Do we need a forum?

[L. Rahyen]

On Tuesday February 19 2008 03:11:24 Austin English wrote:
> On Feb 18, 2008 8:53 PM, Christopher Harvey <arbuckle911 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > L. Rahyen wrote:
> > > On Monday February 18 2008 19:44:08 Austin English wrote:
> > >> On Feb 18, 2008 12:35 PM, L. Rahyen <research at science.su> wrote:
> > >>>         Of course, there is some people who like forums. If we decide
> > >>> to create forum specifically for them, it is important to have
> > >>> possibility to subscribe for receiving all (full) messages from the
> > >>> forum to e-mail with direct link to reply page for corresponding
> > >>> message, and ability to login permanently without stupid timeout
> > >>> (using cookies). In fact there is some forums like this
> > >>> (unfortunately, all of them are unrelated to WINE) and they are
> > >>> pretty usable (however, personally I like mailing lists more, and
> > >>> didn't used forums for a long time). Of course, if there is no
> > >>> volunteer(s) to create and support such forum - then wine-users is
> > >>> enough I think.
> > >>
> > >> In my experience, the 'older' crowd prefers newsgroups, but 'younger'
> > >> people prefer message boards. Similar to how more advanced users
> > >> prefer CLI, but inexperienced/novices use GUI. It seems to me we're
> > >> trying to help the gui type of person, and a message board would be an
> > >> easier way to do this, IMHO.
> > >
> > >       Then what exactly we want? It is useful to decide what we need.
> > > For example, phpBB forum with certain mods/modifications to give
> > > functionality I mentioned. If we agree with this (or decide to choose
> > > something else), then we can discuss next details, etc.
> > >       In fact, if we decide to create phpBB forum, I can help here. I
> > > have programming experience with this in the past, and I can create
> > > ready-for-use forum if we decide we need this (of course I can make
> > > also its design, etc.). Also, I can give hosting on my server.
> > >       But first, we should make decision what we need. If above offer
> > > is acceptable, then design details can be discussed farther. If not
> > > then what is acceptable.
> >
> > Why not make a forum and then have winehq link to it? If it becomes
> > popular maybe it'll become the official one. That's the spirit of the
> > GPL, the way I see it, don't need popular support or permission.
>
> If everyone seems happy the way wine-forum.org is organized, we could
> simply add a link on winehq. That way we don't add another forum to
> the mix, and also have one area that can gather users of wine with
> winehq's blessing.

	What I want to say is to wait 1-2 months and see what will change in 
wine-forum after this discussion. If major issues will not be fixed after 
this time then I think creating the forum from scratch is better just because 
I already have heavily modified and improved source code of phpBB forum (but 
it is somewhat old; however, updating to new version should be not very hard 
task) - so in my case much less programming is needed at the start.
	If I decide to create the forum in next few weeks, then let another 2-3 
months to pass... After this it should be possible to make elaborated 
decisions. There is no need for rush in this case I think.
	Also Christopher Harvey is right, maybe it is better to create the forum 
first and only after this + 2-4 months waiting discuss this topic again. Then 
comparison with other forums will be possible in order to pick the best. But 
as I said, I want to wait at least 3-4 weeks to see if wine-forum.org will 
start to improve or not... If not I probably will try to create something 
better.