I am posting with a specific topic, but want to thank David Sommers
for his recent post expressing caution about "splitting" discussion between
the new VistaOffice (which is a forum) and the historically unified hardhats
(which of course is a mail list) I don't have a confident answer for that, but
I am reviving an older question *will hardhats convert to a forum style*
I believe the time to convert is now, although I realize some folks might still
prefer the email mode (and if the tools are difficult to maintain identical
content in both emaillist and forum application modes, I think forum should be
the sole choice)
For Friday 7/29 there were about 150 email postings, but volume is not the
entire issue. The threads are long (which is proof of effort) and problem
solving and teaching is a multifocal conversation necessarily. I think a *forum
is much more readable* than a succession of emails, whether in your own
cherished mail client or in the archives of hardhats. Email clients and archives
require a click to move to each new post and often have confusing styles for the
sequence of pasting past copy into a reply. *Forum mode transcends the pasting
of prior thread content* and it presents a cleaner read for pasting into your
PIM or linking into other sites like wiki etc ( I do wish that the HTML of forum
archives treated each forum post as a document anchor for more granular linking)
If we believe that our postings should have the discipline to leave a trail of
solutions ....that alone speaks for using a forum archive so that content is
more readable by subsequent visitors (not to mention our interacting usage)
If it is appropriate to have the OpenOffice/hardhats split according to the
guidelines just now posted by Joseph , I think it is all the more important to
convert hardhats to forum, if only to handle the additional traffic that will
occur on hardhats. That said it's probably valuable to have the forum interface
just for readability.
Right now there is not a large mass of forum content in the universe of
hardhats/worldvista/mumps/gtm to reflect upon, but visit this link as an example
of a mature sourceforge project with lots of history to feed newcomers:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=10226
Pick a thread with 20 or 30 replies and consider its readability.
Now read this archive of Hardhats email thread (on the topic of OpenForum)
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=10218400
Thanks for David Sommers link to the excellent article on technical tools and
social actions
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Now that the VistaOffice has been given its guidelines and vehicle as a
forum, the core group that guides hardhats must face these questions on the mode
for handling big traffic at hardhats. I don't know the methods for this
decision among venerable hardhats, but after some discussion and some process
that probably thankfully won't be called voting...I'm sure everyone can take
whatever changes in stride.
Rusty Maynard
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