[tdf-discuss] Re: user forums ?

On 11/3/11 5:19 AM, Florian Effenberger wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Ken Springer wrote on 2011-11-02 22:48:
> > If you prefer your help system to be a forum, that's available through
> > the Nabble interface and Gmane.
>
> sadly, Nabble is not seen as forum at all. I don't know why, but many -
> especially novice - users have complained and do not use Nabble. My wish
> was indeed to have this forum-style gateway to have access to the same
> content with two interfaces, but it obviously didn't work out, which is
> why I am considering a "real" forum.

I'm not a regular forum user or fan, I only use them when there is no 
other option, and Google, Ask.com, and others have failed me.  I quit 
going to MS when they dropped official support for newsgroups.  My 
feeling is, if you have to resort to Google and others to find answers 
that should be easy to find on an official website, then there is 
something wrong with the help system on that website.  So maybe there is 
something to a forum that I'm missing.

I sure don't see the difference between Nabble and any other forum 
layout.  Are the complaints about Nabble that it's hard to use, hard to 
find, or something else?

To me, a forum is like going to a public bulletin board at your local 
store, posting a note, then coming back later to see if anyone posted an 
answer.  You leave another note, and come back later to try to find a 
reply.  After awhile, the notes you want to read are spread all over the 
bulletin board, and trying to find a previous note that relates to 
something you wrote is just time wasting.  I have other things I'd 
rather do.

Which is why I prefer the threaded view of a newsgroup.  It's like a 
well organized filing system, everything sorted and arranged to be 
easily found.  So much easier to find the relevant messages.

Whatever happens with the the Nabble/forum style of help, I think a big 
plus would be to have a way of handling images, rather than forcing the 
user/poster to put those images somewhere else on the web and then 
provide a link.  That may be something a new LO user may not understand 
how to do.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4


--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted