[Libreoffice-qa] Forums Proposal

[Bjoern Michaelsen]

On Sat, Oct 06, 2012 at 04:26:18PM -0400, Marc Paré wrote:
> No sure if we were talking about "empty hall", I am hoping to help
> fill them. :-)

Yes, just like a night club opening with fewer floors in the early evening, so
that they are not that empty -- and open more floors later. ;)

> Not sure about this. We were given the mandate to concentrate on the
> US market specifically. You may have noticed that there are already
> few mails on the US mailing list (of which I am part), but I believe
> that we are set to re-buid post-LibOCon. From what I can see, the
> largest problem with the US is the lack of marcons for the group,
> which has always been front-and-centre of all serious discussions. I
> would favour keeping the US separate and closing the mailing list.

How does keeping the US separate help kicking off a US marketing community?
Better to hatch it in the marketing forum until it can fly on its own.

> not sure if I like that idea. I would rather see what most users
> looking for help are looking for on arrival on our forums -- a
> breakdown in forums where they can locate their application section
> and leave a message. Sending our users in need of help to a
> soup-bowl mix of messages will only confuse them and add more
> stress. I would rather have the obvious breakdown on our forums
> site. If there are alpha-beta problems with any of the modules, then
> it would seem to me better for our users to see them already in
> their own categories.

'Open beta' has nothing to do with our releases. Its just as long as we test
and explore the forum. But yes, I think we should start with a general
'applications' forum and am uncertain if a Math forum would really be helpful,
if it does not attach regulars.

> >  - Templates are unlikely to support a forum on their own from the start.
> 
> Yup, but on the other hand, it is a good collection point where we
> can encourage ideas on templates and hope some devs will pick up on
> it. Its a two-way street. If we hope to attract users to our
> contributor forums/mailing lists, then we should also hope to
> attract devs to our user forums. Let's give this one a shot. I am
> interested in this one, particularly considering the lack of
> template ideas on the lists. It will be a good collection point for
> ideas.

Do you think we will have some 3-5 regulars in a templates forum? If not, I
would postpone separating those out until such a group condesates and asks for
it.

> I have no problems with this either. Although, I can see others
> having problems with it. I was never too clear on what the
> "projects" mailing list was all about as it seems we are all
> advertising on it and discussions are happening more and more on it.
> It may be better to have a "Discuss" forum with a sub-forum
> "Projects" where only decided projects are announced. The discuss
> list is very active and it is hard to pull projects from any of the
> threads.

Well, on the mailing lists, there is a benefit of separating the projects list
for important 'semi-official' stuff like minutes of calls from the noise and
volume of unrestrained brainstorming. However, a forum does not pollute an
inbox as a mailing list does and an it is possible to move off topic threads
out of it, before they create trouble.

> Not sure about this. I would prefer the marketing punch of a
> LibOLounge (where some of the characters look like :-b) or any other
> clever stuff that our user-base can come up in a competition. and,
> we should have a disclaimer sticky on it as well as the rules for
> off-topic conversations. We should not be afraid to stick our name
> in on the "fun room" rather than have it only associated with the
> serious part of the project. Life is too short.

Well, take it as a personal opinion and something for people to keep in mind
when voting on the proposals in the competition. ;)

Best,

Bjoern