You make a very good point, Kostas. This is something I've tried to
talk about in my recent article (waiting anxiously to see if Linux.com
will print it!) on the conference community track, though some of the
discussion 'around' the idea I deleted to keep the article more
focused.
Community is a really over-used concept these days and gets applied as
a blanket term that can cover very diverse groups of people. As I
mention in the article, Max Spevak's comments are right on:
"For instance, an online community that is basically just a group of
people sharing advice with each other has an entirely different set of
dynamics than a community like Fedora that has specific goals, a
schedule that results in tangible deliverables, and specific metrics
by which success and failure are measured."
http://spevack.livejournal.com/107398.html
My impression is that a distribution really has to get these two
spheres of community to intersect. We need to get people from openSUSE
out into the wider communities, not in any official capacity but
simply 'being there' to be a voice for openSUSE wherever people are
looking for Linux advice and friendship.
And on external places like Facebook and Twitter and so forth, to
gently push people in the direction of the official openSUSE forums -
AND we need to PARTICIPATE in the official channels too. There is a
critical mass of people needed to make these forums (etc) work. If you
don't have enough active members, questions don't get answered,
there's no feeling of community and people go elsewhere. Forums are a
subtle thing: there are some I participate in that are full of life
and humour. Others that are badly designed and don't feel like home -
you don't want to go there.
Since the advent of 'Web 2.0', Twitter and Facebook, I've noticed a
big decline in some of my favorite forums. There are still some
regulars there but there's a 'certain something' missing. I think that
the casual layers of friendship that people found in forums are now
happening elsewhere.
However the downside of "TwitBook" is that you have such a
conglomeration of unrelated interests, too many people, spam and no
privacy. So I hope there will be a move away from these and back to
more focused communities around specific interests.
I'm really interested in the community tools that Pavol Prusnak is
working on. The idea of having everything integrated is, I think, a
really exciting one. Ways to keep all your 'stuff' together. People
love Karma too :) ... So that would be really interesting to hear
about.
Thomas Thym is presenting on community principles and I think will
have a lot to offer, so I hope someone will report back for those of
us who can't attend the conference.
I raised the bug fixing point because it was mentioned on a tech forum
I participate in, and in fact has come up several times. Advanced
users who submit bugs and then find them closed off and unfixed get
really annoyed. They sometimes have a lot of involvement with the
software and know what they are doing, and to have what can be a
substantial bug dismissed because the development cycle somehow
'overtook' it and nobody got around to dealing with it - they really,
really don't like that. When they have good interactions with the
development team and see their issues being treated seriously, then
that's an ongoing relationship. THAT is 'community' for them.
Similarly, new users need to find their way around documentation, and
they need their questions to be answered. Often forums feel very
'formal' and you ask a serious question, get a serious answer (if
you're lucky) and there's no involvement beyond that. I think that's
where magazine forums and general tech forums have an advantage,
because they chat about Linux news and other stuff as well. So
there's many levels of involvement.
cheers
Helen
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Kostas Koud
I agree with Helen,people love to see their bugs fixed and yes we have great stability but I think that these days one of the basic people's criteria is the community. Under my opinion we must create solid local communities and global community. Local communities so that people can communicate with other people in their own language so that they can express their problems more easily.At that point I suggest to learn from those who already have strong local communities make it better, innovating if its possible.In case we need ideas or having any problems on how to make things work I believe we all make great job here on the mailing lists helping each other,plus that for example an idea Helen has could be what I might need in order to get my community one step further Strengthen our Global community, I believe forum and the wiki are making a great job but I don't know if that is enough. that is for now
Kostas 'Warlordfff' Koudaras
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org