

...

Daniel Bauer wrote:

...

So I personally would highly appreciate an official Suse-forum, as long as developpers and experts will receive new topics per e-mail and are willing to do the same brilliant helpers job as they do here on the mailing lists.

Ideally, one should be able to subscribe to the "whole forum" (i.e. receive all entries just like in a mailing list), to one ore more specific group(s) of topics (like "compiling" or "video" or what ever), or to individual topic(s). If then it would even be possible to answer to the forum by e-mail (without logging into the forum online) it would be great

My thoughts exactly!

Please stay realistic with the feature requests (unless there is a forum solution out there that is open source and not a security nightmare that can do these things).

Even if it sounds strange - bugzilla could do this job ;-) - use the qa contact for _all_ topics - use "assigned to" for topic specific subscriptions In both cases, use a mailing list (and find a nice way to manage subscriptions, which shouldn't be a large problem). If someone wants to keep track of individual topics, he could just CC himself to the "bug". AFAIK, bugzilla can also handle replies sent by mail (at least, the old suse.de bugzilla had this feature). You also get a "problem solved" aka FIXED flag for free. The only thing that bugzilla can't do is a tree structure of answers - but as already stated today, I'm not even sure if this is useful ;-) I already see you thinking "Hmm... Bugzilla as forum software?" - Why not? ;-))) Regards, Christian Boltz --

Immerhin ist Netscape 4 bei einigen Seiten konsequent. Du erinnerst Dich an mein Großprojekt? Da stürzt er zuverlässig nach spätestens 2 Klicks ab ;-)) Somit ist das Problem der abweichenden Darstellung gelöst... Selbstmord wegen begründeter Versagensängste. Wink-wink... :-) [Christian Boltz und Ratti in fontlinge-devel]

Kenneth Aar wrote:

Daniel Bauer wrote:

...

So I personally would highly appreciate an official Suse-forum, as long as developpers and experts will receive new topics per e-m

I didn't read all the message of this too long thread :-(, so forgive me if my point has already been discussed. "forum" is not a clear word. there are "forums" like phpBB (I gess this is the most discussed here), but "news" are also often called "forums" this last kind of forum is very handy for users like me with a permanent link (not necessarily heavy). and most important, it is _very easy_ to have the very same flow between the mailing list and the news groups. my LUG do this news.culte.org is the same thing as the list linux-31@culte.org so this is nearly no work for the admin, given the first steps done. and news is very much better to follow such thread, because it's easier to see "all" the posts than to go to an archive to see the already deleted posts (same if you follow from various locations). thanks jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

Hi,

On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 13:05:08, jdd wrote:

...

Kenneth Aar wrote:

...

Daniel Bauer wrote:

...

So I personally would highly appreciate an official Suse-forum, as long as developpers and experts will receive new topics per e-m "forum" is not a clear word. there are "forums" like phpBB (I gess this is the most discussed here), but "news" are also often called "forums"

this last kind of forum is very handy for users like me with a permanent link (not necessarily heavy).

and most important, it is _very easy_ to have the very same flow between the mailing list and the news groups.

Like i said earlier. You can use gmane+nomail subscription for that with the new lists server.

http://gmane.org/

Henne

never worked for me jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:40:26PM +0100, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/26/2006 1:20 PM jdd wrote:

...

never worked for me jdd

As Henne already explained me ;-), this *will work* with the new list server, but it wont work at the moment. I also tried tath some years ago, and it didnt work, so I asked him, too.

I am thrilled if that will work and after testing will post it on news:alt.linux.os.suse and as the people there are already aware of how Usenet works, this might even get some extra people in. :-) I am already trying to get people to subscribe to this list and that would make it much easier for people to first lurk and then participate. houghi -- I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 02:09:51PM +0100, jdd wrote:

may be. I don't see then why a "news.opensuse.org" is not possible. why ask others for an official medium? it's easy to set up!

That would also be a good idea. Make it moderated. read only for everybody. Posting only for subscribers. houghi -- Bees are very busy souls They have no time for birth controls And that is why in times like these There are so many Sons of Bees.

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 14:42:40, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/26/2006 2:32 PM houghi wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 02:09:51PM +0100, jdd wrote:

...

may be. I don't see then why a "news.opensuse.org" is not possible. why ask others for an official medium? it's easy to set up!

That would also be a good idea. Make it moderated. read only for everybody. Posting only for subscribers.

I think this is doing double work. If gmane exists and works (with the ubuntu-list it works, AFAIK) then use this and use your time and energy for something else.

Exactly what we are going to do. Henne p.s. Thats one short minded thing i observe here everytime we have a discussion about something that involves setting something up / coding something / packaging something. Its soo easy to do, just get X from foo.org and do Y with it. Of course thats easy. Everybody knows that. But commiting longterm to a solution is something completely different! Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 17:06:34, jdd wrote:

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

p.s. Thats one short minded thing i observe here everytime we have a discussion about something that involves setting something up / coding something / packaging something. Its soo easy to do, just get X from foo.org and do Y with it. Of course thats easy. Everybody knows that. But commiting longterm to a solution is something completely different!

that's not fair.

Why is that?

In the beginning, why write a new distribution? debian is nice, red hat is nice (ad libitum).

Thats comparing Apples and Oranges. I dont want to write my own nntp like protocol and server/client to implement the hyperfast opensuse group with many new features and concepts. I want the opensuse mailinglists to be accessable by nntp.

the point is: do we want to have _our members_ in _our room_

when I buy shoes, I have all the products for the shoes in the same place, the vendor don't say: go there to find, if not I will go elsewhere.

Again comparing Apples and Oranges. To get opensuse mainlinglists over nntp it makes no significant difference if i connect my nntp client to news.opensuse.org or news.gmane.org.

the problem is : does this thing asks for many works, any day, or for a half day once a year? is this work well placed?

Yes it does. It is significant more work to setup and maintain an nntp server on opensuse.org then to point users who want nntp to news.gmane.org. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 06:24:10PM +0100, jdd wrote:

I see a big one. gmane is a mess of dozen of newsgroups I have no concern with.

Then you do not download the content of them. Only the first time do you download the different groups and then you subscribe to any group you like.

I have nothing against gmane, but why not googles groups or others?

Google groups is just a webinterface to the rest of Usenet and a bad one at that. gmane is an interface that turns email mailinglists in usenet groups wich will give you the benefits of a mailinglist together with the benefits of Usenet. I am just woried by one part in the FAQ: I'm now experimenting with Google AdWords to help defray the hardware costs. houghi -- I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!

Per Jessen wrote:

Google groups is a mess of ...

I just mean opensuse would like quite lowend if not able to drive it's own gears... and you seem able to give very acurate infos (nice) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 18:24:10, jdd wrote:

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 17:06:34, jdd wrote:

...

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

p.s. Thats one short minded thing i observe here everytime we have a discussion about something that involves setting something up / coding something / packaging something. Its soo easy to do, just get X from foo.org and do Y with it. Of course thats easy. Everybody knows that. But commiting longterm to a solution is something completely different! that's not fair.

Why is that?

who speaks of "short minded"

Well it is short minded or? Youre not thinking it trough. Hence short minded.

...

I dont want to write my own nntp like protocol and server/client to implement the hyperfast opensuse group with many new features and concepts.

there is nothing to write, the solution exists since a very long time now

Exactly my point! There exists a solution since a very long time and im not going to reinvent it.

...

...

the point is: do we want to have _our members_ in _our room_

when I buy shoes, I have all the products for the shoes in the same place, the vendor don't say: go there to find, if not I will go elsewhere.

Again comparing Apples and Oranges. To get opensuse mainlinglists over nntp it makes no significant difference if i connect my nntp client to news.opensuse.org or news.gmane.org.

I see a big one. gmane is a mess of dozen of newsgroups I have no concern with.

Why would that be a problem? If it is then you are using the wrong newsreader :) Every newsreader i know gets a list of groups on the news server, presents it to the user who can then choose the groups he wants to "subscribe" to. Most modern ones even allow a search in the grouplist (knode for instance).

I have nothing against gmane, but why not googles groups or others?

Why? gmane is in place, has already all lists from lists.suse.com indexed and is actually used by a lot of people. They have a straightforward subscription process and are very user friendly, require no authentification and are OSS centric. Sorry but gmane+nomail subscriptions in our mailinglists are the perfect solution and you fail to prove otherwise. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 20:35:06, houghi wrote:

I am afraid we are drifting again. There are two things.

True we are. Ive read the whole thread again and tried to summarized this discussion at (if i missed something please add it there) http://www.opensuse.org/Forum-discussion-results This tells me 2 things: 1. We should have a web-forum. 2. The question if we need an "official" web-forum is still undecided. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 23:35:41, houghi wrote:

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 11:03:53PM +0100, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

2. The question if we need an "official" web-forum is still undecided.

So who is going to ask the existing web-forums on this matter?

Joseph M. Gaffney Joseph would you do that please? Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 23:49:57, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006, houghi wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 11:03:53PM +0100, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

...

2. The question if we need an "official" web-forum is still undecided.

So who is going to ask the existing web-forums on this matter?

This is the right question. I would tend to linux-club.de very much because some of our APT suser-* contributors "reside" there, but: the forum language is german...

Given my history with susers and my mother tongue ill go there and ask... Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 23:57:49, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 23:49:57, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006, houghi wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 11:03:53PM +0100, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

...

2. The question if we need an "official" web-forum is still undecided.

So who is going to ask the existing web-forums on this matter?

This is the right question. I would tend to linux-club.de very much because some of our APT suser-* contributors "reside" there, but: the forum language is german...

Given my history with susers and my mother tongue ill go there and ask...

Done. Unfortunately its only readable if you have an account there. Ill give a summary of what they said once the discussion there is over. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

Hi, On Friday, January 27, 2006 at 09:57:39, Peter Flodin wrote:

On 1/27/06, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

1. We should have a web-forum. 2. The question if we need an "official" web-forum is still undecided.

I don't see how both of these statements can be true, logically.

"We should have a web forum" surely means that "we" the project openSUSE should have a webforum (eg forum.opensuse.org)

Thats your conclusion. Thats not what happend in the discussion. See the arguments on the page i made.. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/26/2006 2:32 PM houghi wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 02:09:51PM +0100, jdd wrote:

...

may be. I don't see then why a "news.opensuse.org" is not possible. why ask others for an official medium? it's easy to set up! That would also be a good idea. Make it moderated. read only for everybody. Posting only for subscribers.

I think this is doing double work. If gmane exists and works (with the ubuntu-list it works, AFAIK) then use this and use your time and energy for something else.

jm2c

OJ google exists also, and other distributions exists also, why do an other?

I beg why say to newcommer: go elsewhere! jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 04:47:27PM +0100, jdd wrote:

houghi wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 02:09:51PM +0100, jdd wrote:

...

may be. I don't see then why a "news.opensuse.org" is not possible. why ask others for an official medium? it's easy to set up!

That would also be a good idea. Make it moderated. read only for everybody. Posting only for subscribers.

why?

To have no spam for one. To have better control for two. Because that is how the mailinglist already works for three. I am talking about the link mailinglist-usenet for existing opensuse mailinglists. Or would you want to takle away subscription for the mailinglist and everybody can just start posting? houghi -- "I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 06:19:35PM +0100, jdd wrote:

houghi wrote:

...

To have no spam for one. To have better control for two. Because that is how the mailinglist already works for three.

as long as I know, the mailing list is not moderated

Ok. I understand now. With Usenet moderation I ment subscribing and unsubscribing, so automated moderation. Not subscribed, no posting, instead only reading. <snip>

spammer use news groups to collect adresses, but usually not to send posts.

yes, they do. However most of it is filterd out by uplink servers most likely. houghi -- God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six days and then pulled an all-nighter.

On 1/26/06, Johannes Kastl wrote:

And who will listen and help? How many people ("good people" sounds very bad and arrogant, but I mean the ones "knowing" things) will there be?

Yes it does sound arrogant...:-) reminds me of the quote: "Everyone you meet knows something you don't. Learn from them"

An official forum full of newbies and no "experts" is no use to any one.

I dispute that it is of no use, the sharing of information and experience is sometimes all that is required. Sure the web forum may not have programmers and suse staff answering questions, but the number of SUSE experts is not fixed, and I believe a web forum is one part of a newbies journey away from newbieness...towards your definition of "good". Peter 'Pflodo' Flodin ps. Why are the biggest critics of a web forum, people who would never use it?

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:39:12AM +0100, Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006, Peter Flodin wrote:

[...]

...

ps. Why are the biggest critics of a web forum, people who would never use it?

Very well said! (I don't think it's a secret that I'm an advocate of official web forums ;))

I beg to differ. It seems that even as I personally would not be using the webforum, I am still defending it IF the comunity out there likes it. And when you look at the people on those things, I think they like it for whatever strange reason. To look at it in a broader and more positive way (for those who do NOT want it) it is the breeding ground of the future wizzards. Some of the people will be staring to use the mailinglists as well. I see it as something next to the mailinglist. I don't see it as a replacement. houghi -- Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 12:56:11PM +0100, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/25/2006 11:28 PM Peter Flodin wrote:

...

Yes it does sound arrogant...:-) reminds me of the quote: "Everyone you meet knows something you don't. Learn from them"

Do you know where that is from? Would be a good signature ;-)

What a search tought me that it is not a quete but a proverb. A nice page with things is http://hometown.aol.co.uk/__121b_to4QVH5i2klgUkKMiKRCJLDehhFZXVBBG5yvEPwIfum... This then brought memories of http://www.quehubo.com/eng/lyrics/index.php?&page=92

I am not trying to keep suse from building up a forum, Im just trying to get every thought about it thought, from considering how many moderators you will need, to how it is integrated in the momentarily environment without splitting.

I hope we are not trying to overanalize things too juch and act as a commity where we want a horse and come out with a camel. I am sure most other forums thought: Hey, I would like a forum let's make one and they looked what happend. houghi -- The computer is the ultimate polluter: its shit is indistinguishable from the food it produces.

On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 08:58 +1100, Peter Flodin wrote:

On 1/26/06, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

...

Why? What would you expect from it, compared to the existing SUSE community forums?

The why:

Web forums promotes communication between people no matter what their technical level. Mailing lists very nearly discourage newbies from helping newbies, as mailing lists usually stop this by complaining about the wrong quoting method or posting in HTML, or off-topic.

Just looking for info. Pardon my ignorance. How is a forum any better than a mailing list. From my stand point you still have to type in some text somewhere and send it off somewhere for other people to respond to hopefully with a helpful answer. Is this not what this list provides currently? I don't see how a mailing list will "discourage newbies" from participating except for the fact that the information on how to subscribe is usually buried somewhere and -not- easily found. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 08:58:50AM +1100, Peter Flodin wrote:

There is an army of users without a voice, give them one...

My thoughts exactly. I still think it would be good to ask the existing forums what their thoughts are. houghi -- Democracy can learn some things from Communism: for example, when a Communist politician is through, he is through.

Am Wed, 25. January 2006 23:25 schrieb Jan Karjalainen:

I think there is a need for a forum, for a couple of reasons:

- The ability to easily search for answers. When you get a reply stating "this was discussed in December, search the list", a newbie really doesn´t have a clue how or where to search. Compare this to the search funtionality of a forum. Hhhm, I would say this is only a matter of postprocessing an information channel. Never mind if it is a forum or a mail list. The core need is to make information available. This can be done by moving interesting answers to a faq, like it is done for the german suse-users list. Or by putting good and interesting answers to the openSUSE wiki or the SDB

- Dial-up connections aren´t fast enough for downloading a couple of hundred mails each day, many of which you don´t have any interest in. As mentioned above, just a matter of postprocessing. This could be done by a mail2news gateway or a indexed and browsable mail list archive.

- Familiarity. Almost everyone has visited a forum, and even participated in discussions on one.

Looking at what a forum does under technical aspects it is not more than a web based mailing list archive which has aa gui which comes along as a news list. What is left is that another information channel needs additional reccources and additional advertising. Just like presenting another newspaper publication. So whats left is the decission wether to have a new information channel which needs additional and in the end redundant reccources and manpower or to find a way to make the given information offered by a mail list accessible in a more pleasant way, especially for new users.

Just my $0.02.... just my 0,0163€ :)

regards, Thomas

At 10:23 AM 26/01/2006, you wrote: cut

I however don't see that the openSUSE staff need to spend many manhours each week in maintaining the forum, this should be left for the community, and maybe existing community forum moderators are offered an opportunity to participate (as well as other good citizens of the community). I would bet money that there is no lack of volunteers.

Good Forums have Good Moderators with the ability to direct "Upstairs" problems their community either can't fix or are more serious than the forum members realize. They should not REQUIRE everyday monitoring by the openSUSE staff if they have been setup correctly. scsijon ps hope that wasn't too arrogant, wasn't meant to be.

Hi, On Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 12:48:03, Johannes Kastl wrote:

On 1/25/2006 11:57 PM email.listen@googlemail.com wrote:

...

Hhhm, I would say this is only a matter of postprocessing an information channel. Never mind if it is a forum or a mail list. The core need is to make information available. This can be done by moving interesting answers to a faq, like it is done for the german suse-users list. Or by putting good and interesting answers to the openSUSE wiki or the SDB

I think there should be a big fat link to the archive, and the archive should have a GOOD search functionality where you cant miss it. Not "Browsing the archive" as on lists.suse.com, but like a forum search.

Or, if this functionality is given by external archives, then there should be a BIG FAT link there.

Were looking into that. mod_mbox maybe. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire)

* Johannes Kastl [01-26-06 06:50]:

I think there should be a big fat link to the archive, and the archive should have a GOOD search functionality where you cant miss it. Not "Browsing the archive" as on lists.suse.com, but like a forum search.

search google using 'lists:suse.com' as the first search parameter. Much better. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

Hello, Am Mittwoch, 25. Januar 2006 23:25 schrieb Jan Karjalainen:

I think there is a need for a forum, for a couple of reasons:

- The ability to easily search for answers. When you get a reply stating "this was discussed in December, search the list", a newbie really doesn´t have a clue how or where to search.

This means the mailing list archives should have a search feature included (which is already discussed AFAIK).

Compare this to the search funtionality of a forum.

OK, good point. But google-searching the list archives isn't that bad, too ;-)

- Dial-up connections aren´t fast enough for downloading a couple of hundred mails each day, many of which you don´t have any interest in.

*LoL* - this is the "funniest" reason for a web forum I ever heard. The dial-up connections I know are paid per minute, so using a forum will be *much* more expensive than the 5 minutes you need to download your mails and 2 more minutes for sending your questions/replies. (I did this over years: 56k modem and suse-linux mailinglist with up to 200 mails per day. No problem so far - but my new 2 MBit line is better of couse ;-))

- Familiarity. Almost everyone has visited a forum, and even participated in discussions on one.

Maybe. But even more people already have sent and received mail. (Not necessarily via mailinglists, but I think that doesn't make a big difference.) I see another problem with forums: People are familar with using their mail client - and can have *one* mail client for all mailing lists. For forums, you have *another* user interface for each forum and need to login before posting. This sounds terrible to me, but maybe an average newbie ;-) thinks different. One (THE?) problem that people may have with mailinglists could be filtering - if you don't, you will have a nice chaos in your inbox. Maybe the subscribe page should contain a "survive with 200 mails/day HOWTO" ;-) If you want a forum - no problem. But don't expect me to be there ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz -- "And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies." [Linus Torvalds]

I think we are largely going nowhere, here, questions should be serialized. the problem is not "why should we have a forum", but "what work will a forum give to the corps" if no work, we _must_ have one. we must have all and any interface needed by say... a handfull of users. so work??? The work involved in creating the forum, and making it run on a server is nearly nothing, given any time. the real work is _moderation_ so the real problem is * should we have moderation? * is the answer is yes, should it be done by a corp? ans only these two questions needs discussion. as long as I know, the present list is _not_ moderated, so why moderate a forum/newsgroup? looking at a wiki is far more difficult than looking at a forum and we do. if you think a moderation is necessary, why not give this to a community member? may be the one who asks for a forum? an "a posteriori" moderation should be largely sufficient (canceling of offending posts if any) anyway, the answers at these questions should be given an written on the wiki of course, if moderation is mandatory and can be done only by corps there will be no forum and discussion ends... jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 04:59:26PM +0100, jdd wrote:

...

the problem is not "why should we have a forum", but "what work will a forum give to the corps"

No, this is not the question. If it turns out that the forums are indeed a high priority, we'll find a way.

well, obviously the priority is questioned :-)

...

so the real problem is

* should we have moderation? * is the answer is yes, should it be done by a corp?

I assume a "corp" is someone employed by SUSE?

yes If yes, I'd think that

yes, we need moderation, and no, there's no way that SUSE will do it, this is a community job. This is actually where I would want to ask the founders and moderators of the existing forums to participate and help.

I don't know if it's a good idea. why will them discard they forum for our? or make a competition? why not first ask the actual community? by the way, I _do_ manage a SUSE forum :-) but for reasons I can explain (but not here and now) it's not very populated.

...

anyway, the answers at these questions should be given an written on the wiki

The wiki is the wrong place for discussions. Thanks for your clear opinion, but I think the discussion is not yet over ;-)

the answers should be given, of course when the discussion is closed. my main point is saying "we nedd a forum" "no we don't"... don't give any solution. It's not the first thread I see on the subject, and I don't se many new things and so I write only to try slowing things before anybody is tired :-)) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

houghi wrote:

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 05:29:16PM +0100, jdd wrote:

...

I don't know if it's a good idea. why will them discard they forum for our? or make a competition?

why not first ask the actual community?

As you have experience in forums, could you ask it? Guessing what or what not their opinion is is just that: guessing. It could go from 'why do you want to ruin my website' to 'I am glad you finaly take this Burden of my shoulder'.

So who is going to ask what their opinion is?

houghi

it's not clear. this. I did read "ask them to be moderator". do you mean: "ask them to shut they forum and to take our"?? this is not the same question. for the first question (moderator) they may say yes (two of them already said yes - I am one of the two :-), but they may still be a loyalty problem: do I answer to my forum or to the other one? do I accept this on my forum and not in the other. for the second question (shut and move "take this Burden of my shoulder"), I don't think it's a question I would like to ask but mostly, I think it's an error. Do this if you find nobody else, yes. I said some time ago that what we need is some light tasks we can give to new community members. we can stick members to open suse giving them work to do. small job in the beginning. Being part of a moderating community (if we decide to moderate) is a small job and can make somebody an active member that would not be elsewhere. jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Quelques images: http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html

houghi wrote:

When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the money is. -- Robespierre

Did Robespierre really say that? It sounds a little anachronistic. /Per Jessen, Zürich

On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 18:14 +0100, houghi wrote:

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 05:29:16PM +0100, jdd wrote:

...

I don't know if it's a good idea. why will them discard they forum for our? or make a competition?

why not first ask the actual community?

As you have experience in forums, could you ask it? Guessing what or what not their opinion is is just that: guessing. It could go from 'why do you want to ruin my website' to 'I am glad you finaly take this Burden of my shoulder'.

So who is going to ask what their opinion is?

Opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one which is why this thread looks like it will still be here next Christmas. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998