Hi, Stephan - Thank you for starting this thread. I think this provides a good starting point for some very productive discussions. I've a few comments along the way, please take them all in the spirit of moving the discussion forward. Again, I *really* appreciate you opening the dialog this way. On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:11:47 +0200, Stephan Kleine wrote:
OTOH you, the forum admins, have been asked quite some times to introduce some subtopics targeting more specific needs. So could you please reconsider your stance and admit that it will be easier to find "interesting" topics one might be inclined to get involved in if one doesn't have to wade through loads of other stuff?
Your, the forum admins`, answer was mostly that said subtopics are already covered by their parent ones (e.g. applications for servers and security). OTOH you happily run some "64-bit" subforum which makes no sense IMHO since this nowadays boils down to having to install the necessary 32-bit compat libs for some binary blobs (e.g. skype).
Sure, let's discuss the options. If we can come up with a better structure than what we currently have, I believe that would be seen universally as a good thing. We may not agree on the final breakdown, but if we can make it easier for potential repliers to find topics of interest and make it easier for users to self-classify their issues by picking the right forum, that should make everyone's job easier.
From my personal POV I would be delighted to see:
1. a "security" one for stuff like apparmor, selinux, ssl with certificates, general server hardening and so on
I've seen this one suggested a few times (even in the forums). The concern in the past (as I understand it) has been that while we certainly agree security topics are important, that we ensure that the users know that it's not the place to talk about specific exploits and how to apply them. I think if we can make it clear that's not what the space is for, but more about system hardening, that's something I personally also would like to see.
2. a "server" one for stuff like apache, php, samba, XEN, KVM, general virtualization and so on.
It might make sense to consider subdivision of that - maybe server services as one and virtualization as another, though I do see how the two might overlap.
Last but not least I'm seriously wondering on those "reporting in bugzilla for forum users" discussion. So could you, the forum admins and users, please make it plain clear to your fellow users that:
1. To report something broken there is only ONE place and that is http://bugzilla.novell.com/ 2. If you (the random user) don't like the interface then welcome to the club but until someone writes a new one this wont change.
That's fair; I hadn't talked to any developers who use bugzilla who don't like it before, and I think many end-users look at bugzilla and think of it as a tool written by developers for developers - for many it probably never crosses their mind that the interface is perhaps cumbersome for the developer as well.
3. Reporting a bug as a proxy is plain useless since you (the proxy reporter) will never be able to answer any follow up questions.
Personally, I can't agree with this 100%, but I certainly can agree that it's not the optimal or best solution. That was largely me brainstorming ways to make the process better for everyone - and I'm certainly open to alternatives. Perhaps what we could do as an alternative is encourage users to file their own bugs, but have a formal dispute resolution process in the event the reporter and the developer come to an impasse or otherwise aren't able to reconcile the way forward. Someone could mediate the dispute so - if at all possible - a mutually acceptable solution could be found. Is that something you'd see as a good alternative?
4. You need NO knowledge to report a bug but are simply supposed to explain as best as you can what you did to produce that bug. Then the devs will simply ask what you did, if it isn't clear, and tell you what information they need to fix it. If you don't know how to provide that info then simply ASK. Every single dev I know is perfectly happy to tell you how to provide the requested information so really all that is required from you is to create a bugreport, do the best you can and then simply be receptive.
That sounds very reasonable to me. :-)
Ok, that got quite lengthy, sorry for that and thanks for sticking with me. Please keep it productive.
No problem - length doesn't bother me personally, and again, thank you for taking the time to initiate this discussion; you've clearly given this a lot of thought and want to see us all working "on the same side" - which of course, we are all on the same side; we all want to make openSUSE the *best* it can be. :-) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org