On Thu, 2011-11-03 at 16:17 +0100, Christian Lohmaier wrote: > Hi *, > > On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Florian Effenberger > <flo...@documentfoundation.org> wrote: > > Ken Springer wrote on 2011-11-02 22:48: > >> > >> If you prefer your help system to be a forum, that's available through > >> the Nabble interface and Gmane. > > > > sadly, Nabble is not seen as forum at all. > > Yes, because it is none.
Right - as it is currently configured. > > > I don't know why, but many - > > especially novice - users have complained and do not use Nabble. > > You cannot move threads to other topics, you cannot edit messages > afterwards, you cannot delete posts, you cannot mark posts as sticky > or "resolved", etc. This type of behavior is possible using the service features, BUT, this then renders a database that is not tied in structure to the underling mail archive - I'm not saying that Nabble's forum features would be a suitable platform, or not, I think there are other concerns, most of which would be there with any third party service provider IMO. Perhaps as a side note - when I setup the initial Nabble link I was not expecting it to wind up so tightly coupled with the main website, I just saw it as a ancillary service that could be setup with a minimum of fuss that would offer some value to part of the user base, while not adding (much) overhead to the real infrastructure teams workload. > > All those features are considerably useful when used properly, but > from my experience too many clueless people join forums, and the same > old questions get posted over and over again, people don't make use of > those additional features and in the end it is used as a mailinglist > with reduced functionality. > > If LO is going to have an own forum, then there shall be a bunch of > moderators that are to ensure to keep the different topics organized, > ensure that a certain level of posting discipline is respected, make > sure that the repeated questions or spam-posts to just put an older > topic further up the list are kept to a minimum. Forum-Sheriffs if you > want to use a loaded term. > > This is where I see the biggest problem. You need to have a big number > of dedicated people who clean up the mess that the mass of regular > users create to keep a forum usable. And I'm not sure that a new forum > will have those people. Good points for sure. > > In former times, when you had a technical problem, you would use your > search-engine of choice and after browsing through 5 or 6 links, you > would get your answer. > Nowadays, you get thousands of hits, many to forums where the same > question is posted to a sh*tload of different forums, full of "I have > the same problem" style posts but with no answer. Or the answer is > "solved by using different hardware/software" instead. And the best of > all are those are the "fixed the problem, topic can be closed" style > posts (don't even bother to tell others how you fixed that problem). > And of course then there is the forum-post signature spam when looking > for info regarding a specific hardware or similar, people put a big > list of stuff they once owned to all of their posts, rendering any > search useless as all irrelevant posts are returned just because the > term appears in the signature in every post/thread the user does post. > > My fear is that the same will happen to any newly created Forum when > there is already a big userbase. Ok, I understand that and though IMO it is a problem with any attempt to deliver services - it's less about the tools and more about the execution. > And as you might have noticed, I'm not a big fan of forums. A web forum is not a panacea - it is one tool, one access point if you will. This thread has touched on a number of tools - the real question to be asked is I think - what or which of those tools make sense to include in the mix of options available for support. > I'm > actually only using one forum, one that one is tightly scoped. > And my aversion against forums is not the technology, but rather what > the people make of it. As long as it has a sane > mail-notification/subscription system and doesn't force me to visit a > webpage and hunt for replies myself, I would be fine. > > Replying to topics via mail would be a great plus though. - But I am > not aware of any of the big forum-software that would support this. Actually there are a number of solutions for different web forum platforms, they have limitations - but they are there. Finally, just a thought - I think it is a mistake to look at human resources vs support options as a net sum game. Each different platform is likely to appeal to somewhat different groups of individuals and though there needs to be some folks that look after things as a whole, or at least with a view beyond just one service. In other words recruiting (meeting the needs of) new volunteers (responders) is, by definition IMO, part of running a well functioning support service, be it a BBS style web forum, a Q+A style service or a end user mailing list. Best wishes, //drew -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
