Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: A proposal for effective, volunteer-friendly user support in LibreOffice

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 08:57:45 AM -0800, plino (pedlino@gmail.com) wrote:
> I do agree that volunteer-friendly user support is the key for the
> success of any Open Source project. However, in my opinion e-mail
> and mailing lists are obsolete and ineffective tools.

The problem I describe did not happen because OOo had no support
forum. They happened because many volunteers did not want to use them
but the official mailing list sucked big time because of certain
"policies".

Now, in my **opinion**, forums are very limiting and ineffective tools
compared to email and mailing lists. But this is my opinion, so we can
safely ignore it.

What I know for a FACT, which is embarassingly evident from the
ooo-users archives, is that, regardless of your opinion, there ARE
many people who were only available to provide support by email, were
driven away by the dumb strategies I describe in the article and never
used the forums that OOo does have.

So, if you want to engage those potential contributors too, you have
to give them an email environment that is purged for good from certain
bright ideas. If you don't want that, no problem. The "form that sends
the help request" can certainly send it to a forum instead of a
mailing list, if that's the only channel TDF decides to offer for
LibreOffice.

Marco


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