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On 04/11/2011 10:48 PM, Jacek Antonelli wrote:<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Consider that right now we have 5 forum sections (not counting "Off
Topic"), and 4 of them are pretty much obsolete:
* Viewer: This is where people would post ideas, feature requests,
etc. But we're now using only the issue tracker for feature requests.
</pre>
</blockquote>
What about vague ideas that aren't fleshed out feature requests,
yet? It might be useful for user to be able to discuss those
informally until they've come up with something they actually want
to request. If such discussion should happen on the issue tracker
itself, archive this section, else leave it.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">* Problems & Troubleshooting (previously "Bug Reports &
Troubleshooting"): This is where people would post bug reports,
problems they are having, and provide feedback about releases. But
we're now using only the issue tracker for bug reports, and blog posts
for general feedback about releases.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Suggestion: <b>Rename</b> to just "Troubleshooting" and have a
sticky note saying that "troubleshooting" does not include proper
bugs in the viewer itself but only problems that are caused by using
the software wrongly, or having a misconfigured system, or just
having trouble to find an UI element due to looking in the wrong
place etc. Off course, this would also allow users to discuss <i>whether</i>
an issue is a bug, before filing one, so keeping this section might
help to reduce the number of invalid bug reports down. The Q&A
site could be used for that, too, but I feel a conventional forum is
a more natural medium for it ... "Q: I observed X. Is that a bug?"
"A: No!!!!11 [rate this answer]" "A: Yes!!!!1111 [rate this answer]"
"A: Maybe? [best answer]"<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">* Development: This is where people would discuss development-related
stuff, technical discussions of features, get help compiling the
viewer, etc. But we're now encouraging use of the mailing list and IRC
for those things.
</pre>
</blockquote>
People genuinely interested in development usually aren't afraid to
subscribe to a mailing list, so <b>archive</b> this section.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">* Project: This is where people would discuss project organization
issues and report problems with the website. But we're now using the
issue tracker for website issues, and project organization discussion
is done via the mailing list and meetups.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<b>Archive.</b><br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">* General: All other discussion. The only reason this isn't obsolete
too is because its purpose is so vague.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Might be useful to <b>keep</b> this, maybe with a sticky note that
developers might not read all or any of it. One never knows what
useful uses users come up with. (Can you say this sentence 10 times
very fast? :-P) So having this around as a catch-all might be
valuable. <br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">My instinct is to archive (lock to prevent new posts) all the current
forum sections and create new sections with new purposes. But, I'm
having a hard time thinking of what those purposes would be.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Want to know what forum sections are needed? Best ask the forum
users. On the forum. (Probably in the 'General' section.) Or just
wait until they request new forum sections via the issue tracker.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">In the past, I've argued that the forums are useful as a social hub
for the community (see e.g. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plurk.com/p/amzlet">http://www.plurk.com/p/amzlet</a> ). If that's
true, then the new sections would be social-oriented. But aside from a
section for general Kokua/Imp-related discussion, the only things I
can think of are a place for people to introduce themselves,</pre>
</blockquote>
I have to admit I haven't read a lot of the impru/kokua forum posts.
But if the forum community there is anything like the community on
the old SL forums was, it might consider a single super-long
everyone-introduce-yourself thread in the 'General' section much
cooler than a dedicated 'Introduce Yourself in this Section'
section. In fact, they might think the latter is utterly lame. Or
maybe not. Who knows? I think best is to not create any new forum
sections before seeing what the community comes up with and
requests.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTimkqLZJw_1GfSDeHf8g4Mdq0F3K5A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">and possibly a place to ask for help from other users. (But for the
latter, we already have inworld groups and a Q&A site
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://support.kokuaviewer.org/qa/"><http://support.kokuaviewer.org/qa/></a>.)
</pre>
</blockquote>
Q&A sites are good for clear-cut questions. But often, users
will face problems they don't understand to a point that they don't
even know what questions to ask about them. Freeform discussion is
probably best for other users that want to help them figure out what
the problem even is. Thus why I'd keep the "Troubleshoot" section.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Boroondas<br>
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