[tdf-discuss] [libreoffice-website] [Forum] How will the forum be organized?

*** I have cross posted this mail to the website mailing list, for
discussions about web infrastructre ***

The feedback that I have already got from users interested in the
discussions around the Drupal project is that forums are a very
important mechanism in sourcing and providing help to end users.

One discussion that I had outside of the mailing list regarding the
support structure of arguably one of the more successful open source
projects, Ubuntu.

The structure for end users to source expert support for all aspects
of the product hinges off the Wiki and the forums. There is a little
more formal structure within these forums due to the breadth of the
software that is supported, and usually when you can't work out
something the wiki or forum is the first search result, containing
detailed troubleshooting and problem solving for almost any issue an
end user is likely to encounter.

IMO The provision of product specific support structures that is
dedicated to the product, in our case LibreOffice, is not only
essential for non-technical end users, it is one of the best marketing
tools available for an open source community. Your average end user
will likely never search through mailing list threads, even if they
contain exactly the information they are looking for. A well presented
forum running from a dedicated forum system such as vBulletin or phpBB
provides the end user with interface familiarity and branding which
builds trust in the brand and community.

Both phpBB and vBulletin are able to be fully integrated with all
major CMS systems to include single sign on, profile and session
sharing.
For Example:
Drupal: http://drupal.org/node/32879  http://drupal.org/project/phpbb
Joomla: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/communication/forum-bridges
Plone :https://help.ubuntu.com/community/forum/server/Plone

As I understand it, Silverstripe is a long way behind all the major
CMS systems in terms of 3rd party integration, but looking through the
forums I have seen that there are a few people who have hacked
Silverstripe in order to allow some basic functionality:
http://www.silverstripe.org/archive/show/2593

If we did provide a user forum, which I believe we should, using a
dedicated forum system will provide far more functionality and
usability, as well as regular security updates than we could ever hope
to code and maintain ourselves without drawing on resources that could
be used for development of LibreOffice.

What do others think? Is the forum support option important for trust
building and familiarity? What system would we use?

Thanks,
Michael Wheatland

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