On Tue, 2011-08-23 at 18:08 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: > On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 5:40 PM, Jean Weber <jeanwe...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Idle curiosity: I wonder how many people who offer support do it in both > > places: mailing list and forum, or more or exclusively in one or the other. > > > > Personal observation (not intended as a generalization): my preferences > > vary with whether I'm a consumer or a provider of support services. As a > > consumer, I generally prefer a forum, but as a provider I prefer an email > > list. Perhaps I'm just weird, or set in my ways... :-) > > > > I think it is like this: a mailing list is best for a long-term > relationship. It has some a user to subscribe and set up filters and > folders and such, to optimize it for the mail app. But once done, it > works smoothly. You have a local, searchable archive, etc. > > But if you are a user who has a quick question, but are not savvy > about mailing lists, then the forum is the simplest solution. It > allows you to have a few exchanges about your problem and then go away > and come back 6 months later with another question. But very little > overhead. Forums are also easier to research your issue in, since they > are fine grained, e.g., a forum for Calc, another for UNO, etc. If we > tried to replicate this same capability with mailing lists we'd need > 10 languages x 15 forums per language = 150 mailing lists. > > But my previous point was this is all about differences in access > methods --
There is actually more to it then that. There is much that can be done in a forum that can not, easily, be done with a mailing list. Then there is the ability with a web interface to offer more then just a post/reply format - for example. Come to the forum and go to any modules list and the first you find is a ink to the current manual... You can offer custom search functions. Topics can be flagged for quality of reply. etc, etc. //drew
