Do we need a forum?

[Steven Edwards]

On Feb 18, 2008 6:57 PM, L. Rahyen <research at science.su> wrote:

>         And personally I think that it will be too hard even for someone who knows
> AppDB very well. Also, there is naming confusion ("WINE forum" and "AppDB
> forum" - this will not allow users to find easily official WINE forum). And
> of course currently AppDB isn't specified as a forum at all (just try in
> Google "AppDB forum" - it seems that no one call AppDB "forum"). Another
> problem is that not all questions/comments are related to one particular
> application or applications at all - for example, general question about
> compile issues or other problems are possible (just compare wine-users
> archive with AppDB to see the difference).

We discussed this at wineconf and could not reach consensus on what would be the
best method.

>         Currently it's hard for newbie to find a official WINE forum (try in Google
> for example "WINE forum linux"); well, this is because there is no official
> WINE forum currently... So most users who want to discuss WINE related issues
> in a forum discuss them on general Linux/distribution' forums.

That was the idea in creating wine-forum. It would be one forum to
bind them all so to
speak. Currently wine discussion is fragmented across various forums
in ubuntu, gentoo,
Play on Linux, Winedoors, etc

>         Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to read all such forums, this is
> really too much "fragmented", this leads to some inefficiencies: sometimes
> WINE related questions on such forums cannot receive useful answer for a long
> time. Even worse, even if I find some question that I can quickly answer on
> the forum, it is impossible to do so without time consuming registration
> process. In fact there was some cases when I searched for some WINE related
> issues, find someone's unanswered question that I can answer quickly, but
> never find enough time and motivation to register.
>         This is actually the problem that should be addressed if we decide to create
> forum. Registration shouldn't be required. At most (for protection from spam
> bots), few digits from a small picture should be entered by unregistered
> users before posting and that's all. As I said earlier, it is also important
> to have ability to subscribe for all messages from the forum otherwise
> (reliable) user support will be hard. And there is a lot of other important
> issues... By the way, http://wine-forum.org don't have these important
> features at all (just a note).
>         And of course, I'm able to implement myself everything I'm talking above,
> with well looking design. But I will do this only if there is demand in
> this... That is, if it would be decided to create forum I will be glad to
> help, but if not then there is no point in creating of something that is
> intended for the community and isn't demanded high enough by this community.
>         As I already said, I like mailing lists much more than forums, so my opinion
> about usefulness/uselessness of the forum is neutral. But I think it is
> useful to discuss this topic so right decision can be made (create or not to
> create the forum, or find other solution(s), or don't change anything at all)
> as a result of the discussion.

As I stated, we discussed this at wineconf and consesus was not
reached. Dan wanted to use google groups, others want to keep mailing
lists, while others still want to use the newsgroups. wine-forum is
run by Tom Wickline who is a long time wine contributor so while I
would support a better system that integrates with appdb and the
winehq mainsite better, I am leery of yet another system if its not
going to have someone or someones dedicated to maintain it for years
to come. Also as I stated, I don't think appdb is covers every
discussion topic unless you extend it to support distros, Wine forks,
winelib application projects, etc. Tom is committed to doing this with
wine-forum. If there is something you don't like, such as the
registration, advertisements, etc I am sure he is willing to adjust
the user experience.

-- 
Steven Edwards

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and
that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo