Forum-discussion-results

From openSUSE

This discussion from 2006 is historical, in 2008 three forums merged to the official openSUSE Forums.

Should we have a web-forum at all?

No we should not because:

• unless such a forum is bidirectionally gated to e.g. this mailing-list, it will only cause a split in the community - Per Jessen, pascal
• if there is a web forum and there is a very low concentration of "experts" in there, what's the point of it ? - pascal, Johannes Kastl
• being unable/unwilling to use a mailing-list is not a helpful attitude - Per Jessen
• if there is no "moderation" or guidance, a forum wont work - Johannes Kastl
• People are familiar with using their mail client - and can have *one* mail client for all mailing lists. For forums, you have another* user interface for each forum - cboltz

Yes we should because:

• The average user is very familiar with forums, and feels comfortable there. So more bugs/other issues end up on forums - CuCullin
• a forum would give the technical less savvy people a say on openSUSE - houghi
• people who are afraid of the idea of a mailinglist would feel much more comfortable with a webbased solution as that is what they know - houghi
• If you suddenly see a dicussion of "I can't do this' and 50 "ME TOO"'s, then you know there might be an issue and one can look into it. - houghi
• Web forums promotes communication between people no matter what their technical level. Mailing lists very nearly discourage newbees from helping newbees, as mailing lists usually stop this by complaining about the wrong quoting method or posting in HTML, or off-topic. - Pflodo
• even without "experts" the sharing of information and experience is sometimes all that is required - Pflodo
• a newbee can usually understand what another newbee is asking better than an expert! - scsijon
• The sheer volume of mail on a mailinglist is far too much for most users to keep up with - CuCullin
• Not everyone has gmail (or equivalent) with some web interface for their email. Many users have a computer at work, at home, at their significant others' place, etc. A forum lets them log in anywhere, anytime, whether at home, over a family members' house, or at the library - CuCullin
• any medium interesting at least some users should be set up - why not? jdd

Should we have an official web-forum on http://forum.opensuse.org?

No we should not because:

• We might upset the old unofficial forum members - pascal, sonja
• It would take away resources from the the distribution itself or the work on the build service - sonja
• Often, questions and discussion topics are about the "legally gray zone" (mp3, dvd playback, ...) and having an "official" forum endorsed by Novell/SUSE would mean that those topics may *not* be discussed on that forum. - pascal
• an official forum could raise the expectation that suse staff is participating in there

Yes we should because:

• forum and wiki being on the same site would encourage people answering questions to post a final explanation and solution on the wiki - CuCullin
• opensuse.org would be a unified resource center, one login for forum, wiki, bugzilla etc. - CuCullin, Daniel Hatfield
• an official forum can unify the existing forum community - CuCullin - jdd
• Aside from initial configuration there are not much resources to invest - CuCullin
• Issues in a "legal grey zone" not being able to be discussed will help raise awareness, and still demonstrates a need for the existing support of the unofficial community forums. - Cucullin