Solution Coming Re: Fedora Community: Under threat?

[David Liguori]

Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 15:04 -0600, akonstam at trinity.edu wrote:
> 
>>I don't know where is opposition to the list is coming from but I see
>>no real problem with the list as it exists.
> 
> 
> Good point, and one I would like to echo. This list *can* continue as it
> is. It is not actively causing harm to the community.
> 
> Then again, it could be improved:
> 
>  - Better searching of archives
>  - More flexible ways to access its content
>  - Greater ease for newbies in learning its use
>  - Greater ease for experts in wading through 8,000 messages/month
>    trying to find questions to answer
>  - Greater control over malware
> 
> Probably a few more I've missed off the top of my head. But moving from
> the mailing list to web fora is not going to improve anything, and will
> certainly cause some harm.
> 
> 	1. I'm nearly the most-prolific poster on Piper Chat
> (www.piperchat.com) and it watches to see whether there's a reply to a
> conversation in which I participate. That's nice for newbies. However,
> actively trying to find new things that might be of interest to me
> entails a daily visit to the site, trawling the various areas to see if
> something was posted. Takes a good five minutes of my time, and that's
> on a board that gets 5-10 messages a day! Bleagh.
> 
> If fedora-list were only fedora-webfora, I would find it so difficult
> and so time-consuming to help others that my current activity level
> would be severely curtailed. I can go through a day's posts in fedora-
> list within five to ten minutes... I cannot do that with web fora.
> 
> Without people who want to help others, or with any marked reduction in
> those people, the Fedora community suffers grievous harm.
> 
> 	2. Adding independent web fora to the mailing list (remember, Warren
> said fedora-list would not close) is a recipe for disaster. Some people
> would move to the web fora, some would stay on the mailing list, very
> few (almost none?) would monitor both, and you then have a fragmented
> community. And I'll bet you that most of the experts stay on the mailing
> list, leaving the web fora an empty shell that's not very useful to
> newbies since a neat interface is no substitute for content.
> 
> Let's find something that helps everyone, I say. So I repeat: let us
> move to NNTP as a *base* protocol, with news-to-mail and news-to-web
> gateways so that each person may choose whatever tool/interface they
> prefer. All those protocols, gateways, and interfaces already exist! No
> need to reinvent the wheel here.
> 
> If someone objects to NNTP, I am willing to listen. But please, let
> proposed solutions be those that ADD flexibility and robustness instead
> of removing it.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
Wow, this thread is getting longer than the ones that prompted the original post!

Anyway, my preferences would be: NNTP (10 out of 10), keep the mailing list as is (9 out of 10) and web forum (1 out of 10).

 --
David Liguori