Hi, I would like to add my 2 cents worth.
First, I like having a mailing list. I do not post very frequently but I do like to scan the posts of others. It is a great way to learn little tricks and tips about MySQL. Second, I don't see why you can't have both a mailing list and an on-line forum. I have used FuseTalk in the past and I remember receiving email on threads that I was interested in so it is possible. So the data can be retrieved and stored via a mail interface and a Web interface. Third, this is a general comment. Don't spout off unless you are willing to help be part of the solution. Asking a question in the form of a complaint or a rant may make you feel good but it is generally not well received. That said, does anyone have any suggestions on how this forum could be made more accessible? The one that seems to be most prevalent at the moment is the Web interface. Keep in mind that the good people at MySQL suffer from the same time and financial constraints as you do so don't ask for the moon unless you are willing to help go and get it. All appropriately tagged rants accepted. John Griffin -----Original Message----- From: Seth Brundle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 2:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Could we make this a web discussion forum? First people, please dont get all angry about my suggestion...please hear me out... > I really hate on-line forums. They're difficult to track because I > must remember visit them daily. OK this is the first issue - 95% of people who need MySQL info do not need it daily. Mailing lists are a poor tool for them. > And I can't use them while disconnected. Hmmmm...seems like some Yahoo! employee has never used Yahoo! Groups ;) There is plenty of web discussion software (like Yahoo! Groups, although I'm not necessarily recommending that one) where you can still have all of the features of a mailing list, yet also have all the features of web discussion, so there really is no reason to have a mailing list only, except to be old-school. > > A web discussion board is a much more powerful and flexible tool for > > this type of community. > > Hmm. E-mail has been around for a long, long time. I'm skeptical of > this claim. Just because its been around longer means its better? Or should never be augmented? I'm just saying that usenet groups and discussion forums solved the problem of belonging to too many mailing lists. If every package I used involved a mailing list for discussion, I would need to track about 40 of them. Right now the only mailing lists I really am stuck using is MySQL and ImageMagick. ImageMagick is the worst, as there is no archive (well, there are monthly gz's - big help - gah) and requires subscription. If you want to ask a single question, you are obliged to subscribe and suck down all the daily traffic (more traffic then MySQL) until your thread is dead. I guess my hatred for mailing groups has more to do with that list then this one. Every time I want to get involved I have to go figure out - OK, hmmmm trying to remember do I need to subscribe? Whats that process? > > Thread tracking, archiving, searching > E-mail gives you all of those. Unless you have the entire history of the mailing list downloaded to your mail spool and have a very powerful, feature-rich, and most importatly very fast email search tool, you cant both search archives and post messages with the same piece of software. Email is ok for thread tracking if subject integrity is maintained, but most email clients cant reliably collapse and expand threads. > > Cant we convert this into a discussion board or better yet just make > > the usenet group mirror postable from google groups? > > I believe there is already a read-only NNTP mirror of this group. The NNTP mirror is actually a double-edged sword - yes it takes care of archiving and searching (via Google Groups), I will agree, but it misleads infrequent users into thinking posting actually does something meaningful. > > There are 4 lists like this one where I have to continuously > > subscribe and unsubscribe throughout the year when I want to > > participate. > > Why must you subscribe and unsubscribe to participate? There's no > membership requirement to post here. And you can always read the > messages on-line. There are at least 2 web archives of this group. > You've seen those, right? I know that Google has. Sorry, I didnt realize that I didnt need to subscribe to post - but again, this is one of those rules for each mailing list that you must remember, which is a PIA. Yes, if you live here, it is not a problem of remembering, but 95% of people who use MySQL dont require that level of involvement. > > Also emails get mirrored on google groups for convenient spam > > harvesting - its really a pain in the butt. > > How would using a web forum help that? Because most modern web forum software has an option to hide your email address. Also a web forum has a lot of other advantages: -Easily break discussion into sub-categories (especially for MySQL, where SQL questions are combined with everything else, would be nice to break that out) -Sticky posts with general, important, and first-timer information -Better threading, allowing subject change and collapsing/expanding threads -Web Forums have the search box and a link menu to other resources at the top (source downloads, documentation, related sites) rather then needing to switch between web and email applications to integrate resources. -Dont break long URLs. -Heavily quoted emails easier to read. -Thread listings can show #replies, views, age, even have ratings and show OP. -Facilitate private messages without using email. Also, a lot of people are adverse to web collaboration because most free discussion software is crap. It is either not very powerful, poorly designed, or difficult to install and/or maintain. There is very powerful stuff out there that is very well designed, you just need to kick down for it. FuseTalk seems like an excellent package. FatWallet.com uses it. I'm sure there are more relevant implementation examples as theirs is kinda hokey and fun, which isnt specific to the software package itself, but the features are astounding and very useful. I love its ability for users to rate thread quality. SourceForge is a great idea, but a poorly designed system. Obviously a package designed by an engineer, its a mess. -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
