On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Søren Hauberg <[email protected]> wrote: > ons, 16 12 2009 kl. 14:16 -0500, skrev Judd Storrs: >> Just playing devils advocate here for a bit. > > :-) Then I'll ask some stupid questions (because I actually don't know > the answer...)
Sure, however, I will say that I believe the wiki is far superior to a forum. >> * Sticky posts i.e. dedicated threads that hang around. For a while >> there was a lot of trouble compiling octave on ubuntu and it really >> wasn't that easy to find the old posts. > > Who would mark threads as sticky? (and unmark the threads later on) In forums I think that's done by section moderators. I've seen forums where the sub-categories are set up with some accounts able to moderate within specific sections. In some forums each section sort of develops it's own sort of community but it really takes dedication for that to work out. In any case, I prefer wiki pages over forums. >> * Forum sections would be nice and search doesn't always work out. >> For example if I want to know what's going on in image processing in >> octave, I'm not sure all posts will have the term "image processing". > > Who would determine what goes in which threads? In forums this is based on where the submitter posted the question. i.e. the submitter asking about an image processing question would post the question to the "Image Processing" section of the forum. I don't know how that could work for things that originate from a mailing list backend... >> * Forums can be easier to browse if you're just curious and want to >> learn. For example there could be a forum on vectorization tricks. How >> would you search for that? > > Often people start out with asking a question about one thing. The > thread then slowly changes topic and some neat trick about vectorisation > is given. Who would make sure this trick would end up in a vectorisation > section? That is definitely true. I think the forum approach would rely on the section structure and expect questions to be posted inside a section perhaps called "Performance optimization". >> * Subscribing to a mailing list does seem to require a greater level >> of commitment than a forum including setting up filtering rules etc. >> Occasionally, I've hit a forum and I can answer a question I'll just >> create a quick account and join the discussion. > > Good point, although I must admit I'm not sure it's actually "quick" to > create an account. It depends. OpenID could reduce that hurdle if someone wanted to go that route. >> * Search doesn't work if you don't know the shop-talk. > > I would claim that nothing works if you don't know the shop-talk. How > can you find the 'vectorisation' section if you don't know said term? I think the idea is that forum sections can act like an index. Sure you may not know that vectorization is maybe what you want but if you see a section called "Performance" with perhaps a subsection called "Vectorization" you can click around and discover some things. Of course you can also click around and discover things on a wiki. The wiki is a dramatically superior approach for presenting learnable material, IMHO. >> Presumably an alternative would be to create separate mailing lists >> for each octave-help-ubuntu@, octave-help-image-processing@, >> octave-help-vectorization-tricks@, ... But to me that seems even worse >> than doing nothing. > > Agreed. That would be worse. R has setup some "special interest group" mailing lists. I don't think we have nearly as much volume as R. > I must, however, stress that I don't have the time to actually implement > this, so somebody else would have to do the leg-work... I think my feelings are aligned with your's and Jaroslav's on this. If the forum was there, honestly I'm not sure I would use. If all of us are using the mail backend, what's the point? The huge down-side of running a forum is that it does require dedication and vigilance both on the administration and moderation fronts. If enough people are interested, active moderation work can be handled by deputies. If not, then it's a burden. Honestly, help@ hasn't been very high volume since I've joined, anyway. I personally don't see the effort/benefit curve working out at the moment. --judd ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Octave-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/octave-dev
