Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4054 mails)

["Joseph M. Gaffney" <CuCullin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 27 January 2006 11:10, houghi wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2006 at 10:34:16AM -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:
> > Henne, I will gladly contact every forum I know of, I have no problems
> > doing so.  I seem to think I'm occasionally personable ;)  However, I
> > don't know the owners, and may not be best suited to contact them.  Is
> > there anyone who knows the forum owners? If not, I'll contact them, and
> > atleast try to get them to see the discussion on the list here.
>
> Just throw it in the group and point to
> http://www.opensuse.org/Forum-discussion-results like Henne did. Then let
> the dogs of war tear it appart and pick up the pieces. :-)
>
> So post it, see what happens and then come with a conclusion per forum. It
> could be that the consensus in one groups is completely different from
> another one.
>
> houghi

Well, I've contacted a variety of owners, administrators, and moderators.  The 
one I'm not sure how to contact is the (former?) owners/admins/mods of 
suseforums.net, which is currently down, and has been for a week or two. If 
anyone knows how to get in touch with them, please do. It seems to me, btw, 
that there are essentially only a handful (as in 3, including suseforums.net 
which is down) of forums dedicated to SUSE.  The rest are primarily offshoots 
of linuxquestions.org, and other such forums.  Considering the success of 
other "official" forums, such as the previously mentioned forum.gentoo.org 
and fedoraforum, perhaps there is quite a bit more of the community missing 
from SUSE than even I originally thought.

I've also contacted some owners of SUSE support sites, some of which I have 
been in touch with before, to get their input as well.  I've also offered to 
forward messages to the list, if they aren't interested in signing up.

Now, in regards to the wiki forum discussion results page, I have to comment 
on a few things:

"unless such a forum is bi-directionally gated to e.g. this mailing-list, it 
will only cause a split in the community"

How? The primary people who would be using the forums aren't on the mailing 
list now, nor will they ever.  As I said, you will not suddenly change the 
view of users out there that hundreds of emails from a list is better for 
them than a forum.  Whats being done now is cutting them out of "official" 
involvement in the community, by not having one.  As far as those on the 
mailing list goes, they will probably remain on the list.  Where exactly is 
there an issue?  Do you really want to add a bunch of "where can I find the 
opensuse cd's?" type emails to the list?  Isn't there plenty of traffic 
already?

They should be two different entities, with two different purposes.

"if there is a web forum and there is a very low concentration of "experts" in 
there, what's the point of it ?"

If there is a mailing list, and there is a very low concentration of "experts" 
on it, whats the point of it?  I'm sorry, but I don't think this is something 
that could qualify as a reason against a forum.

"being unable/unwilling to use a mailing-list is not a helpful attitude"

Ah... so being unwilling/unable to support the existence of a forum for those 
that will never see this mailing list *is* a helpful attitude?

"if there is no "moderation" or guidance, a forum wont work"

I'm sorry... this one I just don't get at all.  Of course there would be 
administrators & moderators... its a crucial forum element.

"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"

Forums are the most common form of discussion system for new users.  The www 
is their home.  Also, as mentioned, they don't necessarily have their email 
client with them everywhere they have internet access.  They also might only 
be interested in a subforum that has 5-10 posts per day.  Consider and 
compare the volume of this list to a few posts in a subforum of interest, 
that they can access, read, and leave at their liesure.  Are you sure an 
email client/mailing list is friendly by comparison?

"We might upset the old inofficial forum members"

Very valid issue, hopefully solved shortly through the contact made to forum 
owners, admins, and mods.

"It would take away resources from the the distribution itself or the work on 
the build service"

Considering the minimal level of effort that needs to be put forth by 
Novell/SUSE devs, with daily functions being taken care of by members of the 
community as moderators, I don't see this as really being an issue - perhaps 
others feel differently, but I don't believe so.

"an official forum could raise the expectation that suse staff is 
participating in there"

Perhaps if something were added to the agreement when registering about who is 
helping, a sticky thread in the main forum as well as sub forums, and perhaps 
a note on the page would solve this issue.  As in repeating "This forum has 
been set up and provided by Novell/SUSE/however_you'd_phrase_things, but is 
not staffed by employees.  Members contributing to this forum are members of 
the community.  For official tech support, please see 
novell.com/suse/page_to_support_agreements.

Ok, I'm done again - sorry for all the long posts everyone :)

Joseph M. Gaffney
aka CuCullin