Jim Henderson wrote:
On Fri, 27 May 2022 05:01:24 +0000, Attila Pinter wrote:
The forums would be a much better place? Sure, but our forums are outdated in terms of UI/UX. I don't like to use it either which is said since
[For some reason I don't get Attila's postings directly, dunno why.] There are reasons why our forums setup is a bit behind the times. In a nutshell, lack of resources. Whether it is for upgrading vBulletin or moving to another platform. Lame bumper sticker: [openSUSE Heroes, actively recruiting!]
We also used to have an NNTP gateway, but since SUSE was sold, the NNTP gateway has been shut down (the old NNTP server was a proprietary system that was licensed to run on a specific system, and the company that made it stopped selling it, so they couldn't get a replacement license to move to another server). I did a lot of testing with innd, but only ever used it for testing - I just don't have the time to devote to setting it up and securing it properly.
IOW, more lack of resources. I _think_ the perception is that the demand for nntp access to forums hasn't been sufficient to warrant the effort. I know for a fact innd was investigated and that someone looked into running an instance. (an attempt to on-board another Hero).
But I know a lot of users (myself included) miss having an nntp server to connect to for the forums - that's something that can unify things like the MLs and forums - I access the MLs through gmane using pan; I just find web forums to be horribly inefficient if you're trying to keep up on hundreds of threads and keep an eye on everything going on.
I wholeheartedly agree. [note to self - we need to a Heroes' todo-list]
I think in terms of "Official" the other platforms listed on https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels should be considered official communication channels.
Does anyone have a notion/suggestion to what "official" should mean?
Some channels has a larger user base in their community than registered members overall in the Project.
Sure, many mailing lists have way more subscribers than we have registered members. Those are two different things.
Not every user wants to have an openSUSE account,
+1
or want to use the forums as David pointed it out, rightfully so.
+1
Developers in the project has been long relying on their choice of communication platforms so not much need to change that, and it is well within their right to pick the platform they see best fit their needs.
Absolutely. But at the same time, that drives the fragmentation of the community.
+1. We have plenty of fragmentation already - fragmentation in and by itself is not a "real" problem, healthy communities can certainly exist independently. The problem arises when a community "faction" (for want of a better word) dies out due to a lack of experienced members. That reflects badly on openSUSE.
Users on the other hand IMO shouldn't interact with developers directly.
I think ultimately that's up to the individual developers. Some developers really like talking to their users, and I think (having worked in the software industry for a couple decades) that there are benefits to having developers talk with users.
+1000. (I have also spent a lifetime as a software engineer). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (17.4°C) openSUSE Heroes, actively recruiting!