Potential forum at linuxquestions.org

[Mike Hearn]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:25:29 -0800, Sir Dan Kegel scribed thus:
> It's a myth that mailing lists are outdated.
> The web-based forums and wikis people are advocating
> all have their own drawbacks IMHO.

They have distinct advantages too. But, let's not confuse wikis and web
forums here. My proposal is simply:

"Let's agree to officially recognise a forum at linuxquestions.org where
end users can go for help, to complement wine-users and #winehq"

It's not meant to replace wine-users, and especially not wine-devel of
course.

Why a forum rather than a mailing list?
- Forums are more focussed. When you sign up for a mailing list, you get a
load of spam from other threads. Not so with a forum.
- They are easier to use. Yes, you still have to sign up, but I'd guess
some (many?) people aren't comfortable with making a new folder, setting
up filters etc.
- You can make threads sticky
- More easily moderated (ie by groups of people)

There is clearly a large number of people who do prefer web based forums
to get help than mailing lists and newsgroups - simply read LQ yourself
for a bit, the thread churn there is incredible. Most threads in the
Newbie section stay on the first page for perhaps a day at most. It's a
popular service.

> Why not simply point people to
> http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.wine.devel
> and/or
> news://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.wine.devel
> (or maybe even
> http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine)

They can't post via the gmane interface. Google is OK I guess.

> and be done with it?  I detest the idea of using a klunky
> web forum; they're usually poorly-indexed, and every
> one has a different interface; I'd rather use the standard
> mail/news interface, or at least a standard web gateway
> like groups.google.com or news.gmane.org.

Well, you don't have to use it, I'm not suggesting developers use it to
communicate, rather, end users can use it to discuss and help each other,
with a few developers to keep an eye on things and maybe answer the
tricky/obscure ones.

FWIW as far as Google is concerned your last post to
comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine was in June 2002 - I have no idea if it's
right or not, but clearly you don't have to worry about anything changing.
 
> Do try the gmane gateway for a while before deciding
> to chuck it all and go the infantile web forum route.

I'm posting this via gmane in fact, but I definately don't think nntp is
as easy to use as a web forum is (for people not familiar with news).

Finally I'm not sure why you think it's all or nothing. This wouldn't
replace anything, but rather fill a niche we're currently ignoring.

thanks -mike