[tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice Forums Categories Proposal

Le 2012-09-27 18:18, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :
> Hi Marc, *,
>
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:38 PM, Marc Paré<marc@marcpare.com>  wrote:
> > Le 2012-09-27 08:11, Christian Lohmaier a écrit :
> > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Marc Paré<marc@marcpare.com>   wrote:
> >
> > Users who have problems with installs generally do not come to a forums/list
> > with the idea that the be directed to a tutorial, they are more interested
> > in advice with a real person. Tutorials are nice as extra resource, but the
> > primary reason for a user who has come to a forums for installation help is
> > to get help by an informed person, which is what we are offering.
>
> Oh, you're oversimplifying things here, while of course the goal is
> that people get help by informed person, just creating separate
> categories will not magically assure this.

Agreed about the help, but separate categories will help direct the user 
to a more refined area of the site for her/his particular help.

> > > * Catch-all/General (also the place to ask installation/configuration
> > > problems if not covered by the tutorials) - might even consider to put
> > > Base into this forum as well.
> > >
> > > For installation related questions, people can be asked in a sticky to
> > > prefix their topics with [win] [lin] [mac] (, [sol], [and] [ios],...)
> >
> > We tried to do this on the contributor mailing lists and the results are
> > that even the contributors do not do this.
>
> I'll scream the next time someone comes with a "but on mailinglist.." argument.
> For heavens sake: We're setting up a forum because it is *NOT* a mailinglist.
>
> On a mailinglist new posters don't see existing posts. While they
> could visit the archives, they usually don't, and existing posts
> cannot be modified. So when someone doesn't follow the rules, it
> cannot be corrected.
>
> This is all the opposite for forums. When people see the tag being
> used, they'll use it. If it is forgotten once, a moderator will add
> it.
>
> Coming with the argument that it is more work for moderators is only
> halfway true.
> Moderators are initially expected to scan every message that is posted
> for valid content/whether it matches the forum it was posted in or
> needs to be moved. So the more in effort is in actually editing the
> topic. But that IMHO is a rather small burden.

Give me a warning next time you feel like screaming ... I need to cover 
my ears! :-)

If you re-read my remark, I was not comparing the two systems as they 
are obviously different. However, human nature is not. People in general 
will not add tags to their posts and my comment was that even where a 
group of people are engaged in a project (such as LibreOffice), tags are 
not added. Asking people to tag their messages is IMO asking too much, 
we would have to go force users to go through a learning process which 
would most likely turn them off our forums.

HOWEVER, if there is a process whereby tags are offered to users at the 
point of posting a message on our forums, now that is different. Is this 
possible with jForums?


> > So, if the people engaged in the
> > project do not follow this rule, how could we justify asking users to do
> > follow this rule?
>
> Again: It is the moderators' job that the forum rules are followed.
> And contrary to mailinglists, those rules are enforceable. In a well
> maintained forum you'll see many existing topics following that
> schema. And if the person asking a new question is not mentally
> retarded, he might get the idea just by viewing the existing topics,
> without having read the sticky post/some rules on a separate page.

I've looked through a few of my forums and tags are not used, I also 
visited the Ubuntu forums where tags are part of the message posting 
process, but even there, some parts of site-forums do not make use of 
tags (they have handled almost 4 million messages).

Anyway, sure, I am all for tags if there is a way to add tag-choices at 
the message posting process, then we could help users with this learning 
experience. Not so much for it, if we find that we are spending a good 
bulk of our time moderating it.

But, getting back to categorization, this, I would prefer, as there is 
no need to moderate tagging of messages.

> > I find it easier to categorize the forums to make it easier on both the
> > users and moderators-helpers; thereby making prefixes unnecessary.
>
> Empty forums / forums with only a handful posts are a nuisance.
> But hey, that's exactly the reason I didn't want to be coordinator,
> but leave the decision to someone else :-)
>
> > [...]
> > Whether a forums has fewer questions are not, IMO, is not a good reason to
> > combine them.
>
> I personally disagree on this. Within the OOo-Project there were many
> such dead mailinglists, and that just lead to people posting to more
> general lists just to reach more people, either leaving out the
> dedicated mailinglist completely, or only including it in cc.
> And yes, now I did myself come up with "but on mailinglists" argument :-)
> <puts head onto pillow ans screams/>

Thanks for not forcing me to point out the "but on mailinglists ..." 
thingy back to you, and, for saving my ears from the screaming.

If we view the forums as a source of community information for users 
(such as a library reference area) as well as help, proper 
categorization will help channel both of these to the right location. 
Whether a forum is too quiet, in our case, would perhaps indicate a need 
for more moderator-led discussions to create buzz on that particular 
forum. A good forums is not only a place you go to get help, but a place 
you go to get tips, conversations etc. of categories/topics that of 
which you are interested.

As far as traffic goes, we only need to look at the AOO forums to 
estimate the traffic. Presumably, the LibreOffice users who are now 
frequenting the AOO forums would eventually find their way to the 
LibreOffice forums for help.

> ciao
> Christian

No more screaming please ... :-) Hugs from a friend help better.

Cheers,

Marc

--
Marc Paré
Marc@MarcPare.com
http://www.parEntreprise.com
parEntreprise.com Supports OpenDocument Formats (ODF)
parEntreprise.com Supports http://www.LibreOffice.org


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