Re-proposal: web forums

[Tom Spear (Dustin Booker, Dustin Navea)]

Jeremy Newman wrote:
> Currently the WineHQ server really does not have much space left over.
> Alexandre and I have had a few issues with the box running out of hard
> drive space.
>   
I offered space on my box, so space shouldn't be an issue.
> We need to know if this is really needed. Is providing a forum really
> better than: a good FAQ in the Wiki, the forums in the AppDB, Bugzilla,
> the mailing lists, and finally IRC? We already provide quite a few
> levels of help.
>   
Yes you do, but personally I hate the appdb, and im rarely ever going to 
pull up irc even though it is installed, because i dont like having to 
switch networks back and forth.  The mailing lists are nice because 
everything is delivered to my inbox, but they also stink for the same 
reason.. it floods my inbox.  The FAQ in the wiki won't get read by 
people who don't rtfm (read: most people), so then they will still seek 
support.

> The other issue I have is that just adding a forum, is yet another
> login/password for users to have. What I don't like about the WineHQ
> website is that the AppDB and Bugzilla do not share a common login
> system. Adding a bboard just adds more to this problem.
>   
It doesn't make sense to not have a universal login for the entire site, 
and even you complain about it..  Just curious, but why are we not able 
to fix that?
> Now, I do not see a reason why the AppDB guys could not use the already
> written forum in the AppDB to create a not tied to an app forum. Follow
> me?
>   
For the same reason I posted above.. I personally hate the appdb

I'm sure that the majority of users (the non-techies anyways) will 
second most of what I said above.  I think the winehq site suffers from 
information overload (theres waaaay too much info all over it), and so 
putting a forum in will make things a lot easier to maintain..

Personally I think all we need is winehq, bugzilla, the mailing lists 
and the forums.  IRC can stay, but lets make it our own server, 
irc.winehq.org, so that we have some control over what happens.. versus 
not having any control when the server dies.  Come to think of it, I 
have been netadmin for multiple irc networks, and server admin on 
several others.  Hell most of my C experience was in modifying servers 
to do what I wanted, and to fix bugs that the devs didn't properly 
fix...  I may be a bit rusty, but I would be glad to get another shell 
account somewhere and host irc.winehq.org out of my own pocket (maybe 
with a little help from the fund, but not much), and at the same time I 
can put the forums on there too..

Tom