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Hi, Augustine,

On 11/3/11 8:12 AM, Augustine Souza wrote:
On Nov 3, 2011, Florian Effenberger wrote:
"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."

As a novice user, I made two posts in the Nabble "forum" under the
login name "chimak111". The first was promptly and efficiently dealt
with by Cor Nouys (I'm spelling from memory).

And this is a perfect example of what is truly excellent with the LO help system.

As you stated later in your post, you prefer a forums format, but I prefer a newsgroup style format. Essentially, a newsgroup format is similar to Nabble's threaded view.

What is important, IMO, to us as end users, is the ability to see absolutely all help requests regardless of the format you prefer to use. You cannot do this at Apple. You cannot do this at Microsoft. You cannot do this at Mozilla (Thunderbird, Firefox, and others). At least, I have not discovered any way to do it. I actually just discovered Nabble's threaded view today, researching for this post.

I do not use Nabble at all, I use Thunderbird to read the LO mailing lists, because of the things I can do with Thunderbird, overall, that I cannot accomplish if I used the threaded view of Nabble.

If you want to know why I use Thunderbird vs. Nabble, please start a new thread so we are not off topic, or send an email asking the question.

The second post may be used to illustrate the current state of the
Nabble "forum". At issue was the functioning of the global menu bar to
"integrate" LibreOffice with the Unity aspect of Ubuntu 11.10. A
couple of responses by "Tom" were to the point. The rest was the type
of thing seen when there isn't active moderation of posts. The thread
digressed to the merits and demerits of Unity, Ubuntu, Canonical,
Linux, and what have you.

You wrote "The rest was the type of thing seen when there isn't active moderation of posts." And that is the crux of the problem, as I stated in a different thread. LO needs to have active moderation of posts, ensuring the posts follow the netiquette rules adopted by TDF/LO. As I pointed out in another thread, I think the subject was on top posting, if you don't enforce the rules, why bother to even have them?

The link to this second post is here:
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/LibreOffice-3-4-3-on-Ubuntu-11-10-Unity-3D-td3431366.html#a3431583

Nabble, not per se but for want of moderation or etiquette, shows the
same weakness of mailing lists in that material is quoted and
requoted, mostly unnecessarily. Then there are the unwanted headers
and footers that just bulk up each post and make havoc in posts
containing quotes and requotes.

I think the problem is twofold.

Problem 1: In the case of LO, all of the support options, Nabble, Gmane, mailing lists, etc., all access the same database in the background (if I understand the inner workings correctly. So the moderation only needs to be active on the database. But as you noted, there is no one enforcing the netiquette rules. IMO, the rules are nicely done, but inadequate in some areas. That's not meant to criticize the author, I do not know what guidelines he was working under.

Problem 2: Lack of knowledge on the part of the user. How many users of the LO help system have ever read the netiquette link at the bottom of every posted message?

IMO, LO could do a lot to solve problem 2, but I don't know if that subject has ever been discussed.

I know that moderators are not a dime a dozen, but without strong
moderation, any forum or mailing list can become quite unattractive.
All the same, I'd prefer a forum.
>
Here's wishing that LibreOffice and its volunteers all the best.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4


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