Dear all, We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform based on the following reasons: - More open and visible - Searchable - Mailing list are usually for developers. Our community is definitely not developers oriented - Better for search engines indexing - More pleasant to read - And you get to add a little icon for yourself ;-) Since you'll be using it, I wanted to get a initial feedback of what (FOSS) software you believe would suit that purpose. We've been looking in PhpBB but are definitely open for anything else that does the job and is Free Software. Thanks. Fred
On Saturday 24,July,2010 03:42 PM, Frederic Muller - SFI wrote:
Dear all,
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform based on the following reasons: - More open and visible - Searchable - Mailing list are usually for developers. Our community is definitely not developers oriented - Better for search engines indexing - More pleasant to read - And you get to add a little icon for yourself ;-)
Since you'll be using it, I wanted to get a initial feedback of what (FOSS) software you believe would suit that purpose. We've been looking in PhpBB but are definitely open for anything else that does the job and is Free Software.
Thanks.
Fred
_______________________________________________ SFD-discuss mailing list SFD-discuss@sf-day.org http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss
Hello Fred and everyone, +1 A forum is a good idea, & phpBB is fine choice for the software. Regards, David Rigby http://softwarefreedomday.sg http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2010/Asia/Singapore
Hello Fred and everyone,
+1 A forum is a good idea, & phpBB is fine choice for the software.
I don't think so.... actually PHPBB have a lot of security trouble. I use to have it on my FSUG site, but, after year of spam attack, I have to change my mind and use a mailing-list. -- ######################################## Alexjan Carraturo admin of Free Software Users Group Italia http://www.fsugitalia.org Fedora Ambassador: Axjslack openSUSE Ambassador: Axjslack Free Software Foundation Europe Fellow 1623 Software Freedom International board member ########################################
Frederic Muller <- SFI <fred@softwarefreedomday.org>> writes:
Dear all,
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform based on the following reasons:
- More open and visible - Searchable - Mailing list are usually for developers. Our community is definitely not developers oriented - Better for search engines indexing - More pleasant to read - And you get to add a little icon for yourself ;-)
Could you please take a look at http://gmane.org/ instead? It offers both Web and NNTP interfaces for quite a lot of mailing lists already, and my opinion is that it solves all of the issues above (including the icons.) Though I understand that I speak for a minority, there are users that find mailing lists (newsgroups) much more convenient to use than Web forums. Also, Web forums are typically plainly painful to use with, say, Lynx (thanks to, e. g., Javascript and Captcha), and it's the browser of choice for some eager free software proponents. (And, IIUC, it's of much more value to a visually-impaired person than any “modern-style” browser.) […] -- FSF associate member #7257
El 24/07/2010 13:15, Ivan Shmakov escribió:
Frederic Muller <- SFI <fred@softwarefreedomday.org>> writes:
Dear all,
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform based on the following reasons:
- More open and visible - Searchable - Mailing list are usually for developers. Our community is definitely not developers oriented - Better for search engines indexing - More pleasant to read - And you get to add a little icon for yourself ;-)
Could you please take a look at http://gmane.org/ instead? It offers both Web and NNTP interfaces for quite a lot of mailing lists already, and my opinion is that it solves all of the issues above (including the icons.)
+1 (gmane) Mailman is the best for Events community organization. Forum work fine for Help desk community, etc..
Though I understand that I speak for a minority, there are users that find mailing lists (newsgroups) much more convenient to use than Web forums. Also, Web forums are typically plainly painful to use with, say, Lynx (thanks to, e. g., Javascript and Captcha), and it's the browser of choice for some eager free software proponents. (And, IIUC, it's of much more value to a visually-impaired person than any “modern-style” browser.)
[…]
On 07/25/2010 02:02 AM, Peter Eisinger wrote:
El 24/07/2010 13:15, Ivan Shmakov escribió:
> Frederic Muller<- SFI<fred@softwarefreedomday.org>> writes: > Dear all,
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform based on the following reasons:
- More open and visible - Searchable - Mailing list are usually for developers. Our community is definitely not developers oriented - Better for search engines indexing - More pleasant to read - And you get to add a little icon for yourself ;-)
Could you please take a look at http://gmane.org/ instead? It offers both Web and NNTP interfaces for quite a lot of mailing lists already, and my opinion is that it solves all of the issues above (including the icons.)
+1 (gmane) Mailman is the best for Events community organization.
Forum work fine for Help desk community, etc..
From looking at the current content of the mailing list it looks a lot more like Help desk support than event community. This is sounding a lot like mailing list vs forum (endless) debate. So I will tell you a little story of mine: In my LUG we started with a mailing list... we had similar discussion many times. We were then a group with 80 emails subscribed at the maximum on the mailing list (with double or tripple registrations) and meetings of 10-20 people (20 being amazing). That lasted from 2002 to 2007. In 2007 we moved to a forum. Today (mid 2010) we have 1550 registered members, 8 meetings a month, and about 50-70 people at each monthly meetings. We have organized countless conferences some International ones with Andrew Morton and the Linux Foundation and I could tell you so much more about the visibility acquired from using a forum. So there is no question in my mind: we will use the tool we need to develop our (marketing really) community. Of course we will keep the Announce mailing list and might - and that's really not likely right now - keep the other lists for the few geeks among us, assuming I have more than 2 emails requesting to keep it. I know some forum software do allow both email and web posting. Some have complained that it brings confusion sometimes. This is why I am asking the people subscribed to this list (about 1500 which is less than my LUG...and it shouldn't) which software they would recommend. So let's continue the discussion about our forum migration :) Fred No seeing the group
Though I understand that I speak for a minority, there are users that find mailing lists (newsgroups) much more convenient to use than Web forums. Also, Web forums are typically plainly painful to use with, say, Lynx (thanks to, e. g., Javascript and Captcha), and it's the browser of choice for some eager free software proponents. (And, IIUC, it's of much more value to a visually-impaired person than any “modern-style” browser.)
[…]
_______________________________________________ SFD-discuss mailing list SFD-discuss@sf-day.org http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss
On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:42 +0800, Frederic Muller - SFI wrote:
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform
I really don't like using web forums. I find them much harder to follow - you need to click through lots of different web pages to follow different threads. It's hard to see what's new, and what's relevant - whereas I can catch up on a mailing list by quickly scanning through the folder where I have filtered the mail. It also comes to me, I don't have to remember to go and check a web page. I understand some people do prefer web forums, but I don't think you should disengage those of us who prefer mailing lists. -- Software Freedom Day 2010 http://bit.ly/sfdmel-2010 A world wide celebration of State Library of Victoria Free and Open Source Software Cnr Swanston & Latrobe Sts, Melbourne and the community behind it. 11am - 4pm, Saturday 18 September
On 07/25/2010 06:03 AM, Cat Scratch wrote:
On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:42 +0800, Frederic Muller - SFI wrote:
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform
I really don't like using web forums.
I find them much harder to follow - you need to click through lots of different web pages to follow different threads. It's hard to see what's new, and what's relevant - whereas I can catch up on a mailing list by quickly scanning through the folder where I have filtered the mail.
It also comes to me, I don't have to remember to go and check a web page.
I understand some people do prefer web forums, but I don't think you should disengage those of us who prefer mailing lists.
The situation is that today the mailing list(s) is limiting us in the way we interact with our audience. A community like us should have way over 10000 followers (not necessary team organizers), people who have been to events, people who are curious about it. Those people are not here and we need to use better ways to reach out. Modern forum software allow you to RSS feed and get all the latest posts well organized (no need to use your web browser - even though I am sure we all have one open all day long), you can subscribe to threads and receive emails notification, some even allow you to send emails to post to the forum. I believe we can find a way to accommodate everyone in order to extend our reach (which is everybody's goal, if they organize an SFD event) even if this might change our habits. I'm uncertain of the benefits of keeping both a mailing list and have a forum. The way to ask question becomes unclear and might confuse users (maybe it's just a matter of presentation only), however we might also go along that road based on the community feedback. Thank you for voicing your opinion. Fred
Frederic Muller - SFI <fred@softwarefreedomday.org> writes: On 07/25/2010 06:03 AM, Cat Scratch wrote: On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:42 +0800, Frederic Muller - SFI wrote:
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform
I really don't like using web forums.
[…]
I understand some people do prefer web forums, but I don't think you should disengage those of us who prefer mailing lists.
The situation is that today the mailing list(s) is limiting us in the way we interact with our audience.
[…]
Modern forum software allow you to RSS feed and get all the latest posts well organized (no need to use your web browser - even though I am sure we all have one open all day long), you can subscribe to threads and receive emails notification, some even allow you to send emails to post to the forum.
… And I'd like to note that Gmane supports RSS, too. […]
I'm uncertain of the benefits of keeping both a mailing list and have a forum. The way to ask question becomes unclear and might confuse users (maybe it's just a matter of presentation only), however we might also go along that road based on the community feedback.
That's why Gmane may be of interest: it offers a forum- and a blog-like Web-interface for a mailing list. In particular, the messages posted via the Web interface are instantly available to the mailing list subscribers and vice versa [2]. No separation between the two, and no confusion, either. So, why not just to fill the form at [2] and let the community test the usability? Won't it prove to be worthwhile, the things could be undone pretty easily. […] [1] http://gmane.org/post.php [2] http://gmane.org/subscribe.php -- FSF associate member #7257
On 07/25/2010 02:32 PM, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
[…]
I'm uncertain of the benefits of keeping both a mailing list and have a forum. The way to ask question becomes unclear and might confuse users (maybe it's just a matter of presentation only), however we might also go along that road based on the community feedback.
That's why Gmane may be of interest: it offers a forum- and a blog-like Web-interface for a mailing list. In particular, the messages posted via the Web interface are instantly available to the mailing list subscribers and vice versa [2]. No separation between the two, and no confusion, either.
So, why not just to fill the form at [2] and let the community test the usability? Won't it prove to be worthwhile, the things could be undone pretty easily.
Why? Because the SFI Board takes decision together and we don't want to rush into things (you might have noticed - *irony* ). I looked (quickly) at gname and was confused by the user interface. Not something that seems that easy to me (and still looks very geeky as well). But as I said, we're gathering feedbacks and at our next board meeting (today in 5 hours - assuming we have enough time this week) we will weight the pros and cons and maybe take a decision. Thank you. Fred
[…]
[1] http://gmane.org/post.php [2] http://gmane.org/subscribe.php
_______________________________________________ SFD-discuss mailing list SFD-discuss@sf-day.org http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss
On 07/24/2010 10:42 AM, Frederic Muller - SFI wrote:
Dear all,
We've been considering a move to using a forum as our main discussion platform based on the following reasons: - More open and visible - Searchable
The archiving software for the mailing lists should handle those two points. What did you have in mind in regards to more open and visible? Does the archive need an RSS feed or clicky links to social networking sites? The archive is already searchable. Perhaps more prominent advertisement of the URL to the archive might be in order in the list's footer or on the wiki or other web pages. http://mail.sf-day.org/pipermail/sfd-discuss/ Mailman is nice software and there might be a way to activate the List-Archive header for mail sent by the list: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4021#section-2.1.31
- Mailing list are usually for developers. Our community is definitely not developers oriented
There are a great many people who are not developers and use e-mail. If an individual list is a problem, how about a mailing list for non-developers?
- Better for search engines indexing
Again, that's dependent on the mailing list archive software.
- More pleasant to read
Conversely, no choice in client. With mail, there is a very wide choice of clients and filtering and sorting capabilities.
- And you get to add a little icon for yourself ;-)
x-face used to be standard in most mail clients (a loooong time ago). It might still be available, and/or there might be other options nowadays. I see in Thunderbird, the 'Display Contact Photo' add-on using the X-Face or Face header. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/58034/ http://nntp.gnus.org/circus/face/
Since you'll be using it, I wanted to get a initial feedback of what (FOSS) software you believe would suit that purpose.
Personally, I am very tired of forums because they are so inflexible and usually difficult to follow. Usenet without either Spam or Astroturfers would be near ideal.
We've been looking in PhpBB but are definitely open for anything else that does the job and is Free Software.
A gateway would be nice. Messages posed in the mailing list should turn up in the forum, the messages in the forum in the list. Gateways used to be de rigeur, and useful enough to be worth keeping. Ivan mentioned GMANE, perhaps that would meet the need. Since it uses NNTP, one is not limited to the web UI it provides. There is a lot of forum software out there, so PHP can be successfully dodged. Most PHP software has to be re-written to get closer to practical security. If we go the forum route, let's look outside PHP. There are overly fancy tools, like Sakai, and very old, simple ones like COW. No matter which forum is used, a lot of time will be spent adjusting it and then, after that, on maintenance. Forums require a lot of maintenance, including technical maintenance and should time be spend maintaining infrastructure or helping people get the idea of Freedom? It's not an either-or dilemma but each person does have only 24hrs per day and not all hours and days are equal. Regards, /Lars
participants (7)
-
Alexjan Carraturo -
C David Rigby -
Cat Scratch -
Frederic Muller - SFI -
Ivan Shmakov -
Lars Nooden -
Peter Eisinger