[gobolinux-users] Gobolinux Forum?

[Michael Homer]

On 5/26/07, molfar <molfar.ua at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/26/07, Michael Homer <gobo-users-dufus at wotfun.com> wrote:
> > > No way in hell!
> > Hisham summarises eloquently what I was getting at here. Many of the
> Well, yes, that pretty much explains everything)
>
> > When emails arrive I get them immediately, and I could well respond
> > within minutes. Ditto for everybody else. Do you think that worse
> > response times would be an improvement?
> I think that the difference between 2 minutes and 5 minutes or 2 hours
> if it is the case is not that drastic, especially if you get the reply
> after all. Please, bear in mind, that many people read posts (in forum
> or in lists) on a day-summary basis, so your fast response, while
> being something worth accolade, doesn't have that huge impact on the
> discussion.
> Moreover, it is not about quickness of someone's response, but about
> its quality. I don't mean you in particular, but the principle as a
> whole.
When somebody has a problem (say, their system is broken), getting a
quick response is important - and often the first responses will just
be questions, to help diagnose the problem. That's the scenario where
pushing the messages out is important. "Topic subscription" features
help, of course, but only after someone's seen it the first time,
which mightn't be for a day.

Do you see what I mean? When people post questions ("Ahhh! Things are
broken! People are DYING!"), they want it fixed as quickly as
possible, and forums don't help much with that, -unless- there's a
large enough user base that there happen to be people there pretty
much all the time.
> > "It is the responsibility of developers to help users".
> I thought it was obvious, but nevermind. The full sentence should look
> like: "It is the responsibility of developers to help users, if they
> want the community to grow. If they don't - they won't".
> Just shut down any user support for Ubuntu, and other distros and wait
> for the increased adoption rates. You'll got plenty, I'm sure
> (*sarcasm*).
> > Getting new ideas from other people is always useful, but I don't see
> > this one taking off in any useful fashion, like I've said. If those
> > circumstances have changed, it could, but otherwise a forum's not much
> > use if there's nobody there who really knows what's going on on the
> > inside, or if those who do are forced to check it manually (and
> > inevitably, forget). And I don't see a use in degrading quality of
> > experience for the sake of... well, nothing, really.
> To put it "eloquently": if you want something done - you look for
> possibilities, if you don't want - you look for excuses.
> Anyway, this distro is not mine brainchild, and I won't get in your
> (devs) way of having things as you see them fit. It is your choice
> really, not mine.
Possibilities are nice, and maybe at some point there will be a forum
(maybe soon; it does seem there's a few people who'd like it, and
"people already on the mailing list" isn't a representative sample for
that purpose). The concern is that the kind of fragmentation that will
result (and it will, because the lists just aren't going to close) and
the lack of interest from the core team will make it worse than having
no forum at all.
> > magnus joh wrote:
> > > Lets face it, mailinglists are scary.
> > How? Everybody knows how to email, and they do it all the time.
> This topic has already got more then 20 posts. When I open my Gmail
> inbox, even if this topic is combined into one..  let's call it
> thread, it is quite a headache to understand who answered to what and
> when and to follow the flow of discussion effectively. I have to open
> another web interface to "wotfun" archives just to comprehend it. And
> it is not helpful sometimes. Moreover, make it 60+ messages - and the
> discomfort is excruciating to the extent that people won't even bother
> participating. How is that more simple than having one flat thread on
> forum?
It's much easier to understand here than it would be on a forum, where
there's no threading at all and people don't quote properly. It might
well have developed differently in a different environment to avoid
the problem, of course.

You could also use gmane's archives, or a real email client that
doesn't suppress threads, so you can see who replied to whom. There
are lots of options available.
> > I also agree with what MJ, Jonas, and Isaac said, so I won't repeat
> > their points. If we do end up with a forum, let's at least do it right
> > this time, but think carefully before we leap into something that's
> > going to flop.
> I agree.
>
> Mail-lists are good if you have a small community. The same goes to
> forums if you have a large one. However, the catch is that in order to
> have large community you have to provide the environment for it to
> grow. Something, that I fail to see in GoboLinux now.
It seems that some people do want a forum, and if it's sizeable enough
a constituency then I guess one will come eventually. Although I
prefer using the mailing list, to be honest, I don't really object to
having a forum too if there's demand for it, and I at least would try
to check it.

That said, I still think it's worse to have a) an empty forum or b) a
forum full of unanswered posts than none at all, and I think one or
the other would almost certainly end up being what we had. The
developers (volunteers, remember!) by and large have better things to
do and will inevitably forget to attend to it sometimes, if at all.

So, in conclusion, I don't know.
-Michael