Re: [tdf-discuss] Forums... again

On 4/17/11 8:30 AM, RGB ES wrote:
> People like forums. People NEED forums. So, why every time the forum
> issue is considered here it falls on nothing?

I just want to write in as a consultant and end-user, to point out 
several of the major benefits of forums over mailing lists that I have 
not noticed yet in this discussion: mainly --visibility,  persistence 
and searchability

I am actually a fan of the mailman software used to run this list and 
have hosted several email lists using mailman (and, before that, 
majordomo). However, i find that whereas email lists are better for 
discussions like this one, web forums make more sense for official 
and/or community support. For software I use that has web -based support 
forums, I almost always can find that the question I have has already 
been asked and answered by someone else, or that the problem I wish to 
report has already been supported.

If you've ever tried searching in mailman archives to see if your 
question has already been posted & answered, it is an exercise in total 
frustration.

Another thing: once I'm on a web forum, if I have time I start poking 
through the categories to pick out topics of interest and i learn so 
much about the forum. And another thing: effectively moderated forums 
will have a FAQ section so that rather than the regular participants 
having to answer the same questions over and over they can simply point 
to the FAQ.

For those who complain of the bandwidth and time entailed in loading web 
pages:

There is this little thing called RSS, it's been around for a couple of 
years ;-)  ... I subscribe to the RSS feed for web forums and 
downloading the subjects and summary of all the posts into a newsreader 
takes LESS bandwidth and time than receiving the same number of complete 
emails. Just click on the item of interest in your newsreader and you 
are taken *directly* to the web page with the post. Click the "subscribe 
to this discussion" box on that page, if you would like, and receive any 
further replies via email.

Sure, leave the mailman lists up (who knows in how many places the 
instructions for subscribing have been posted) but also please start 
official TDF web-based support forums. I bet you'd find LibreOffice 
users who would volunteer to moderate one or two topic categories. (I 
raise my hand.)

kazar

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