Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (930 mails)

[Jim Henderson <hendersj@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:05:03 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

> So, what should we do ?

Help those of us who run those forums communicate more effectively with 
the membership there.  *Please*.

Rupert, Andreas, and Pavol (among others) have all participated in the 
discussions or have interacted with the forums.

> If every thread about the strategy discussion on the forums morphs into
> a hate-of-everyone-else-because-they're-not-on-the-forums on the 3rd
> post instead of trying to stay focused and on topic, what's the point ?

The point isn't "hate everyone else because they're not on the forums" 
but what I have long sensed is a frustration on the part of some of the 
forum members that the forums are thought of as "second class".

That has led some of the discussion now into a review of how some of 
those members feel they have been wronged in the past.  That's only 
natural to do and I expect it will run its course as we focus on the 
future.

But some people need the catharsis of getting all their frustrations out 
on the table before they can move forward.

> Again, what should we do ?

Help us clarify what needs clarified, understand where the community 
members in the forums are coming from, and make the forum members feel 
like a valued part of the community.  Let's face it - many of the 
openSUSE user base use the forums to get help, and they get some good 
help in the forums - but the developer presence in the forums is 
practically nonexistent.

I've suggested in the thread in the forums (and I'll suggest here as 
well) that what might help with this is for the openSUSE developer 
community to leverage the forums as a first point of contact for users 
and work out (with those of us who are the admins in the forums) a means 
for issues to be escalated from the forum membership to the developers.  
Right now there's no real good guideline that I've seen other than "file 
a bug in bugzilla" - which makes the forum users feel disconnected from 
the project.

> I'll read the other threads, hoping that they're a bit more on topic.
> And I'd even happily take position on each of those attacks, if someone
> manages to make a civil and focused discussion out of it.

Let's work together on this - as I said above, it's important to 
understand where this audience is coming from; it's a mix of technical 
and non-technical users, which in and of itself can be a volatile mix 
because of differences in how those two groups communicate.

> Mind you, I didn't even reply on the forum thread itself, because it's
> firing into every direction with more half-truths and complete-wrongs
> being spread with every single post. I believe it would be pointless as
> it would end up into an endless discussion about everything and the
> kitchen sink.
>
> Any idea on how to approach that serious issue ?

I think it starts by building trust between the forum users and the 
leadership in the openSUSE project.  That started, I think, when Rupert 
was elected to the board (as he was involved in the original forum 
migration project IIRC).  Right now, from the forum side of the fence 
(and speaking for myself and for what I perceive in the users in the 
forum), the forums feel very disconnected from the rest of the project.

I think it also starts by acknowledging that things haven't worked as 
smoothly as they could have, and that the forums by and large have been 
the "red-headed stepchild" of the project (especially as far as developer 
involvement is concerned - James Tan is a notable exception in providing 
assistance in the Studio forum; there may be others I'm not aware of, 
though).

I haven't talked this over at any length with the other forum 
administrators (I'm one of the 3 admins), but would be willing to do 
whatever I can to help facilitate such a discussion with the rest of the 
admins and other staff.

Jim
-- 
 Jim Henderson
 Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

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