mistakenly sent to Cristian, only... note: the "you" in mine should be considered as the collective, not any one individual: -------- Original Message -------- Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:29:10 +0200 To: Cristian Morales Vega Subject: Re: [opensuse-project] Re: Strategy discussion @ forums Cristian Morales Vega wrote:

2010/6/24 DenverD :

...

WAIT--most of those are NOT worth reading!! but if we want to grow the community and increase the size of the group of potential contributors then while not worth _reading_ they ARE worth answering.

And aren't they being answered? How many of them get unanswered? Anyway, that's your point? We will not find real problems to fix? We can just help people that with some luck, we hope, someday will contribute in some way?

I was asking this so "everybody can judge by itself if it's worth the effort". To me is not. Sure, if I have to just select between give an answer to that user or not... lets give him an answer!! But this is a resource management problem. I can answer to ten users asking "I installed mkvtoolnix but I don't know how to start it, it doesn't appears in the menu" or I can patch the mkvtoolnix package to add a menu entry and talk with upstream so they apply the patch, helping a hundred users. Time is limited. Fixing problems we help lots of users. Answering a question not worth reading in the forum we help a single user. Forum users, those that someday perhaps will start contributing, will also go if the distro is full of bugs. We need a balance, and I don't see anything indicating the current one is wrong.

who asked you or any dev to answer questions? i didn't... most of the questions there can be answered by anyone who has been around a year or two (they are easy and redundant), and they are being answered--usually pretty quickly...and the one needing some higher level of technical ability are usually answered dang quickly also.. your help is NOT needed to answer single user questions (imo) the value to everyone on the ML in visiting the fora is (imo) developing a feeling of how the users are getting hammered, or hammering themselves.. things like the decision to make one-clicks keep the repos enabled (as Jim mentioned)...we have several a day needing nothing much more than slimming down what is enabled and then a little zypper work.. maybe you knew that, maybe you don't care...maybe you think the decision was made, good enough, move on...the point is someone should care that the new guy is setup to *fail*: s/he won't read how to use YaST or Zypper if there is a one-click in sight....and, you can bet they WILL accept the default and soon have a dozen or more repos and trouble.. or things like blank/black screens http://tinyurl.com/36slr7o how is a new user supposed to cope with that? how might the hackers figure out a way to detect and fail more 'gracefully'? or just, being seen....'wear' a developer/contributor/member "badge" and be seen walking about among the commoners...i do not mean spend hours every day...by the way i really dislike the web side and highly recommend pointing a newsreader at at forums.opensuse.org port 119 and subscribe to any or all of these: opensuse.org.help.applications o.o.h.applications.multimedia o.o.h.hardware o.o.h.install-boot-login o.o.h.network-internet o.o.h.network-internet.wireless avoid (unless you need a laugh/cry) soapbox, chit-chat, games and i don't know.. 10 minutes every two weeks by each would be a *tremendous* increase in presence and visibility....pat a few on the back (i am NOT talking about patting me on the back, and can promise you my ego doesn't need that)...if you see a problem being discussed that you know is nearing a solution, drop some info on that on the crowd.. or, if you run into (as a venomous poster here noted) "misinformation, ignorance and outright lies" and feel gentlemanly you might set the record straight.. i think it could do a world of good for the "community" if the users actually believed they mattered and the hackers cared about them.. may not make any difference, at all--i know this, walk in and spew some that good old RTFM and i'll wish i never tried to bring the groups closer together! well...i have no idea how to grow a community when the 'leadership' is dead set against talking/listening to users. dd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org