On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:42:12 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
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.
To me, list user, the number of forums (I try to read them sometimes,
via nntp only) and their names is disconcerting. I can't relate them to
the mail list names, I don't know which to read.
We try to move threads into the appropriate forum when they're misposed;
that does create issues for the NNTP gateway, but for new threads, we do
try to take care of this. If someone finds a thread in the wrong place¸
it can be reported with a suggestion as to where it should be located
instead. If it's been around for a while, we generally don't move it,
but if it's a new thread, we do try to ensure they're moved to the right
forum.
I personally prefer to redirect the user rather than do the move for them
- that way the user learns *and* has to take extra steps (which to me
means they will try harder the next time they post so they don't have to
do *more* work).
For example, there is
"opensuse.org.help.prerelease-beta". Is that
equivalent to opensuse-factory? If so, why not have it named
"...factory"?
They are roughly equivalent; I don't honestly know why 'factory' wasn't
used, I *think* because to the average end user, 'factory' doesn't have
the same connotation as it does to those who have been around the project
longer.
Or "opensuse.org.help.install-boot-login". I
see threads like "Software
update apparently replaced Firefox 3.6.4 with 3.5.9", "bundle-lang-gnome
2233 update fails", "Graphics Card Driver for GMA HD Please". I fail to
see the relation to the group name... :-? Boot or login problems? I
don't really know what that group is for from reading the title.
Looks like a few threads that should've been moved that weren't. It
happens; in general, it shouldn't, but there will always be people who
post to the wrong place. We've tried very hard to keep people from
posting support questions to the "Forums Feedback" section, by labeling
the support sections as "Get Help Here" and moving those feedback forums
to the bottom of the list (so they have to go past the "Get Help Here"
group of forums and we still get people asking support questions there.
Then, there is, for example,
opensuse.org.news.security-announcements.
I'm reading via news interface, often off-line. But all posts I try,
instead of containing the security information, contains the link to the
info somewhere else... thus, useless to me. The equivalent mail list
does contain all the info "inside".
opensuse.org.news.tech-news has a similar problem.
That particular group is fed from an RSS feed - that's why the
information is linked rather than posted; we post just what's in the RSS
feed information.
Then, a post or a thread I understand can be moved
from a group to
another. This is very disconcerting via nntp.
Yes - the gateway doesn't handle moves very gracefully. As I mentioned
in a post to Rajko on (I think) Friday, the NNTP gateway imposes some
limitations; we have one guy who has done some development work on it and
has improved it significantly, but he hasn't had the time (he's a
volunteer) to make any additional enhancements recently.
Perhaps all this seems silly to a person used to
forums, but then,
maybe, they help keep some of us listers away from the forums.
No, those are perfectly valid issues to raise. The question becomes how
to address them, or how to mitigate them.
How about a guide for mail list users attempting to
participate in the
forums? Maybe it exists already?
I haven't seen a guide like this myself - what do you think would be
useful topics to include in such a guide?
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.
Absolutely :-)
The more I think about this, the more I like this idea.
Jim
--
Jim Henderson
Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits
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