[Libreoffice-qa] Forums Proposal

[Marc Paré]

Le 2012-10-06 17:20, Bjoern Michaelsen a écrit :
 > 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. ;)

Sorry, doesn't work for me. If the place is too full with noise, I can't 
hear myself think and I go elsewhere where people like me congregate ... 
in this case the AOO forums.

 >
 >> 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.

It has already been hatched and given its own life. It would drown in 
any other list. Otherwise, un-mandate and refocus on another sector. I 
would still favour a list on its own. We are trying to get a market of 
around 320 million users on-board and I think its worth being a little 
more focused in this one. We need a re-boot on this one.
 >
 >> 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.
 >

Well, I would rather give it a try, we do have a template site that we 
should be supporting with a forums. This would give us a chance to get 
more traction right from the start.

 >> 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 really sure what you mean.

 >
 >> 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. ;)
 >

I don't really think this is a big concern from my end. Not sure if it 
should be. If it is it would come from the BoD I guess.

 > Best,
 >
 > Bjoern

All in all I can't say I agree on your approach to forums. You seem to 
expect the brunt of all activity on a forums to come from the 
participants. More of a "let's wait for them to come" approach. Hence, 
the lets start with few categories and break out later. This is more of 
a passive approach to running a forums

I, however, think that a good categorization of a forums will have a 
better appeal to our users and with good moderation will fill. I also 
think that we should not only moderate, but also create "buzz" on our 
forums. Moderators are not only there to help direct traffic 
(un-obtrusively) but also create "buzz" and discussion. If moderators 
sign up for the job, then they should commit to grow their forums and 
make them attractive for user appeal. If a forum has become silent, then 
it would be up to the forums admins to sit and determine the actions to 
market and help popularize it. This is more of an aggressive approach to 
growing a forums.

We should also keep in mind that some of our long-time users are on the 
AOO forums being helped and the categorization there seems to work quite 
well. You only need to look at their numbers to realize that common 
sense categorization works[1] and where new forums appear these are more 
of a targeted and deliberate choice (as in the case of the US marketing 
forums, this is more of a concerted group effort from the part of the 
whole TDF/LibreOffice team).

I have CC'd this to the discuss list where we are trying to centralize 
the discussion on this topic (this mentioned in our original post).

Cheers,

Marc

[1] http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/

-- 
Marc Paré
Marc at MarcPare.com
http://www.parEntreprise.com
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