[xwiki-users] Drop mailing lists in favor of a forum software
Hi everyone, I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software. The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience. 1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription. 2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count. 3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list. 4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses 6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed 7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does. Here's my +1 Andreas
I think you need to mention: - which mailing lists (all ? only user ? devs ?) In my opinion not all mailing list have the same need. While the user list is very much about support discussions, the dev list is about design and discussions about the future of XWiki. I'm not sure forum software will be good for that - and which forum software ? an internaly manage software ? a cloud based software ? Balsamiq (great mockup tool which has an XWiki integration) uses getsatisfaction.com http://community.balsamiq.com/balsamiq for their support forums. This is a cloud based service that is an interesting candidate for the "user" forums. I don't think it fits the need for "devs" discussions. For devs discussions what we would more need is a more integrated experience with xwiki.org, namely being able to link and capture discussion threads with the content itself being discussed. This could force us to make "proposals" a "document" in the wiki instead of just being an email. Ludovic Le 07/03/11 23:13, Andreas Hahn a écrit :
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription. 2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count. 3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list. 4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses 6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed 7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
Andreas
_______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
-- Ludovic Dubost Blog: http://blog.ludovic.org/ XWiki: http://www.xwiki.com Skype: ldubost GTalk: ldubost
I use this URL: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/XWiki-Users-f475772.html which makes the mailing list appear like a forum. I prefer a forum layout so you have my +1. ----- ---- Lockie -- View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Drop-mailing-lists-in-favor-of-a-forum-sof... Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Hi Andreas, On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription.
You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count.
Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list.
How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses
6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed
7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :) See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now). Thanks -Vincent
Here are my counter arguments: -1) you have to go to the web-page to read the forum posts -2) replying needs a web-connection and a functioning web-browser, this means that slowly written drafts have to be written somewhere else -3) it is much easier and more flexible to re-adjust the layout of a mail being written than a forum post Here is my -1. paul Le 7 mars 2011 à 23:13, Andreas Hahn a écrit :
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription. 2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count. 3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list. 4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses 6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed 7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
Andreas
_______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 23:13, Andreas Hahn <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription. 2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count. 3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list. 4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses 6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed 7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
-1 I will not repeat arguments Paul gave already and add mine: - currently I have everything in one place: my mail box and I like it the way it is way more than having to go in a forum website If all you want is forum feeling http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum should be well enough IMO.
Andreas
_______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
-- Thomas Mortagne
Hi Vincent, Am 08.03.2011 07:45, schrieb Vincent Massol:
Hi Andreas,
On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription. You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count. Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list. How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses 6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed 7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1 I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :) Actually i wasn't aware that there is already an integration with the dev page. I might not have written my proposal if I were. But shouldn't the forums be mentioned / linked in a more prominent place on the homepage ?
However as I wrote - the objective was "to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience" as part of a strategy to make XWiki aware to more users that don't already subscribe and that my not already be aware of XWiki.org. I have no numbers at hand - its just my feelings - that indexing of markmail and nabble to google compares badly to other forum software. But so what - except for the ugly reading of large threads and the meaningless statistics of a threads view count because of the many different access methods - there is not that much left over I guess.
See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum
Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now).
I have a personal favorite - that is stackoverflow.com. Its fun to read - encourages exploration - there are numerous indications for the relevance of a contribution. I've been pointed to by google a couple of times and for many purposes it became my primary forum website. Many people there that are seeking advice a la 'whats the best tool to ...' However its a developers forum and from a project "owner" perspective I'd hesitate to recommend it as a support forum. Its backed by VC and soon they will need to make money one way or the other. OTOH the tags 'wiki' and 'collaborative' are somehow underrepresented ... bye Andreas
Thanks -Vincent
_______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
On 03/08/2011 07:45 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
Hi Andreas,
On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription.
You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count.
Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list.
How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses
6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed
7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :)
See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum
Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now).
Thanks -Vincent
This was thoroughly discussed four years ago, and the conclusion was against installing a specific forum, and stick with Nabble as a forum-like view of the mailing list activity: http://markmail.org/thread/gbdnyb7jbh4ha5ja -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/
On Mar 8, 2011, at 3:04 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
On 03/08/2011 07:45 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
Hi Andreas,
On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription.
You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count.
Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list.
How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses
6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed
7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :)
See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum
Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now).
Thanks -Vincent
This was thoroughly discussed four years ago, and the conclusion was against installing a specific forum, and stick with Nabble as a forum-like view of the mailing list activity: http://markmail.org/thread/gbdnyb7jbh4ha5ja
Right I had forgotten about this discussion :) I do remember another one though (earlier than the one you pointed) where I was the one wanting a forum as a way to get more participation. What I'd really like to have that we don't currently have is a way to more visibly see who's participating more and thus encourage participation. A lot of forum do this by giving points to people who answer questions, then they get a title and a badge based on these points. Then you can list the top contributors. That said, thanks to markmail, I think our mailing lists have become a lot more browsable than before and we even get statistics: http://xwiki.markmail.org/search/?q= At some point in the past I looked at jive because it has this point system and it had the feature to be integrated on top of a mailing list. But since it disappeared I haven't found any other good option that would allow us to keep the list too. Now we have a real open question as to whether we want to keep our list AND create a getstatisfaction project for XWiki too (getsatisfaction or another similar tool). So far we've resisted doing this because it means scattering our support and thus reducing the support quality level (we cannot monitor several places easily). There are some guys who post and ask questions about xwiki on developez.com for example (see http://tinyurl.com/4ftdyly) but since we don't answer there I believe people either think xwiki is not well supported or they find their way to the official support location. One one hand I'd love to use a tool such as getsatisfaction, OTOH I don't know how we can manage properly both our lists + getsatisfaction. One solution would be to remove the user list and only keep the devs list and move users to getsatisfaction but I'm not sure how good or bad that would be. Anyone having any thoughts on this? Thanks -Vincent
On 03/08/2011 03:30 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:
On Mar 8, 2011, at 3:04 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
On 03/08/2011 07:45 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
Hi Andreas,
On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription.
You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count.
Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list.
How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses
6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed
7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :)
See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum
Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now).
Thanks -Vincent
This was thoroughly discussed four years ago, and the conclusion was against installing a specific forum, and stick with Nabble as a forum-like view of the mailing list activity: http://markmail.org/thread/gbdnyb7jbh4ha5ja
Right I had forgotten about this discussion :)
I do remember another one though (earlier than the one you pointed) where I was the one wanting a forum as a way to get more participation.
What I'd really like to have that we don't currently have is a way to more visibly see who's participating more and thus encourage participation. A lot of forum do this by giving points to people who answer questions, then they get a title and a badge based on these points. Then you can list the top contributors.
That said, thanks to markmail, I think our mailing lists have become a lot more browsable than before and we even get statistics: http://xwiki.markmail.org/search/?q=
At some point in the past I looked at jive because it has this point system and it had the feature to be integrated on top of a mailing list. But since it disappeared I haven't found any other good option that would allow us to keep the list too.
Now we have a real open question as to whether we want to keep our list AND create a getstatisfaction project for XWiki too (getsatisfaction or another similar tool). So far we've resisted doing this because it means scattering our support and thus reducing the support quality level (we cannot monitor several places easily). There are some guys who post and ask questions about xwiki on developez.com for example (see http://tinyurl.com/4ftdyly) but since we don't answer there I believe people either think xwiki is not well supported or they find their way to the official support location.
One one hand I'd love to use a tool such as getsatisfaction, OTOH I don't know how we can manage properly both our lists + getsatisfaction.
One solution would be to remove the user list and only keep the devs list and move users to getsatisfaction but I'm not sure how good or bad that would be.
Anyone having any thoughts on this?
The users list is indeed a bit too intrusive for users. When someone has a problem and wants to get help, they have to subscribe to the mailing list, post their question, then be spammed by other people's problems until they get an answer. A forum would be nicer for this kind of problem, you can watch only the topic you're interested in. On the other hand it's difficult for devs, since a forum-only solution means having to watch the forum all day long. It's pull instead of push, and the pull solution works well for users that only care for their problem, but devs don't react unless they're pushed. That's why a dual view of the messages is good, it lets users mind their problems, while pushing questions to devs. Nabble is good as a forum-over-mail solution. I'd be OK to find a reverse solution, a good forum that has a very good email integration. I'm not OK with devs investigating this, so if the community can thoroughly investigate what can be used, we can implement it. Or, if users think that Nabble is enough, but it only lacks visibility, we can try to increase it's visibility (quick link to it, a more prominent display on the mailing list page, a link from the Support page...). -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/
Am 08.03.2011 15:30, schrieb Vincent Massol:
On Mar 8, 2011, at 3:04 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
On 03/08/2011 07:45 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
Hi Andreas,
On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription. You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count. Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list. How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses 6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed 7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1 I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :)
See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum
Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now).
Thanks -Vincent This was thoroughly discussed four years ago, and the conclusion was against installing a specific forum, and stick with Nabble as a forum-like view of the mailing list activity: http://markmail.org/thread/gbdnyb7jbh4ha5ja Right I had forgotten about this discussion :)
I do remember another one though (earlier than the one you pointed) where I was the one wanting a forum as a way to get more participation.
What I'd really like to have that we don't currently have is a way to more visibly see who's participating more and thus encourage participation. A lot of forum do this by giving points to people who answer questions, then they get a title and a badge based on these points. Then you can list the top contributors.
That said, thanks to markmail, I think our mailing lists have become a lot more browsable than before and we even get statistics: http://xwiki.markmail.org/search/?q=
At some point in the past I looked at jive because it has this point system and it had the feature to be integrated on top of a mailing list. But since it disappeared I haven't found any other good option that would allow us to keep the list too.
Now we have a real open question as to whether we want to keep our list AND create a getstatisfaction project for XWiki too (getsatisfaction or another similar tool). So far we've resisted doing this because it means scattering our support and thus reducing the support quality level (we cannot monitor several places easily). There are some guys who post and ask questions about xwiki on developez.com for example (see http://tinyurl.com/4ftdyly) but since we don't answer there I believe people either think xwiki is not well supported or they find their way to the official support location.
One one hand I'd love to use a tool such as getsatisfaction, OTOH I don't know how we can manage properly both our lists + getsatisfaction.
getsatisfaction looks promising however it's not obvious to me if it's good for the job and what's the relationship with Xwiki. However I hadn't the time to drill deeper ... Maybe you can give a pointer or more background information ? If I were to select a tool my criteria would be: - installation base, references and development activity - should be known for good indexing by google although this might be hard to prove and may not be that much a feature of the software - a BIG plus (almost a requirement) would be a migration from the existing mailing list history (although no idea how to find that out in advance) - a plus if familiar technology is used If you are serious about further investigations I'd spend time on it - I'd like to hear a clear voice about that. Once upon a time i found xwiki by wikimatrix.org and now I'd give forummatrix.org a try ... ... and of course if somebody already has more experiences with forum software ... and no - I'm not going to subscribe to all of those products mailinglists just for this survey ! Andreas
One solution would be to remove the user list and only keep the devs list and move users to getsatisfaction but I'm not sure how good or bad that would be.
Anyone having any thoughts on this?
Thanks -Vincent
_______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
This subject seems very controversial and I think it's an important point. Thank you Andreas for submitting it. +1 to remove the user list and move it to getsatisfaction. Today, the XWiki community support using listserv is (imho) clearly a weak point. I don't know how Balsamiq or Jolicloud teams manage their work with getsatisfaction but the result is very effective. Maxime 2011/3/8 Vincent Massol <[email protected]>
On Mar 8, 2011, at 3:04 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
On 03/08/2011 07:45 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
Hi Andreas,
On Mar 7, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'd like to make the proposal to drop the existing mailing lists in favor of a forum (bulletin board) software.
The objective is to promote the XWiki community discussions to a broader audience.
1) A forum serves like an advertising window as anyone can read the contributions without subscription.
You don't need any subscription to read mailing lists. See http://xwiki.markmail.org/
2) Anyone can judge the activity by reading the view count.
Same here: http://xwiki.markmail.org/
3) New users can get in touch with the community without being urged to subscribe to a mailing list.
How? Even with forums you need to subscribe.
4) Many people consider mailing lists as spam and prefer not to subscribe 5) Contributions have a longer visibility and older entries will get responses
6) Communication gets more efficient as the same topics won't get repeatedly discussed
7) To my experience forums get much better indexed by google as mail collectors like Nabble , Markmail, e.t.c. 8) Forums encourage user to user discussions and you will see new users taking an active role 9) There should be at least one additional category IMHO: administrators 10) A forum is more pleasure to read once a topic split into many threads 11) A forum is beneficial when expecting increasing support requirements - some real large scale forums were run by just a few moderators 12) More people will see what a teriffic job the XWiki team does.
Here's my +1
I have some good news for you: we already have a forum! :)
See http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists And more specifically: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum
Now if this forum doesn't fit your needs could you explain what requirements you'd have for a forum and which solution you'd pick? I personally liked jive forums but it doesn't exist anymore (it's folded into a full collaboration suite now).
Thanks -Vincent
This was thoroughly discussed four years ago, and the conclusion was against installing a specific forum, and stick with Nabble as a forum-like view of the mailing list activity: http://markmail.org/thread/gbdnyb7jbh4ha5ja
Right I had forgotten about this discussion :)
I do remember another one though (earlier than the one you pointed) where I was the one wanting a forum as a way to get more participation.
What I'd really like to have that we don't currently have is a way to more visibly see who's participating more and thus encourage participation. A lot of forum do this by giving points to people who answer questions, then they get a title and a badge based on these points. Then you can list the top contributors.
That said, thanks to markmail, I think our mailing lists have become a lot more browsable than before and we even get statistics: http://xwiki.markmail.org/search/?q=
At some point in the past I looked at jive because it has this point system and it had the feature to be integrated on top of a mailing list. But since it disappeared I haven't found any other good option that would allow us to keep the list too.
Now we have a real open question as to whether we want to keep our list AND create a getstatisfaction project for XWiki too (getsatisfaction or another similar tool). So far we've resisted doing this because it means scattering our support and thus reducing the support quality level (we cannot monitor several places easily). There are some guys who post and ask questions about xwiki on developez.com for example (see http://tinyurl.com/4ftdyly) but since we don't answer there I believe people either think xwiki is not well supported or they find their way to the official support location.
One one hand I'd love to use a tool such as getsatisfaction, OTOH I don't know how we can manage properly both our lists + getsatisfaction.
One solution would be to remove the user list and only keep the devs list and move users to getsatisfaction but I'm not sure how good or bad that would be.
Anyone having any thoughts on this?
Thanks -Vincent
_______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Hmmm, I think removing the user mailing list is not a necessity when moving to a bulleting board (like) user support. Keeping both has the benefit of allowing both ways for the user but comes with the disadvantage of distributed information (board and mailing list) and possibly more work for the devs/supporting users because they would have to check both. So this should probably be discussed. Johannes -- View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Drop-mailing-lists-in-favor-of-a-forum-sof... Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
To me, the ideal solution would be enhanced forum-functionality inside XWiki. Not only for the this mailinglist (getting all conversation in one place, linking discussions to the pages/features it concerns) but for XWiki as a platform too. I currently have no time to elaborate in a functional proposal, but roughly: commenting works fine as-is online, but (mail) notification of replies is lacking (chosing 'watch this page' is unsatisfactory).
Hi everyone, as for your morning entertainment I'll tell a little shortstory. Get yourself a coffee - relax - and a few mins to read and think about it. Back in 2004 2 Java Developers that were upset about EJBs published a book with their thoughts and recommendations about how J2EE software developement should be done in their minds. The 2 guys were Rod Johnson and Juergen Hoeller, the book was "J2EE Development without EJB", and they created the spring framework. Right from the beginning they were sharing their thoughts with a community that quickly became larger. I think every Java Developer knows the rest of the story - spring is the leading free open source framework used in enterprise java dev and it is today a subdivision of VMWare. Left aside I have liked it more in its earlier days when it was not so crowded - checking the numbers from their forums there are roughly 80.000 members, the forum which is run by vBulletin flags 5.500 as active. http://forum.springsource.org The interesting story about that is that there was an impressive flow of knowledge from the masterminds to the people that joined in in a way a pyramid of knowledge was building up. The senior members trained the newbies and the newbies trained the next generation and so on. Some members had their own ideas and started subprojects - I remember about security - workflow -webservices and toolSuite. Once these subprojects got a certain size they became an own module in the spring ecosystem with an own forum (and their initiators became employees of springsource and later VMWare). Why am I telling this ? This apporach feels much more "community" to me as the XWiki "community". The Xwiki community seems to be of 2 parts: On one side a small group of people developing the code and giving answers. On the other side questioners that soon drop out once their problem is solved. I wouldn't regard those being part of a"community" - I'd say they are "requesters" - users just having a service request. It may have to do with the media we are using - mailing lists - which is not encouraging to keep a thread active (or easily visible) over a longer lifecycle. In the years I've been working on spring based projects I have done very rare contributions (requests and answers) to the forum - most of the time a solution to my problem could already be found in the existing contributions. What irony that Sergiu was the only one to remember/find out that this topic had been deeply discussed in 2007 ? Of course you can't compare a framework like spring to a solution like Xwiki and it may be due to the inspiration and charisma of Rod that so many people followed his voice and helped to build a community. Although he was not as democratic as the XWiki founders - a lot of things weren't discussed with the community. In the end it has been to everybodys benefit I guess. Coming back to my topic i cannot imagine how they could have done it just with a mailing list. One final word on the concern that running 2 different systems (a mailing list for devs and a forum for users) might be too much of a burdon for the poeple maintaining it: As for the example of spring there weren't these 2 systems - it was all transparent on the forums. And I'm still very much for hoping this pyramid to build up - at least for the users stuff - that would be a relief for the devs ! Please think about it and reconsider your votes still here is my +1 for the forum (which one to be decided in another thread) with a seperate developers list or not Andreas
Andreas, I am aware that web-forums may scale better in some ways. All the complaints I and others have formulated about moving to web-forum relate to the ease of use of email-based traffic: - receive all the forum posts per email - respond to them by email If it is possible to get at least these functions I think no-one will object of having the "main storage" be something different than a mailing-list and, indeed, it would allow us to use extra features of a web-forum to better manage (e.g. indicate interest or disinterest to a thread or a filter). I have repeatedly attempted to set-up web-forums to this effect and I never managed to get this fully working. The refinement of the handling the mails and the errors of such a tool as mailman will be hard to beat. Please contradict me! Please review the arguments and see if they can be answered. paul Le 10 mars 2011 à 07:24, Andreas Hahn a écrit :
Hi everyone,
as for your morning entertainment I'll tell a little shortstory.
Get yourself a coffee - relax - and a few mins to read and think about it.
Back in 2004 2 Java Developers that were upset about EJBs published a book with their thoughts and recommendations about how J2EE software developement should be done in their minds. The 2 guys were Rod Johnson and Juergen Hoeller, the book was "J2EE Development without EJB", and [....]
On 03/10/2011 05:39 PM, Paul Libbrecht wrote:
Andreas,
I am aware that web-forums may scale better in some ways.
All the complaints I and others have formulated about moving to web-forum relate to the ease of use of email-based traffic:
- receive all the forum posts per email - respond to them by email
If it is possible to get at least these functions I think no-one will object of having the "main storage" be something different than a mailing-list and, indeed, it would allow us to use extra features of a web-forum to better manage (e.g. indicate interest or disinterest to a thread or a filter).
+1.
I have repeatedly attempted to set-up web-forums to this effect and I never managed to get this fully working. The refinement of the handling the mails and the errors of such a tool as mailman will be hard to beat.
Please contradict me! Please review the arguments and see if they can be answered.
paul
Le 10 mars 2011 à 07:24, Andreas Hahn a écrit :
Hi everyone,
as for your morning entertainment I'll tell a little shortstory.
Get yourself a coffee - relax - and a few mins to read and think about it.
Back in 2004 2 Java Developers that were upset about EJBs published a book with their thoughts and recommendations about how J2EE software developement should be done in their minds. The 2 guys were Rod Johnson and Juergen Hoeller, the book was "J2EE Development without EJB", and [....]
-- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/
Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: > Please contradict me! Paul, actually - how could I do this ? I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach - comparing features e.t.c. I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved habits. Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may not matter anymore. Andreas
On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote: > Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: >> Please contradict me! > Paul, > actually - how could I do this ? > I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach > - comparing features e.t.c. > > I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole > project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - > even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved > habits. > > Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. > > Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it > seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may > not matter anymore. I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs. Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted service that would work for us. From the people who answered so far my feeling is that: * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would be nicer * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the information coming to me My personal POV is indeed that I'd like a forum for both the participation part (ie awarding status/points to active participants to surface them) and the categorization part but indeed I don't see myself going to the forum so it has to come to me. I think this is easy to achieve since on forums like getsatisfaction you can subscribe to the whole forum and thus receive all posts. What would be even better is if I could post or reply by replying to the mail. Now back to getsatisfaction I think before we could use it we'd need to check: * are there any limitations for free open source forums? What's their position on open source? * how can we get all the posts in a neutral and standard format should we want to move to another tool later on? Thanks -Vincent
Hi everyone, I did a quick follow up on what has been said and checked if it's possible to post via email in phpBB. Apparently, hacks for that have been made although they are probably ages old, hacky and prone to errors. See more here: http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24559 Either way, I still like the idea of using common bulletin board software. Receiving forum posts shouldn't be a problem for the developers. The only requirement would be to compose the notification emails in a way the new posts content is also added to the email. This can be a requirement for the system to be. IIRC, phpBB does not do that natively but there are plenty hacks for a lot of things in that software (e.g. http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1095015 ). Only downside would be that devs would have to click the link and then the reply button (why not add a reply link in the email, too, saves a click!) to reply. Only downside compared to email replies I see here that a web browser that has the credentials saves is necessary and possibly another click will have to be made. Not saving the credentials obviously increases the number of steps and effort. I would still like to point out that scrapping the Mailing List is not mandatory or can actually be unfortunate for other users who do not care for forum software either. OpenOffice.org has both so I think it is not too bad, although admittedly, XWiki is quite a lot smaller so having both might balance the load between list and board and in the end you have two semi-dead support channels. That is also ignoring that the support answers would be distributed among both, redundancies might increase and supporters would have to use either. Now, another thing I would like to propose instead of switching to a board software at all is just disabling the requirement for subscription on the user list. I did actually post in this thread before the message that made it through because I thought I had already subscribed to this mailing list... apparently I had not. I later did but the post I made on nabble still was not accepted. My point being, while nabble presents a nice board like front end the registration and subscription bits are a bit messy unless you know exactly what you do. It is less intuitive than in most board systems and if you forget to change the mailing list settings you wind up being sent emails and emails you do not care for. Lastly, I think marketing is very important in this regard. First of all, when I go to XWiki.org I see a large number of links on the right side. The ecosystem is pretty good, that one is supposed to hold all projects. But if I read further down I find a bulk of links, half of which I don't need if I am simple user who wants a bit of support. Besides, it is on the right side and like I discussed with some of you on the IRC channel, that is a bit confusing to many users who expect this to be on the left side. Anyway, I know this is WIP for you. Okay, so if I cared enough to read through all of that I get to the Support page, eventually. Here I find... more text. The links are well visible and the idea to make the user follow a scheme before asking is also understandable, while not very user oriented. I think that page should feature a number of larger buttons to go to the three most important pages which would be Forum, Mailing List and FAQ (in no particular order here). Below that you can still keep much of the current, IMO. Now, however, I probably get to MailingLists page and most of the page on my FullHD resolution is plastered with information about the Mailing Lists and rather tiny somewhere at the end there I see Forum. I am pointing out all of this because I remember how some of you on the IRC channel actually pointed out to me there is a way to view the lists like a Forum. Back to the third section... I see... another sentence, yet more reading to do before finally asking my question. Chances are I hit the Nabble link because I heard Nabble at some point in time and am sort of a quick clicker... which I am... which makes me fail because Nabble points to Nabble and not the XWiki Nabble Forum. If I finally got through to Nabble I now have to subscribe (2 steps), turn of the email delivery and then I can finally ask for support. Also note that the Support page on www.xwiki.org has no link to the IRC page either. I got to go. Still hope this is a little useful to you. Regards, Johannes -- View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Drop-mailing-lists-in-favor-of-a-forum-sof... Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Am 14.03.2011 09:16, schrieb Vincent Massol:
> On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
>
>> Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht:
>>> Please contradict me!
>> Paul,
>> actually - how could I do this ?
>> I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach
>> - comparing features e.t.c.
>>
>> I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole
>> project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate -
>> even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved
>> habits.
>>
>> Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0.
>>
>> Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it
>> seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may
>> not matter anymore.
> I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs.
>
> Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted service that would work for us.
>
> > From the people who answered so far my feeling is that:
> * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would be nicer
> * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the information coming to me
For my own FOSS project I'm hoping to start soon - I'll be going with
http://stackoverflow.com. Providing support means checking the site for
tagged questions a couple of times a day. It's just one mouse click. For
me it makes no real difference in getting mails or checking a forum as
long as you have a one-click list of open topics.
Gathering all the information about all possible options and criteria
can get very time consuming so I think we should try to rule out
something first.
Forums that are operated by other providers (getsatisfaction,
stackoverflow, ...) might
* be discontinued without warning (see jive)
* change their policy later (no more free forums)
* not expose user mail addresses and forum content (or might change that
policy) so you're locked in.
* not be as flexible as own forums if you want to change something (add
category, ...)
OTOH operating an own forum
* requires admin efforts (must be maintained and updated, backups, ...)
* may not be as publicly visible as that of other providers (because of
their advertisements ...)
* may not be as innovative as special forum operators ('awarding for
active participants', ...)
In addition there are concerns valid for both:
* Is it important to somehow import the existing mail archive ?
So IMO this is the first decision - is it ok to rely on somebody else ?
and then decide which one.
I'd be ok to spend time on it once its clear which way to go.
However - as for me - nothing will happen fast as beside of my daily
work I already have a side project so this is kind of
side-project-side-project.
Now for getsatisfaction - I don't know anything about it except that
what can be found on their site.
They don't seem to offer free accounts for open source. I've also seen
no indication you can get mail alerts for new contributions.
So how do we approach this ?
bye
Andreas
> My personal POV is indeed that I'd like a forum for both the participation part (ie awarding status/points to active participants to surface them) and the categorization part but indeed I don't see myself going to the forum so it has to come to me. I think this is easy to achieve since on forums like getsatisfaction you can subscribe to the whole forum and thus receive all posts. What would be even better is if I could post or reply by replying to the mail.
>
> Now back to getsatisfaction I think before we could use it we'd need to check:
> * are there any limitations for free open source forums? What's their position on open source?
> * how can we get all the posts in a neutral and standard format should we want to move to another tool later on?
>
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
> _______________________________________________
> users mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
Hi, IMO it makes a lot of sense to use a forum solution for users (when it does not for devs). When I was working with WordPress software, I was reading a lot forum threads (they are using their other product, bbPress). I wouldn't have thought about subscribing to a mailing list, I didn't even know they existed. I was not Open Source minded, so are a lot of people using XWiki and willing to contribute good feedback. A forum is so much easier to read (topics, dates, tags, rates) and much less geek. I am +1 for a forum solution for users. -- Thibaut On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Andreas Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: > Am 14.03.2011 09:16, schrieb Vincent Massol: > > On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote: > > > >> Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: > >>> Please contradict me! > >> Paul, > >> actually - how could I do this ? > >> I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach > >> - comparing features e.t.c. > >> > >> I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole > >> project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - > >> even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved > >> habits. > >> > >> Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. > >> > >> Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it > >> seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may > >> not matter anymore. > > I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs. > > > > Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a > global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people > are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction > will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be > that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted > service that would work for us. > > > > > From the people who answered so far my feeling is that: > > * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would > be nicer > > * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the > user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the > information coming to me > > For my own FOSS project I'm hoping to start soon - I'll be going with > http://stackoverflow.com. Providing support means checking the site for > tagged questions a couple of times a day. It's just one mouse click. For > me it makes no real difference in getting mails or checking a forum as > long as you have a one-click list of open topics. > > Gathering all the information about all possible options and criteria > can get very time consuming so I think we should try to rule out > something first. > > Forums that are operated by other providers (getsatisfaction, > stackoverflow, ...) might > * be discontinued without warning (see jive) > * change their policy later (no more free forums) > * not expose user mail addresses and forum content (or might change that > policy) so you're locked in. > * not be as flexible as own forums if you want to change something (add > category, ...) > > OTOH operating an own forum > * requires admin efforts (must be maintained and updated, backups, ...) > * may not be as publicly visible as that of other providers (because of > their advertisements ...) > * may not be as innovative as special forum operators ('awarding for > active participants', ...) > > In addition there are concerns valid for both: > * Is it important to somehow import the existing mail archive ? > > So IMO this is the first decision - is it ok to rely on somebody else ? > and then decide which one. > > I'd be ok to spend time on it once its clear which way to go. > However - as for me - nothing will happen fast as beside of my daily > work I already have a side project so this is kind of > side-project-side-project. > > Now for getsatisfaction - I don't know anything about it except that > what can be found on their site. > They don't seem to offer free accounts for open source. I've also seen > no indication you can get mail alerts for new contributions. > > So how do we approach this ? > > bye > Andreas > > > My personal POV is indeed that I'd like a forum for both the > participation part (ie awarding status/points to active participants to > surface them) and the categorization part but indeed I don't see myself > going to the forum so it has to come to me. I think this is easy to achieve > since on forums like getsatisfaction you can subscribe to the whole forum > and thus receive all posts. What would be even better is if I could post or > reply by replying to the mail. > > > > Now back to getsatisfaction I think before we could use it we'd need to > check: > > * are there any limitations for free open source forums? What's their > position on open source? > > * how can we get all the posts in a neutral and standard format should we > want to move to another tool later on? > > > > Thanks > > -Vincent > > > > _______________________________________________ > > users mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users > > > > _______________________________________________ > users mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users >
Thibault, we're still looking for a solution that would support those "older users".... you know, the grouches that still prefer to send an email than to open a browser. Differently formulated: give us a web-forum that plays well with the mail both ways (and I would prefer this to be java but that's just me). paul Le 17 mars 2011 à 20:23, Thibaut Camberlin a écrit : > Hi, > > IMO it makes a lot of sense to use a forum solution for users (when it does > not for devs). When I was working with WordPress software, I was reading a > lot forum threads (they are using their other product, bbPress). I wouldn't > have thought about subscribing to a mailing list, I didn't even know they > existed. I was not Open Source minded, so are a lot of people using XWiki > and willing to contribute good feedback. A forum is so much easier to read > (topics, dates, tags, rates) and much less geek. > > I am +1 for a forum solution for users. > > -- > Thibaut > > On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Andreas Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Am 14.03.2011 09:16, schrieb Vincent Massol: >>> On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote: >>> >>>> Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: >>>>> Please contradict me! >>>> Paul, >>>> actually - how could I do this ? >>>> I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach >>>> - comparing features e.t.c. >>>> >>>> I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole >>>> project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - >>>> even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved >>>> habits. >>>> >>>> Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. >>>> >>>> Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it >>>> seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may >>>> not matter anymore. >>> I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs. >>> >>> Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a >> global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people >> are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction >> will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be >> that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted >> service that would work for us. >>> >>>> From the people who answered so far my feeling is that: >>> * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would >> be nicer >>> * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the >> user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the >> information coming to me >> >> For my own FOSS project I'm hoping to start soon - I'll be going with >> http://stackoverflow.com. Providing support means checking the site for >> tagged questions a couple of times a day. It's just one mouse click. For >> me it makes no real difference in getting mails or checking a forum as >> long as you have a one-click list of open topics. >> >> Gathering all the information about all possible options and criteria >> can get very time consuming so I think we should try to rule out >> something first. >> >> Forums that are operated by other providers (getsatisfaction, >> stackoverflow, ...) might >> * be discontinued without warning (see jive) >> * change their policy later (no more free forums) >> * not expose user mail addresses and forum content (or might change that >> policy) so you're locked in. >> * not be as flexible as own forums if you want to change something (add >> category, ...) >> >> OTOH operating an own forum >> * requires admin efforts (must be maintained and updated, backups, ...) >> * may not be as publicly visible as that of other providers (because of >> their advertisements ...) >> * may not be as innovative as special forum operators ('awarding for >> active participants', ...) >> >> In addition there are concerns valid for both: >> * Is it important to somehow import the existing mail archive ? >> >> So IMO this is the first decision - is it ok to rely on somebody else ? >> and then decide which one. >> >> I'd be ok to spend time on it once its clear which way to go. >> However - as for me - nothing will happen fast as beside of my daily >> work I already have a side project so this is kind of >> side-project-side-project. >> >> Now for getsatisfaction - I don't know anything about it except that >> what can be found on their site. >> They don't seem to offer free accounts for open source. I've also seen >> no indication you can get mail alerts for new contributions. >> >> So how do we approach this ? >> >> bye >> Andreas >> >>> My personal POV is indeed that I'd like a forum for both the >> participation part (ie awarding status/points to active participants to >> surface them) and the categorization part but indeed I don't see myself >> going to the forum so it has to come to me. I think this is easy to achieve >> since on forums like getsatisfaction you can subscribe to the whole forum >> and thus receive all posts. What would be even better is if I could post or >> reply by replying to the mail. >>> >>> Now back to getsatisfaction I think before we could use it we'd need to >> check: >>> * are there any limitations for free open source forums? What's their >> position on open source? >>> * how can we get all the posts in a neutral and standard format should we >> want to move to another tool later on? >>> >>> Thanks >>> -Vincent >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> users mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> users mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users >> > _______________________________________________ > users mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
On Mar 17, 2011, at 8:23 PM, Thibaut Camberlin wrote: > Hi, > > IMO it makes a lot of sense to use a forum solution for users (when it does > not for devs). When I was working with WordPress software, I was reading a > lot forum threads (they are using their other product, bbPress). I wouldn't > have thought about subscribing to a mailing list, I didn't even know they > existed. I was not Open Source minded, so are a lot of people using XWiki > and willing to contribute good feedback. A forum is so much easier to read > (topics, dates, tags, rates) and much less geek. Thibaut we *already have* a forum... Your argument isn't quite valid since you also need to subscribe in a forum to post! If you just want to browse the list: http://xwiki.markmail.org Thanks -Vincent > I am +1 for a forum solution for users. > > -- > Thibaut > > On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Andreas Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Am 14.03.2011 09:16, schrieb Vincent Massol: >>> On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote: >>> >>>> Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: >>>>> Please contradict me! >>>> Paul, >>>> actually - how could I do this ? >>>> I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach >>>> - comparing features e.t.c. >>>> >>>> I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole >>>> project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - >>>> even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved >>>> habits. >>>> >>>> Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. >>>> >>>> Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it >>>> seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may >>>> not matter anymore. >>> I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs. >>> >>> Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a >> global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people >> are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction >> will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be >> that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted >> service that would work for us. >>> >>>> From the people who answered so far my feeling is that: >>> * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would >> be nicer >>> * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the >> user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the >> information coming to me >> >> For my own FOSS project I'm hoping to start soon - I'll be going with >> http://stackoverflow.com. Providing support means checking the site for >> tagged questions a couple of times a day. It's just one mouse click. For >> me it makes no real difference in getting mails or checking a forum as >> long as you have a one-click list of open topics. >> >> Gathering all the information about all possible options and criteria >> can get very time consuming so I think we should try to rule out >> something first. >> >> Forums that are operated by other providers (getsatisfaction, >> stackoverflow, ...) might >> * be discontinued without warning (see jive) >> * change their policy later (no more free forums) >> * not expose user mail addresses and forum content (or might change that >> policy) so you're locked in. >> * not be as flexible as own forums if you want to change something (add >> category, ...) >> >> OTOH operating an own forum >> * requires admin efforts (must be maintained and updated, backups, ...) >> * may not be as publicly visible as that of other providers (because of >> their advertisements ...) >> * may not be as innovative as special forum operators ('awarding for >> active participants', ...) >> >> In addition there are concerns valid for both: >> * Is it important to somehow import the existing mail archive ? >> >> So IMO this is the first decision - is it ok to rely on somebody else ? >> and then decide which one. >> >> I'd be ok to spend time on it once its clear which way to go. >> However - as for me - nothing will happen fast as beside of my daily >> work I already have a side project so this is kind of >> side-project-side-project. >> >> Now for getsatisfaction - I don't know anything about it except that >> what can be found on their site. >> They don't seem to offer free accounts for open source. I've also seen >> no indication you can get mail alerts for new contributions. >> >> So how do we approach this ? >> >> bye >> Andreas >> >>> My personal POV is indeed that I'd like a forum for both the >> participation part (ie awarding status/points to active participants to >> surface them) and the categorization part but indeed I don't see myself >> going to the forum so it has to come to me. I think this is easy to achieve >> since on forums like getsatisfaction you can subscribe to the whole forum >> and thus receive all posts. What would be even better is if I could post or >> reply by replying to the mail. >>> >>> Now back to getsatisfaction I think before we could use it we'd need to >> check: >>> * are there any limitations for free open source forums? What's their >> position on open source? >>> * how can we get all the posts in a neutral and standard format should we >> want to move to another tool later on? >>> >>> Thanks >>> -Vincent
On Mar 14, 2011, at 11:33 AM, Andreas Hahn wrote: > Am 14.03.2011 09:16, schrieb Vincent Massol: >> On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote: >> >>> Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: >>>> Please contradict me! >>> Paul, >>> actually - how could I do this ? >>> I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach >>> - comparing features e.t.c. >>> >>> I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole >>> project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - >>> even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved >>> habits. >>> >>> Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. >>> >>> Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it >>> seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may >>> not matter anymore. >> I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs. >> >> Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted service that would work for us. >> >> > From the people who answered so far my feeling is that: >> * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would be nicer >> * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the information coming to me > > For my own FOSS project I'm hoping to start soon - I'll be going with http://stackoverflow.com. Providing support means checking the site for tagged questions a couple of times a day. It's just one mouse click. For me it makes no real difference in getting mails or checking a forum as long as you have a one-click list of open topics. [snip] Well, stackoverflow.com is one global site for all questions, it's not a tool you can install or host. It's part of stackexchange which is list of Q&A sites. FYI, I've contacted the guys just to check what is the process to get such a site and here's their answer: " All of our sites are created through a process we call Area 51. It is the staging area to propose Stack Exchange sites to the community and, if it gains enough support, we create the site. Stack Exchange sites can only be created via the democratic, community-driven process at Area 51. You can read more about that process here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq. " Thanks -Vincent
One thing that I find really great and I would be totally in favor of doing something similar for xwiki.org: " Amass enough reputation points and Area 51 grant you additional privileges: 25 Propose example questions 50 Create proposals 50 Vote for questions as great examples 50 Flag proposals or example questions 50 Leave comments on example questions 150 Vote for questions as not a good example 250 Vote to close or reopen your proposals 1000 Edit other people's proposals and example questions 2000 Vote to close or reopen any proposal 10000 Delete questions and closed proposals; access to moderation tools " Let's see what we could come up with (imaginary scale I have no idea how easy/hard points are awarded by answering questions): * 5000 allowed to add one issue to the roadmap for the next release ;) * 50 ability to contribute a project in contrib repo * 10000 ability to vote on project directions (binding votes) * 100 right to close issues on jira * 250 ability to get one's own free wiki on myxwiki.org (would be kind of cool I think - especially since it'll prove community interaction and thus the ability to ask the community for myxwiki support) I'm sure we can find lots more. WDYT? Thanks -Vincent On Mar 21, 2011, at 2:58 PM, Vincent Massol wrote: > > On Mar 14, 2011, at 11:33 AM, Andreas Hahn wrote: > >> Am 14.03.2011 09:16, schrieb Vincent Massol: >>> On Mar 13, 2011, at 10:00 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote: >>> >>>> Am 10.03.2011 17:39, schrieb Paul Libbrecht: >>>>> Please contradict me! >>>> Paul, >>>> actually - how could I do this ? >>>> I'm not an expert in forum software so I'd to go for the naive approach >>>> - comparing features e.t.c. >>>> >>>> I was hoping for some insight that it is beneficial for the whole >>>> project to encourage users first to browse and then to participate - >>>> even if it means for you and the others around here to give up beloved >>>> habits. >>>> >>>> Anyway - I'm not going to push you guys back to the future of Web 2.0. >>>> >>>> Given the lame participation when compared to the survey 4 years ago it >>>> seems to me that quite some people have already left the boat and it may >>>> not matter anymore. >>> I'm not sure how to read your last 2 paragraphs. >>> >>> Just note that fro my POV there's no "you" and "me" here. There's only a global community and you're part of it. That said at some point some people are going to need to work to make it happen, this is where the distinction will happen. How far are you willing to help? Maybe a first step would be that you help find either a forum software that fits the bill or a hosted service that would work for us. >>> >>>> From the people who answered so far my feeling is that: >>> * people seem to agree in general that at least for users a forum would be nicer >>> * since xwiki committers provide a substantial amount of answers to the user list as of today it would be nice that they can continue to have the information coming to me >> >> For my own FOSS project I'm hoping to start soon - I'll be going with http://stackoverflow.com. Providing support means checking the site for tagged questions a couple of times a day. It's just one mouse click. For me it makes no real difference in getting mails or checking a forum as long as you have a one-click list of open topics. > > [snip] > > Well, stackoverflow.com is one global site for all questions, it's not a tool you can install or host. > > It's part of stackexchange which is list of Q&A sites. > > FYI, I've contacted the guys just to check what is the process to get such a site and here's their answer: > > " > All of our sites are created through a process we call Area 51. It is the staging area to propose Stack Exchange sites to the community and, if it gains enough support, we create the site. Stack Exchange sites can only be created via the democratic, community-driven process at Area 51. You can read more about that process here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq. > " > > Thanks > -Vincent >
Am 21.03.2011 15:11, schrieb Vincent Massol:
One thing that I find really great and I would be totally in favor of doing something similar for xwiki.org:
" Amass enough reputation points and Area 51 grant you additional privileges:
25 Propose example questions 50 Create proposals 50 Vote for questions as great examples 50 Flag proposals or example questions 50 Leave comments on example questions 150 Vote for questions as not a good example 250 Vote to close or reopen your proposals 1000 Edit other people's proposals and example questions 2000 Vote to close or reopen any proposal 10000 Delete questions and closed proposals; access to moderation tools "
I like that too but I think the most compelling factor (about stackoverflow) is that its pretty simple to identify the most important information without too much reading and searching. Provided there are enough answers at all the reputation score helps identifying the best answers. And with the positive browsing experience as a user people might be encouraged to help others too. I guess there are quite a few active advisors that escape their routine jobs this way and share their knowledge on some particular topic. bye Andreas
[snip]
Well, stackoverflow.com is one global site for all questions, it's not a tool you can install or host.
It's part of stackexchange which is list of Q&A sites.
FYI, I've contacted the guys just to check what is the process to get such a site and here's their answer:
" All of our sites are created through a process we call Area 51. It is the staging area to propose Stack Exchange sites to the community and, if it gains enough support, we create the site. Stack Exchange sites can only be created via the democratic, community-driven process at Area 51. You can read more about that process here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq. "
Thanks -Vincent
Vincent et all, did you notice at Area 51 there is a wiki Q&A site proposal in commitment phase ? I thought it won't hurt to commit over there although there a quite some votes missing for that site getting created ... Might be a bit too general though ... http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/13716/wikis-and-wikipedia bye Andreas
participants (12)
-
Andreas Hahn -
Arnaud bourree -
Joris Dirks -
jstoldt -
Le Génie -
Lockie -
Ludovic Dubost -
Paul Libbrecht -
Sergiu Dumitriu -
Thibaut Camberlin -
Thomas Mortagne -
Vincent Massol