Rocco Moretti wrote: > Dave Brueck wrote: > >>Grant Edwards wrote: >> >>>[In case you can't tell, I hate web forums. I've never seen a >>>single one with a suable UI.] >> >>Amen! Generally they are an abomination. > > It may seem snobish, but my main gripe with most of the web-forums I've > seen is the people using them. There are far too many content-free "Me > too" posts, which are horribly difficult to filter out (due to the poor > UI). It's partly the web-forum's fault - the really bad ones have posts > with some cute/animated smiley as the sole content. It's rare that > usenet has such posts, because a colon and a right paren in text doesn't > seem nearly as interesting as some saccarine singing, dancing, yellow blob.
I think that web forums are great in one case: supporting nontechnical end users on the use and configuration of your product, in a free/community-based support arrangement. The forum needs a moderator to trim and condense as appropriate, and the help desk needs to monitor the forum and interface with the developers as necessary. The benefits versus newsgroup/listserv in this case basically boil down to: + users already know how to use their web browser, but -let's be honest- it's a stretch to get them to subscribe to a list - you'd have to hold their hand through every step of the setup making it less costly to just offer free phone support for their issue. But that's it. Otherwise, web forums just waste everyone's time. So for a language like Python, where you presuppose that most people using the product are technically savvy enough to operate a newsreader or mail client, a web forum approach just isn't going to gain much popularity. Web forums for people that know how to use their computers are just a horrible waste of time, but perhaps more importantly people no longer have control over their environment and are forced to navigate a particular UI instead of being able to put together their own preferred approach. -- pkm ~ http://paulmcnett.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
