A really quick "study" based on number of post on the EN forums that shows, IMO, some interesting information.
Fist the numbers, then some "analysis" on those numbers. Note, long post below... ======================================== Number of Topics: T Number of Posts: P Ratio Posts/Topics: R Classified By App Writer T = 11984 P = 61938 R = 5.17 Calc T = 9072 P = 45646 R = 5.03 Base T = 4858 P = 22895 R = 4.71 Impress T = 1718 P = 7197 R = 4.19 Draw T = 634 P = 2930 R = 4.62 Math T = 198 P = 1009 R = 5.1 Particular Forums Beginners T = 502 P = 2200 R = 4.38 Setup and Troubleshooting T = 10048 (MS: 4058; Linux: 1324; OSX: 1119; non classified: 3547) P = 47644 (MS: 19362; Linux: 6559; OSX: 5352; non classified: 16371) R = 4.74 (MS: 4.77; Linux: 4.95; OSX: 4.78; non classified: 4.62) Macro T = 3423 P = 15571 R = 4.55 Discussion Forums General Discussion T = 1017 P = 6283 R = 6.18 Site Feedback (including Forum Governance) T = 344 P = 2635 R = 7.66 Totals T = 44468 P = 225242 R = 5.07 ======================================== Some quick observations: - The most used forums are Writer, then Setup and Troubleshooting, then Calc, then a big gap, then the rest - There are around 5 messages on each thread on forums dedicated to the different apps - Setup problems on Linux need more work than on the other platforms - Beginners forum have the lowest Post/Topic ratio: 4.38 - Discussion forums have the highest Post/Topic ratios: 6.18 and 7.66 Some quick conclusions from these observations: - The Post/Topic ratio is always high, which means that interaction with users is always needed. Solving AOO problems always need a lot of feedback and investigation. The immediate conclusion is that systems like stack overflow, yahoo answers and similar will never work here: those systems are useful when questions have unique answers that you can evaluate, vote and classify, not when feedback (more information, sample documents, different trials...) is needed. - Setup and troubleshooting numbers are perhaps too high: this show that users have big problems not only using the software, but on making it run properly. To have so many installation problems, spell check problems, crash problems... is a bad sign: to take the software and make it run should be the easiest part. But on the positive side we have that the ratio is lower than on the other forums: setup problems are easier to solve than, say, Writer problems. - As already mentioned, the ratio for Linux setup problems is the highest. That's not necessarily a problem with our Linux builds: Linux distros always made a big mess when packaging their highly patched versions of OOo and now LibO. Problems to install AOO on ubuntu or fedora because the way they packaged LibO is a good example. - The low ratio on Beginners forum is a good signal: it means that real beginners come with simple problems that have an easy solution. More advanced users have more demanding problems that need more interaction resulting on the higher ratio on the other forums. But perhaps the ratio en Beginners forum should be even lower: ideally, simple problems should have a ratio close to 2 (one question + one answer). - Higher ratios on discussion forums is good, but maybe not good enough: most forum users do not engage on discussions, they are only interested on solving their problems. - Something else? Regards Ricardo