[OpenIndiana-discuss] Help with website

[LinuxBSDos.com]

> On Sat, 2011-10-08 at 18:35 -0600, LinuxBSDos.com wrote:
>> >> As Bernd Helber remarked, forums can play a significant role in Linux
>> >> distributions, as they allow users to "have conversations". It would
>> be
>> >> great if an initiative to create one for OI could be started.
>> >
>> > I agree that forums are more user-friendly when you're searching for
>> > an answer that already exists. However, I find mailing lists easier to
>> > interact with and reply to on a regular basis. I think the reason the
>> > OpenSolaris forums worked so well is that each forum also had a
>> > mailing list bridged with it, so you got the best of both worlds (easy
>> > search and easy participation). My request would be the the mailing
>> > lists not be dumped in favor of forums, but rather set up as another
>> > way of participating with the forums.
>> >
>>
>> I didn't call for abandoning the mailing list, rather for setting up
>> something that is more community-oriented.
>
> Mailing Lists are inherently community oriented.  That some other
> johnny-come-lately technology, e.g. web based forums, has subsequently
> gained popularity does not invalidate mailing lists communities.
>
> I haven't looked in recent years, but the last time I did look, port 25,
> not port 80, was responsible for the lions share of Internet traffic.
> And if modern numbers reverse that, it may be more of an artifact that
> web pages are ten to 50 times fatter than they were back in the day when
> I had to keep 28k modem (the cat's meow at the time because it had
> doubled the previous speed) capabilities in mind. And yes, with
> streaming media port 80 may well have supplanted 25 but my point remains
> valid.
>
> I personally much, much prefer mlm's because its a push, rather than
> pull medium.  Once I'm subscribed to a list, everything is there in my
> inbox.  The problem might be finding it, but that's another problem.
> Modern MLM's, e.g. Mailman, typically sport searchable web archives as
> well for those desiring pull medium.
>
> That doesn't mean forums are useless.  I like forums too.  But for
> technical discussions I prefer mailing lists.  For example, consider a
> newbie querry.  If posted to mlm, the q AND as well as any and all
> follow ups are pushed to the entire community at large.  Maybe joe grey
> beard expert spots an error in the part of the response that isn't quite
> correct, so they post follow up. If web forums, this expert may never
> see the question or follow ups unless they take the time to "pull" from
> the web site.  So forums need larger base out of the gate to reach
> critical mass compared to mlm.  Bridging the two may sound like a good
> solution, but I've _never_ seen such a solution that actually worked
> _well_ in practice.  At least for those of us who prefer mlm, as threads
> rapidly become horked up top the point were one now _must_ view via
> forum interface to be able to follow.
>
> One area where web forums clearly superior to mlm is where you have
> want/need to monetize the community via ads and such.
>
> Now I don't want to "scare" you off from contributing to OI but I think
> much of what you say is predicated upon some erroneous assumptions as
> well as your personal preferences, wh/because you can point to some
> others who share those preferences becomes a mandate for OI to follow.
> This is not necessarily so.

I fail to see why you consider my statements "erroneous assumptions."
Whether we like it or not, forums rule. The most prolific communities on
the Internet are forums, or forum-like. answers.yahoo.com. facebook,
Google Groups, are all forum-type communities.

That I'm advocating for such is not necessarily a "personal preferences,"
but a recognition of what I feel, based on what I've seem elsewhere, of
what the community needs to do to bring all the goodies that oi has to
offer to mainstream users. If you want to promote something, I think you
can make the task a bit easier if you take it to where crowds like to
gather.

>
> I also curious if you may have _any_ type of affiliation with Vanilla
> because I'm pretty familiar w/a number of forum packages, never heard of
> vanilla until recently, and fail to see what, if any, advantage it
> offers over various alternatives.

I have no affiliations with the developers of Vanilla. I found it just
after setting up http://linuxbsdos.com/ask, and wished I had found it
sooner. It's Free Software, and it's better than anything I've ever used;
I've used all the popular forums apps available.

If you want to see how it works, take a look at the demo I set up at
http://linuxbsdos.com/askopenindiana. It's the same concept that the guys
responsible for http://stackoverflow.com used.