Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-21 Thread Redvers Davies
On Tue, 2007-02-20 at 14:19 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> Usenet was (well, is, but it has been dying for a long time)

at 3.2Tb of data a day it's far from dead.

> The bad part was that the flood
> fill mechanism means every site in the network has to carry *all*
> traffic even if no one locally is reading a particular
> topic.

... ish.

A usenet server could decide on a group by group or heirarchy by
heirarchy basis what it wanted to take in a feed.  Usenet admins were
encouraged to take everything since that kept article propagation
strongest.

> "Someday" I'd love to create a next generation Usenet that fixed all
> this -- I would distribute only "newsgroup announcements" rather than
> the newsgroups themselves, make the topic namespace subdivided by
> domain names to eliminate the "global namepsace" problem, and use
> a bit-torrent like "centrally tracked but peer to peer distributed"
> transfer method to eliminate the need for giant news spools. However,
> realistically, I'll never have the month to do the work.

There is a project there for sure.  Usenet isn't broken - it just didn't
scale well.  Keeping up with that volume of data now has to be done by
dedicated companies.

I remember when I ran an ISP I siphoned off an almost full newsfeed to
my home machine.  Something that isn't really possible anymore :-)




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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Steven **

I think Gmail handles mailing lists pretty well.  It works just fine
with this list.  I just added a filter that labels and archives all
mail to the list.  Gmail handles the threading very well and will even
let you see old messages you previously deleted for each thread.

But obviously, I only see the mail since I joined the list.  Which is
why the list gets so many "I don't know if this has been discussed
before" emails.

-Steven

On 2/20/07, kenneth marken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 February 2007 21:05:35 kenneth marken wrote:
>> its fully possible in some forums to have proper threading...
>>
>
> And that's mostly true (leaving mails from broken email clients aside) for
> mailinglists as well. I think in Thunderbird you should barely be able to
> tell whether you are using a newsgroup or a mailinglist if you configure it
> correctly (but it's been a while since I used Thunderbird for either).
>

well, as newsgroups go in their own folder tree its not hard at all.

mailing lists is a different story, but you can allways set up a filter
that puts new mails from the list into its own folder. and yes, you can
have them all sorted by thread if you want to...

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Jon Phillips
On Tue, 2007-02-20 at 21:20 +0100, kenneth marken wrote:
> Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> > On Tuesday 20 February 2007 21:05:35 kenneth marken wrote:
> >> its fully possible in some forums to have proper threading...
> >>
> > 
> > And that's mostly true (leaving mails from broken email clients aside) for 
> > mailinglists as well. I think in Thunderbird you should barely be able to 
> > tell whether you are using a newsgroup or a mailinglist if you configure it 
> > correctly (but it's been a while since I used Thunderbird for either).
> > 
> 
> well, as newsgroups go in their own folder tree its not hard at all.
> 
> mailing lists is a different story, but you can allways set up a filter 
> that puts new mails from the list into its own folder. and yes, you can 
> have them all sorted by thread if you want to...

Hi all, this is all interesting. It is key for us all to focus our
energy on OpenMoko on these lists.

I would recommend if you all are into forums, you have everything to
create them on your own as user forums or whatever.

This is the approach we took with Inkscape, as developers time is for
focused attention on the project and not on infrastructure development.

Jon

-- 
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USA PH 510.499.0894
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.rejon.org

MSN, AIM, Yahoo Chat: kidproto
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IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread kenneth marken

Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:

On Tuesday 20 February 2007 21:05:35 kenneth marken wrote:

its fully possible in some forums to have proper threading...



And that's mostly true (leaving mails from broken email clients aside) for 
mailinglists as well. I think in Thunderbird you should barely be able to 
tell whether you are using a newsgroup or a mailinglist if you configure it 
correctly (but it's been a while since I used Thunderbird for either).




well, as newsgroups go in their own folder tree its not hard at all.

mailing lists is a different story, but you can allways set up a filter 
that puts new mails from the list into its own folder. and yes, you can 
have them all sorted by thread if you want to...


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RE: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Sam Kome

Sorry to bend the thread a little, but I wanted to respond to Andreas'
T9 comment. My position is neutral; T9 seems to work well for some
people and some purposes, not so well for others.

These folks did a decent usability test that should be useful to
consider when designing the onscreen keypad/board.  It compares T9 to
Fastap: 
(You'll want a new-fangled browser)

http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/video_fastap/

Conclusion: T9 has a steeper learning curve but is more efficient for a
new user. 

I think the Fastap layout sacrifices familiarity to conserve space.
What should work better (imo, ymmv) with an onscreen input is a quick
way to flip between a numeric keypad and a qwerty/configurable keyboard.



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andreas
Kostyrka
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 2:05 PM
To: Joe Pfeiffer
Cc: community@lists.openmoko.org
Subject: Re: Forums Page?

* Joe Pfeiffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [070220 19:57]:
> My children (I've got one who just finished his undergrad degree in
> CS, and a second who is a pre-med) don't send much email, but are
> constantly texting.

Well, I do texting mostly on phones with a sensible keyboard or
grafitti entry system. And no, T9 is not a sensible input method IMHO.

Andreas

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Gabriel Ambuehl
On Tuesday 20 February 2007 21:05:35 kenneth marken wrote:
> its fully possible in some forums to have proper threading...
>

And that's mostly true (leaving mails from broken email clients aside) for 
mailinglists as well. I think in Thunderbird you should barely be able to 
tell whether you are using a newsgroup or a mailinglist if you configure it 
correctly (but it's been a while since I used Thunderbird for either).


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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread kenneth marken

Paul Bonser wrote:

On 2/20/07, Perry E. Metzger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> which seems to have a lot of what you're looking for (a lot of the
>> discussion on the various mailling lists seems to end up getting
>> distilled into wiki articles).
>
> It's interesting to note that most youngsters seem to prefer forums, 
and most
> of us old-timers (IIRC you're my age, Joe) prefer mailing lists. I 
wonder why

> that is?

The youngsters have seen a lot of web based posting systems, don't
remember usenet, don't have decent email systems that segregate lists
into different boxes, and thus don't understand why anyone would use
email or what the problems of web posting systems are.

Perry

You talk about it like usenet isn't around anymore.
I'm 23 and I remember usenet. It came in handy back in the day when I
was learning C++. I think that proper threading is much more useful
than the linear "threads" in web forums these days..



its fully possible in some forums to have proper threading...

and yes, im familiar with usenet. i even have a list of groups set up in 
thunderbird that i have not checked in ages...



Anyway, I suppose that despite the fact that I might be considered a
"youngster", I consider myself much less "technologically young" that
most people my age.



good for you :)


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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Paul Bonser

On 2/20/07, Perry E. Metzger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> which seems to have a lot of what you're looking for (a lot of the
>> discussion on the various mailling lists seems to end up getting
>> distilled into wiki articles).
>
> It's interesting to note that most youngsters seem to prefer forums, and most
> of us old-timers (IIRC you're my age, Joe) prefer mailing lists. I wonder why
> that is?

The youngsters have seen a lot of web based posting systems, don't
remember usenet, don't have decent email systems that segregate lists
into different boxes, and thus don't understand why anyone would use
email or what the problems of web posting systems are.

Perry

You talk about it like usenet isn't around anymore.
I'm 23 and I remember usenet. It came in handy back in the day when I
was learning C++. I think that proper threading is much more useful
than the linear "threads" in web forums these days..

Anyway, I suppose that despite the fact that I might be considered a
"youngster", I consider myself much less "technologically young" that
most people my age.

--
Paul Bonser

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Joe Pfeiffer
mathew davis writes:
>
>It's funny that you mention that I am only 24 so I guess I would fit in the
>youngster category.  I don't even know what usenet is.  I guess
>that's why

usenet is a huge, distributed bulletin board system with topics groups
on every conceivable (and many inconceivable) subject.  If you're
familiar with Google Groups, that's actually a huge usenet server with
a really, really bad interface.

>phones are starting to be the great meadator of communication between
>generations, you can e-mail now, SMS, or call.  You can even use the GPS to
>show up at their door step.  Funny how things are starting to merge together
>huh.  Computer programs, internet programs, and phone programs.  I bet in 5
>- 10 years there won't be a distinguishable difference between the
>three.

I believe you're exactly right.  I'm a little surprised it's taken
this long; when I saw my first PalmOS phone in something like 1999 I
thought the convergence was just around the corner.

A friend of mine mentioned the other day that his Windows Mobile phone
works just like his PC:  he turns it on, the keyboard locks up, he has
to reboot...

>That's why I think this phone is so great.  It is the start of the
>integration.  Soon people will just have data associated with them.  And
>they can access it from anywhere at anytime.  I am excited to see where this
>OpenMoko and the OLPC things take us.

Yep.

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Perry E. Metzger

Andreas Kostyrka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> * mathew davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [070220 19:57]:
>>It's funny that you mention that I am only 24 so I guess I would fit in
>>the youngster category.  I don't even know what usenet is.  I guess that's
> usenet, news => it's just a very email-ish forum system. It's older
> than the "Internet" ;)

Technically it isn't -- the Internet dates to the mid-1970s and the
creation of IPv4 and TCP, where Usenet dates to early 1980s work done
at UNC.

Perry

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Perry E. Metzger

"mathew davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> It's funny that you mention that I am only 24 so I guess I would fit in the
> youngster category.  I don't even know what usenet is.

Usenet was (well, is, but it has been dying for a long time) a global
system in which RFC-822 style messages (same format as email) were
presented to the user in semi-hierarchically structured
"newsgroups". The term "news" was the idiosyncratic name given to said
messages. The messages were distributed by a "flood fill" mechanism
among participating hosts, initially via uucp in the era of dialup and
then later over TCP via the NNTP protocol. Large numbers of "news
readers" were developed, with interesting user interfaces.

Usenet had excellent the feature that it allowed people around the
world to participate in discussions of technical topics without having
to know a priori that the topics existed (since the news reader
allowed you to browse all groups) and without having to specifically
"subscribe then wait" (since you could see messages that had been
posted before you actually "joined"). The bad part was that the flood
fill mechanism means every site in the network has to carry *all*
traffic even if no one locally is reading a particular
topic. Ultimately this architectural issue and the failure to address
it is what killed Usenet -- a decentralized architecture would have
preserved it.

Today, RSS readers somewhat simulate the feel of "newsgroups", but
with serious technical downsides (including polling, and needing to
fetch everything and not just updates every time you do an RSS poll)
and without the interactivity or standardized message format.

"Someday" I'd love to create a next generation Usenet that fixed all
this -- I would distribute only "newsgroup announcements" rather than
the newsgroups themselves, make the topic namespace subdivided by
domain names to eliminate the "global namepsace" problem, and use
a bit-torrent like "centrally tracked but peer to peer distributed"
transfer method to eliminate the need for giant news spools. However,
realistically, I'll never have the month to do the work.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Andreas Kostyrka
* mathew davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [070220 19:57]:
>It's funny that you mention that I am only 24 so I guess I would fit in
>the youngster category.  I don't even know what usenet is.  I guess that's
usenet, news => it's just a very email-ish forum system. It's older
than the "Internet" ;)

Andreas

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Andreas Kostyrka
* Joe Pfeiffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [070220 19:57]:
> My children (I've got one who just finished his undergrad degree in
> CS, and a second who is a pre-med) don't send much email, but are
> constantly texting.

Well, I do texting mostly on phones with a sensible keyboard or
grafitti entry system. And no, T9 is not a sensible input method IMHO.

Andreas

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Perry E. Metzger

[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> which seems to have a lot of what you're looking for (a lot of the
>> discussion on the various mailling lists seems to end up getting
>> distilled into wiki articles).
>
> It's interesting to note that most youngsters seem to prefer forums, and most
> of us old-timers (IIRC you're my age, Joe) prefer mailing lists. I wonder why
> that is?

The youngsters have seen a lot of web based posting systems, don't
remember usenet, don't have decent email systems that segregate lists
into different boxes, and thus don't understand why anyone would use
email or what the problems of web posting systems are.

Perry

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread Andreas Kostyrka
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [070220 19:57]:
> It's interesting to note that most youngsters seem to prefer forums, and most
> of us old-timers (IIRC you're my age, Joe) prefer mailing lists. I wonder why
> that is?

I think it's not a question of age as such. It's mostly a question of
technical competence related to mail. And yes, I started using the
"net" when sites with email-only hookup were seldom but still existed.
;)

Andreas

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Re: Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread mathew davis

On 2/20/07, Joe Pfeiffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
>It's interesting to note that most youngsters seem to prefer forums, and
most
>of us old-timers (IIRC you're my age, Joe) prefer mailing lists. I wonder
why
>that is?

I don't know how old you are, but I'm afraid I count as an oldster
these days...  there are some definite generational things I've
noticed.  Preference for forums (and the ongoing decline and slow
death of usenet is related -- when my university stopped supporting it
a few weeks ago because their upstream feed stopped, they told me I
was the only regular usenet reader left on campus) is one of them;
another is text messaging on phones.  It just never occurs to me to
send an SMS; I almost always email, and phone if that's impractical.



It's funny that you mention that I am only 24 so I guess I would fit in the
youngster category.  I don't even know what usenet is.  I guess that's why
phones are starting to be the great meadator of communication between
generations, you can e-mail now, SMS, or call.  You can even use the GPS to
show up at their door step.  Funny how things are starting to merge together
huh.  Computer programs, internet programs, and phone programs.  I bet in 5
- 10 years there won't be a distinguishable difference between the three.
That's why I think this phone is so great.  It is the start of the
integration.  Soon people will just have data associated with them.  And
they can access it from anywhere at anytime.  I am excited to see where this
OpenMoko and the OLPC things take us.
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Forums Page?

2007-02-20 Thread mathew davis

Hi I am kind of new to mailing lists so forgive me if I am steping on
anyones toes.

I am used to working with forums more than mailing lists and find them to be
a little easier for newcomers to work with than mailing lists.  Is there a
plan for a forum?  I think that it may not be as important to have a forum
now as it will say when the phone is released and there will be a lot more
people trying to find more organized data.  I have given this just a little
thought and some input from more experianced people would be welcome.  Here
is the layout that I have though could work.

For the forum you could have the following layout.

Announcements - would contain things like product releases, firmware
upgrades, patches, press releases, and the road map.
Getting Started - would contain things like, what the project is, what you
can do to help, how you can get started, forum rules, how you can start
developi9ng.
Community - would be the place for the general questions and wish list.
• Phone FAQ - contain FAQ's about the phones apps, Hardware, and future
of the phone.
• General Phone Questions - would be a place for users to get trouble
shooting answers (probably the most used when phone is released).
• Applications - would contain discussions about apps that come
packaged with the phone.
• Wish List - A place where people could post inovative new ideas and
approaches to problems to be implimented in future versions of the phones
and firmware.
Distribution - Would contain discussions about the distribution aspect of
the phone.
Development - This would be the place for developers to get answers and find
answers.
• OpenMoko Framework - Would be the place for people working on the
framework.
• Applications - This is where App developers can go for help and ideas
to get their apps working and looking good.
• Theming/Skinning - This would be a place where people can go to learn
how to make the designs hot and how to develop their own Theme for the
phone. (Maybe could be moved up a level)
• GSM Architecture - Here users can learn how the gsmd/libgsmd work
with the phone and development.
• Third Party Applications - Here third party developers could meet and
discuss problems and solutions.
• Linux Kernel - This could be a place for people to find answers about
the linux kernel and can contribute to future versions.
• OpenMoko u-boot - Here users can learn how to use the u-boot and find
answers to questions.

Of course more layers can be added and more forums can be added as the need
is realized.  As far as I can see right now here are what I am seeing about
the Pro's and Con's to a forum.

*PRO'S*
- Easier for new comers to get at information they are seeking.
- More organized than mailing lists and meets somewhere in the middle of a
mailing list and a wiki..
- A forum is searchable.
- I believe a forum's layout and use are more well known that mailing lists
and wiki's.
- It will help grow the comunity and be another resource to the OpenMoko
comunity.

*CON'S*
- It will require people to moderate and take care of the Forums.
- It could create overlap with the mailing lists and could spawn some
confusion with mailing list users.
- It will need to be created by someone and hosted by someone.
- Planning will be required.

Of course this could be taken care of by anyone.  And the forum could be
maintained by experianced volunteers.  And maybe down the road through adds
and other fund generating methods it could become self sustaining and some
of the volunteers could then become compensated.  I am sorry if I am way out
on a limb here but this was something that I was looking for and was
dissapointed when i could not find one.  Any input here would be great.
Also if there is a forum somewhere and I have not found it I am sorry to
have cluttered up the mailing list with this rambling and if you could point
me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Matt
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