Re-proposal: web forums

[Tom Spear (Dustin Booker, Dustin Navea)]

Dimi Paun wrote:
> On Sat, April 22, 2006 9:45 pm, Molle Bestefich said:
>   
>> Can you explain what's so different between Google and a forum search?
>>     
>
> That's pretty obvious: the Google search is just a lot better.
> Remember when we used to offer our own search on WineHQ? It
> sucked so badly it wasn't even funny. I'm pretty sure that even
> now the Google search is way better than anything the forum can
> ever provide.
>
> This is of course not an argument against the forum. It's just
> that the search argument is not for forum either :)
>   
On the contrary, I think out of all the times I have searched for 
something I knew was in a forum, I found it quicker and easier using 
phpbb's builtin search than I did using google., or even a google search 
box within the forum.
> Folks, I think these debates are a bit pointless. I know, I absoutely
> detest forums too, but this is irrelevant. For reasons I can not fathom
> it looks like some people like them. Let's not debate the reasons, we're
> not going to get anywhere: de gustibus non dispudandum est and all that.
>
> The only thing that is of concern is whether by creating them
> we are going to harm rather than help the community. For one,
> I think it will have very little, if any, impact on wine-devel,
> as most folks here can't stand them anyway. So it is purely a
> wine-users kind of thing.
>
> So what can happen? The only negative thing would be for the forum
> to not get used, unsuspecting users would use them, and get no real
> support, resulting in frustrated newbies. One cool thing that we can
> do to avoid that is to simply automatically forward forum posts to
> wine-users, and maybe automatically post replies from wine-users on
> to the forum. That would be ideal.
>
> Bottom line: let's implement a forum, and see how it goes. If we can
> get the wine-users <--> forum gateway, it would be perfect. If not,
> we have to give it a few months and see if it catches on. If it does
> not, we'll take it out of its misery. Problem solved.
I like your willingness to compromise..  And in response to my most 
recent posting (with the idea i have in my head how it could work), 
maybe it could be better explained like this.  Instead of having 
everything posted to wine-users (trust me you don't want this because it 
will be like 30,000 emails a day once the forums catch on), kill off 
wine-users and make several smaller mailing lists, one for each 
category, like this:

Note this is just an example and not necessarily how I would like it 
worded, or the order I would like the items to be in, just what comes to 
mind first....

In the forums:

Main page
| Compilation problems
|  | configure failures
|  | make failures
|  | etc
| Running problems
|  | Crashes
|  |  | Crashes running winelib apps (winecfg, winefile, explorer, 
regedit, etc)
|  |  | App crashes
|  |  | Game crashes
|  | Unimplemented functions
|  | Glitches
|  | err's spit to console
|  Q&A


Then in the mailing lists have

wine-forums-compile -> Compilation problems
wine-forums-running -> Running problems
wine-forums-qanda -> Q&A

Sure what is done above is covered by bugzilla, BUT.. I believe this 
will cut down on duplicate and invalid posts, as users will see and go 
for the forums first, then when we determine it to be a bug, we just let 
them know ok, now that we are sure it is a bug, either post to this bug 
on bugzilla, or create this new one in bugzilla.  Then when that is 
done, one of us can cc: (in the bug) the developer who takes care of 
that component...

All of this provides for a better interaction with the users because 
someone is acknowledging their problem immediately and by doing so, 
demonstrating that we are working to fix it, even if it may take a 
while.  Whereas when they just post something to bugzilla and dont 
mention something on the lists, then it gets ignored unless someone 
watching wine-bugs knows what's going on or how to find out what's going on.