Sheila Mooney wrote:
Who would be responsible for checking this list regularly and replying
to users?
The same than the people who would be responsible if users were to post
questions to the design or dev lists (in the absence of a user/help
list)... I mean, having a separate list for users does not make the
responsibility harder or easier to manage. So the answer can't help us
know if we should or shouldn't have such a list and the responsibility
of getting back to users is still there.
I think that *everyone* in the core staff should be registered to such a
list and feel empowered to interact with users. The point of having a
user/help list is to provide a clear place for people to post and a
clear place for us to interact with end users. We should advertise that
list in the Chandler About Box or, better, have a Help menu item that
directs to it. If we're skirmish about putting the design or dev list
email address there, then that's a clear sign we need a separate list
right now.
One thing I'd recommend is to have one single list for the whole
ecosystem (Cosmo/Scooby/Chandler): it will alleviate the list
proliferation concern and reinforce the "brand" and the concept of an
ecosystem for users. That was the idea at the beginning of this thread
(a [EMAIL PROTECTED]) but then we started to talk about "-user"
lists so it looks like we went toward multiple lists unconsciously.
With time, some group of users will emerge and carry the load of
questions without much prompting from the core team. This is what I've
observed in commercial products forum BTW. Very often, the core team is
only lurking and gets engaged in discussion at the beginning of a new
release (since most of the questions are new). Also often, the most
active users get recruited in design lists so that their input is taken
into account.
+1 for having such a list as soon as alpha 4 and have it advertise in
the product.
Cheers,
- Philippe
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