Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
"Ampere K. Hardraade" wrote: > Nope. I can sort mails by thread, date, and author fine. It's just that I > feel a message board is more organized. In anycase, it doesn't matter, as > majority of the developers object to the idea of switching to a message > board. To my recognition most arguments are not against the idea of a message board, instead people simply object to the idea of a web forum. Let's face it: These web forums are nothing but a poor man's Usenet: A really good idea combined with a really bad implementation. We could try the "real thing", if people want to. To my knowledge the newer releases of Mailman allow for communication with a news server, this could be a way to go if you really want a message board like system. Cheers, Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:21:59 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I think a forum is a great idea. The biggest advantage I see over > most mailing lists is that a forum is searchable. I see too many > F/OSS projects with mailing lists that aren't searchable. Having a > searchable forum/list really cuts down on duplicate questions. ..huh? Any modern email client can do backtraffic searches. > Having said that, I really like phpBB for forum software. It's > actively developed, has a lot of mods, and has an active community. > It can also use PostgreSQL, so you won't have to use MySQL. > > Another feature I really like is a mod for phpBB called "Mail 2 Forum" > or m2f. It allows people to post and see responses to a forum using > e-mail. It's a nice feature if you have some people who want a forum > and some who want a mailing list. I've used this mod in the past and > it's pretty neat. > -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On September 15, 2005 10:00 am, Andy Ross wrote: > Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: > > Anway, I like the idea of having a dedicated online message > > board for FlightGear. The primary reason why I like online > > message board is that all the posts in a topic are grouped > > under one thread and are sorted by dates, which is more > > organized in my opinion. > > This is another situation where a "pro forum" post has more to do > with bad email client software than it does with email as a > whole. Nope. I can sort mails by thread, date, and author fine. It's just that I feel a message board is more organized. In anycase, it doesn't matter, as majority of the developers object to the idea of switching to a message board. On September 15, 2005 05:39 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > probably we could think of a support forum... > > Thorben I agree. I think it is an advantage to have an online message board for the users. Having an online community for users to be in will make people more incline to stay, thus culturing more loyal users. Ampere ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:21:59 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I think a forum is a great idea. The biggest advantage I see over > most mailing lists is that a forum is searchable. I see too many > F/OSS projects with mailing lists that aren't searchable. Having a > searchable forum/list really cuts down on duplicate questions. ..huh? Any modern email client can do backtraffic searches. > Having said that, I really like phpBB for forum software. It's > actively developed, has a lot of mods, and has an active community. > It can also use PostgreSQL, so you won't have to use MySQL. > > Another feature I really like is a mod for phpBB called "Mail 2 Forum" > or m2f. It allows people to post and see responses to a forum using > e-mail. It's a nice feature if you have some people who want a forum > and some who want a mailing list. I've used this mod in the past and > it's pretty neat. > -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
I like forums very much. I used to hate mailing lists untill I came "here". They are not that bad but as everyone said, they are not that easy to "browse". Question: would it be that hard to improve the web-based archive-reader? I would like to have a kind of expandable tree view... But I think no one came up with the main advantage (in my opinion) of a mailing list: The niveau is simply higher... As you are not hidden behind a stupid nickname like "DarkDEVIL" or "-~==~-", but provide your email address for everyone to see, you don't feel that anonymous any more. And people who never heard of RTFM or think we like to hear some of those statements like: "U suck, msfs is muchbetter1" have either never heard about mailing lists or are too lazy to sign up... I hate to say it, but for flightgear, mailing lists are just the best thing. probably we could think of a support forum... Thorben ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: > Anway, I like the idea of having a dedicated online message > board for FlightGear. The primary reason why I like online > message board is that all the posts in a topic are grouped > under one thread and are sorted by dates, which is more > organized in my opinion. This is another situation where a "pro forum" post has more to do with bad email client software than it does with email as a whole. All of the above (and much more) are possible with Mozilla Thunderbird. You can sort by thread, you can sort by subject/date, you can sort by date, or sender, or search. You can automatically filter into a subfolder (actually I do that part with procmail, but Thunderbird has its own filters). And being client software, it's vastly faster and more responsive than even the best websites (although as I mentioned earlier, gmail seems to be really close). It will even store all your mail on your local machine, for offline reading. Andy ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 05:37:15AM +, Martin Spott wrote: > This posting is written using 'telnet'. Cheers, Dito. With mutt running on the server. Only got a Win95 with 99MHz and 8MB here. Good enough for putty.exe, but graphical browsers are a pain. And java(script) would be a nogo. (Agreed, I can't really take part in development under these conditions either. :-) m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 12:39:06AM +0200, Oliver C. wrote: > On Wednesday 14 September 2005 19:03, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > > over to online/web-based forums? > > This is a great idea! > I like forums and prefer them. But you aren't a developer. Sorry, but lurkers don't count. If the lists were to be stopped, in no time somebody would set up an inofficial mailing list for developers. Development doesn't happen (exclusively) in forums. In virtually *no* software project that I know of. The reasons have been explained. Of course, people merely interested in entertainment may get along with cheesy forums. m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Just my two cent "Oliver C." wrote: > 2. The Readably of a web based forum is better. I'd find it annoying that you have to start a graphical desktop plus a graphical web browser just in order to read a few lines of _text_ ! The usability of web forums in a text browser like 'lynx' is typically _very_ poor. This posting is written using 'telnet'. Cheers, Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
> From: "Curtis L. Olson" > > Paul Kahler wrote: > > >This may be too late now unless the address changes. Get the email > >address off the web pages. Just where do you think the spammers are > >getting the address from? My ISP has some form of spam blocking, but I > >receive about 1 spam every month or two. I think the reason for this is > >that my email address isn't posted in plain text anywhere on the net. It > >is there of course (on my contact page), just not in machine readable > >form. > > > >This may not be practical for FG. I dunno, just a thought. > > > > > > I believe the addresses, especially the ones getting spam are not posted > anywhere ... except there are places that archive the flightgear mailing > lists and at least in the past have kept all the email addresses intact > in clear text. > > New stuff is generally ok, but stuff in the historical archives out > there is mostly what's getting us. > Hi Curt, We solved this problem with our customer service email address by setting up a form like this: http://www.kelcomaine.com/email.htm Basically the email address is unpublished and not easily guessed (by a bot). Once a customer's original message is replied to, they have the customer service email address so they are able to follow up or send further email using a conventional mail client. At one point we did have to change this address again because a spammer somehow discovered it, but this was done long before the spam problem returned in any scale. Surprisingly we had no complaints on our 800 line about this address change. Folks just went back to the webpage and clicked on the email link to send their message. This is actually a fairly common technique for avoiding exactly what you are facing. Once you set up such an email form with new addresses plugged into the backend, you could then simply delete the current email accounts. I suppose you could script a special bounce message for the -admin, -owner addressess, but I wouldn't bother. Best, Jim P.S. Yes, yes, I know our website needs updating :-) ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On September 14, 2005 01:03 pm, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > over to online/web-based forums? I always wanted to ask the same question, but I have a believe that FlightGear uses a mailing list for a reason, so I never ask. Anway, I like the idea of having a dedicated online message board for FlightGear. The primary reason why I like online message board is that all the posts in a topic are grouped under one thread and are sorted by dates, which is more organized in my opinion. Old discussions can also be read easily this way. Also, I think an online message board is more convient because all the messages are stored in one centralized location, and people can access the board from anywhere on any machine. I will stop here however, since it is pretty obvious that the majority have a different view than I do when it comes to message board. Perhaps one can think about removing the user list and turning it into a message board? I think FlightGear would be able to attract more loyal users this way. Ampere ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
> From: "Curtis L. Olson" > (this is a general response to already quoted a few times thread :-)) Hi Curt, PhpBB is one I've heard a lot about and have probably used, but not run. I think it runs on Postgres and others. The Ideal Forum software: It seems to me that the ideal forum software would support both email distribution and email posting, so that folks could use the web interface or their favorite email systems. I've used a very low traffic forum (phpwebsite module) at http://pbpgsql.spiderbark.com (note that spiderbark.com was neglected and just now renewed so it'll be a few hours yet before this site is "up" again). Like many it'll send out email notices of thread updates, but it doesn't allow posting from smtp, and I do not know of any that do. Wouldn't there be one somewhere? In general there are more things I don't like about web forums than things I do like. More than likely it is just short comings in the software I've used. Pluses: - It is nice to view a discussion a page at a time (e.g. non-outline modes). - I use a web based client, but for those that don't it provides access from any Internet connected device with a browser. - It gets high traffic lists out of your inbox. Minuses: - A common thing with forums is that they just keep track of messages new or threads updated since your the visit. I want to see which messages are unread. This would require that the forum software keeps a list of what threads each user has opened and when they opened them. This is the number one problem with web forums in my view. - I guess I'd add to the previous post that the forum should keep usage information in the database, so that I don't get the same old threads showing as updated again when I switch to a different computer. - Search capabilities are usually poor. - The asynchronous nature of mailing lists make them more robust and reliable. If the forum server or anything in between is down you can't read anything and you can't reply to messages. On the other hand you can reply to a mailing list post even if the destination is unreachable (message queues are good). - In-line quoting is pretty much a hassle. - For some reason it appears that posting to the wrong forum occurs more frequently. - For some reason it appears that objectionable postings occur more frequently (greater anonymity?). - Maybe not all that important, but forums usually create a central storage of historical conversation where mailing lists tend to get spread around, so if for some reason a chunk of mail ling list history gets lost, it can more often be found. On the spam thing, I take it you have tried using the usual (e.g. spam assassin) techniques? I can certainly understand the frustration with spam. I'm pretty comfortable and have no problems with the mail myself. On the other hand some others on the list might disagree with my assessment of my personal experience, since a bug in my client is currently failing to send in-reply-to headers. Sorry about the broken threads :-) Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Paul Kahler wrote: This may be too late now unless the address changes. Get the email address off the web pages. Just where do you think the spammers are getting the address from? My ISP has some form of spam blocking, but I receive about 1 spam every month or two. I think the reason for this is that my email address isn't posted in plain text anywhere on the net. It is there of course (on my contact page), just not in machine readable form. This may not be practical for FG. I dunno, just a thought. I believe the addresses, especially the ones getting spam are not posted anywhere ... except there are places that archive the flightgear mailing lists and at least in the past have kept all the email addresses intact in clear text. :-( New stuff is generally ok, but stuff in the historical archives out there is mostly what's getting us. Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 17:09 -0500, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > The problem is with all the [EMAIL PROTECTED] and > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mail. These addresses can't be avoided and are a > huge spam attracter for the two flightgear co-list admins. But just to > be clear, I'm not trying to solve a spam problem by nuking our mailing > lists. Spam avoidence (for the list admins) was only one of the possible > motivations for moving to forum based communication. This may be too late now unless the address changes. Get the email address off the web pages. Just where do you think the spammers are getting the address from? My ISP has some form of spam blocking, but I receive about 1 spam every month or two. I think the reason for this is that my email address isn't posted in plain text anywhere on the net. It is there of course (on my contact page), just not in machine readable form. This may not be practical for FG. I dunno, just a thought. -Paul ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wednesday 14 September 2005 18:03, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > over to online/web-based forums? I quite like the idea of forums at least for the 'average' FG Userbase. If anything, just in order to make Flightgear more 'accesible' to the masses. I'd like to offer to host / administer a forum for FlightGear as it is something I have experience in / am good at. Curtis: feel free to e:mail me directly if you'd like to discuss further. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Oliver C. wrote: > 2. The Readably of a web based forum is better. This is a joke, right? It must be all those giant, blinking, hot pink 600x200 signature GIFs that help you tell where the text content is. :) Heh, to each his own. Although I will point out that most of your complaints have more to do with poor email software and/or administration than they do to mail as a medium for discussion. If you want searchability and easy access with a web browser, for example, I can heartily recommend gmail. I don't use it myself, because I run my own IMAP server, but I have several coworkers who love the thing. Andy ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wednesday 14 September 2005 19:03, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > over to online/web-based forums? This is a great idea! I like forums and prefer them. Reasons why web based forums are better are: 1. They have a search engine. Old entrys are easier accessable, than 80 MB of mailinglist traffic that needs to be downloaded, updated, unzipped etc. 2. The Readably of a web based forum is better. 3. You can allways easily access all the data of a forum on every place. This is not allways the case with mailinglist. For example, when i get them via E-mail on computer 1, i can't read them on computer 2. 4. No spam. 5. No disturbing HTML messages. 6, The chance of quotes of whole messages (E-Mails) is lower. > - People would only have to subscribe once and they could access all the > *Gear forums. I agree. This is reason number 7. :) > If we would like to move towards using forums instead of mailing lists: > > - Should we manage the forums ourselves on our own FG servers? Yes, this is the preferable way. > > - Should we use some other forum hosting service? No, we shouldn't if it is avoidable. Best Regards, Oliver C. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
I much prefer mailing lists. They are so accesible and flexibile. The important content arrives (and I appreciate the effort of admins to maintain this). I actually think that mailing lists work really well, and it sounds like the problem is more down to the spam. Could we setup an autoresponder which replied to all admin stuff, with a magic value in the subject saying "reply to this X". I'm not really up on the spammers technology, but normally they don't reply. I guess that this may inconvenience some users, but for the better good. Web forums I just don't like, they're slow, quite often I miss stuff. etc. That's my intial thoughts. --Richard ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Erik Hofman wrote: I'm for dumping every mail not from a list member instead. We already do that. The problem is with all the [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] mail. These addresses can't be avoided and are a huge spam attracter for the two flightgear co-list admins. But just to be clear, I'm not trying to solve a spam problem by nuking our mailing lists. Spam avoidence (for the list admins) was only one of the possible motivations for moving to forum based communication. Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Andy Ross wrote: A J MacLeod wrote: Personally, I very much prefer mailing lists. I can quite see the advantages of web-based forums, but I'm not convinced they outweigh the disadvantages. Ditto. Reading threaded mail with Thunderbird vs. with PHPbb or the like isn't even a fair comparison. It would be a very significant hardship for me to have to deal with web forums for flightgear stuff, and I'm not normally one to be a stubborn complainer. :) I agree. In fact I won't even read forums with this amount of traffic. I much rather resubscribe to another group once in a while than reading forums (it litteraly takes 10x the amount of time to keep track). I'm for dumping every mail not from a list member instead. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Vivian Meazza wrote: > AJ MacLeod wrote > > >>Personally, I very much prefer mailing lists. I can quite see the >>advantages >>of web-based forums, but I'm not convinced they outweigh the >>disadvantages. >> >>For one thing, it's much easier to keep up with the mailing lists, as I >>monitor my email through most of the day for real work purposes anyway. >>In >>contrast, although I do visit some web-based forums now and again, it's >>very >>infrequently, and you have to keep revisiting to see whether anything's >>been >>posted or not - automatic emails to say something's been posted would >>obviously be very annoying. >> > > > I'm in much the same situation as AJ, and agree with his view on this one. > > Regards > > Vivian > > > ___ > Flightgear-devel mailing list > Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org > http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel > 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d > I also prefer mailing lists, and would like to point out that not only is there no reason that e-mail list's can't be searchable, but that in fact this one is with the notable exception of the previous month plus possible some delay for google to catch up. e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=superfortress+OR+superfort&sitesearch=baron.flightgear.org Josh ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wednesday 14 Sep 2005 18:03, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for > discussion/comment. > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and > converting over to online/web-based forums? > > - People would only have to subscribe once and they could > access all the *Gear forums. > > - I'm getting really sick of spam. I think we do a pretty > good job of protecting the list members themselves, but the > list admins get continually pummeled with spam rates measured > in messages per hour and sometimes messages per minute ... > > If we would like to move towards using forums instead of > mailing lists: > > - Should we manage the forums ourselves on our own FG servers? > > - Should we use some other forum hosting service? > > - Should we piggy-back off of a place like avsim.com (which > already has one general FG forum.) > > - I generally favor the idea of local admin control so we can > set up the various sub forums exactly how we like, but that > means additional setup and maintenance efforts on this end. > > - If we run our own forum software, does anyone have any > recommendations. (Bearing in mind that right now, mysql is > hopelessly hosed on our FG servers and a complete purge and > reinstall has not fixed it.) Are there any mainstream, > quality forum packages that don't require mysql? > > Curt. I've used a 'beehive' based forum that was flexible and nice to use. Needs mysql tho... However, I personally find that forums invariably end up with too much graphics in them and take too much time to go through. I find mailing lists much quicker to deal with and certainly a lot easier to search but spam is a real pain in the posterior - I get a couple of hundred spam e-mails per day. Nearly all of them use spoofed sender ids, so a large percentage are bounces (doh! - when will mail admins stop forwarding this crap and just dump it). Trouble is, if you want to be contactable your address is going to be 'harvested' and spam-bombed. Hmm... not much help here really:( LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Andy Ross wrote: > A J MacLeod wrote: > > Curtis L. Olson wrote: > > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and > > > converting over to online/web-based forums? > > > > Personally, I very much prefer mailing lists. I can quite see the > > advantages of web-based forums, but I'm not convinced they outweigh > > the disadvantages. > > Ditto. Reading threaded mail with Thunderbird vs. with PHPbb or the > like isn't even a fair comparison. It would be a very significant > hardship for me to have to deal with web forums for flightgear stuff, > and I'm not normally one to be a stubborn complainer. :) > > That said, I know I've seen "gatewayed" implementations that do both > successfully. They have a registration-required, > no-authorizing-stray-posts-necessary email interface for the clueful, > and a more permissive environment for the browser jockeys. I'm not > sure whether any of these are free software, but I'm sure someone's > tried it... I am also in favor of a mailing list. If a forum is chosen, I would be happy to receive email with the content of the posts, not the AVsim style that just say once a day that there is something to read. Another aspect of the problem that wasn't brought yet. You would have to be sure that the software chosen is up-to-date with no security flaws. This summer, the forum at fr.flightgear.org has been hijacked because an exploit has been discovered, fixed and advertised just when the maintainer was off for a long time. The forum database was destroyed. ( http://forums.punbb.org/viewtopic.php?id=8553 ) -Fred ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Curtis L. Olson wrote: I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting over to online/web-based forums? I think you'll lose an *awful* lot of input. I'm really no fan of forums. Mail gets delivered to me. I can read it wherever I like. I don't need a net connection. With a forum you need to be online. Lots of forums still have problems with spam too. Jon ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Hi, I am also just playing with FG, lurking on the lists searching for info. I prefer mailing lists, but it would be really nice if the archives at flightgear were searchable. Sylvain. On 9/14/05, Christian Mayer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA1 > > Curtis L. Olson schrieb: > > I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. > > > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > > over to online/web-based forums? > > I hate forums. > > At a mailinglist I've got nothing to do - they come to me. > At a forum I must think of querying it once in a while - I have to come > to them. > > It's like the difference between polling and interrupts... > > > - I'm getting really sick of spam. > > That's a valid point. But I think that can be handeld automatically. THe > admins get 2 kind of mails: > 1) valid mail that bounced > 2) SPAM > > If you'll just have an autoresponder that tells all reasons why a mail > bounced (like: "your email address isn't registerd and/or your mail is > bigger than 40kb") valid users know how to get their next mail through - > and the SPAM doesn't affect *you* anymore. > > > If you really want to switch to a forum I'd only use it for the > fgfs-users mailinglist. > There I can think that the advantages outweight the disadvantages - but > we still need some people that poll that forum. An average developer > probably hasn't got the time... > > CU, > Chris > > > -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (MingW32) > > iD8DBQFDKG3GlhWtxOxWNFcRAi5CAJwO2hL4oxdyFLMPJuPMx3YBGDd9CQCgmVSJ > BIMR2XKw0zGNIhISL3dapnY= > =GLzg > -END PGP SIGNATURE- > > ___ > Flightgear-devel mailing list > Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org > http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel > 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d > ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Sylvain Mazet wrote: Hi, I am also just playing with FG, lurking on the lists searching for info. I prefer mailing lists, but it would be really nice if the archives at flightgear were searchable. They are searchable last I checked. Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Christian Mayer wrote: I hate forums. At a mailinglist I've got nothing to do - they come to me. At a forum I must think of querying it once in a while - I have to come to them. It's like the difference between polling and interrupts... - I'm getting really sick of spam. That's a valid point. But I think that can be handeld automatically. THe admins get 2 kind of mails: 1) valid mail that bounced 2) SPAM 3) valid user requests that aren't bounces, but legitimate requests for help. If you'll just have an autoresponder that tells all reasons why a mail bounced (like: "your email address isn't registerd and/or your mail is bigger than 40kb") valid users know how to get their next mail through - and the SPAM doesn't affect *you* anymore. If you really want to switch to a forum I'd only use it for the fgfs-users mailinglist. There I can think that the advantages outweight the disadvantages - but we still need some people that poll that forum. An average developer probably hasn't got the time... Hmmm, forums for the average user base might be a worth while idea. The one thing I do like about forums is that you can split up, categorize, and organize the discussion areas. That's a lot harder to do with mailing lists because of the individual overhead of subscribing to each group, and a hierarchy of mailing lists doesn't make a lot of sense. Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
Melchior FRANZ wrote: Or simpler: don't allow anyone who isn't subscribed to post to the lists. There's still the AVSim forum and the IRC channel for notorious non-subscribers. I'd prefer an official forum on flightgear.org for that, though. AVSim does in no way feel official. (Is it 'official' at all?) Postings to the forum could be forwarded to the users list, and replies to such messages there could get copied back to the forum. Unfortunately, I've not the slightest idea which forum software to choose. :-( Right, but someone has to answer the listname-admin mail and sort out if it's spam or perhaps a legitimate user having a problem posting or subscribing. And unfortunately there is a *ton* of that type of spam to wade through. My spam filters do weed out most of it, however, spam consumes a substantial amount of net traffic and server resources. Converting the FG email lists to web based forums would eliminate 98% of the spam hitting our server ... we could at least bounce back no such address, rather than having to accept the mail, scan it for viruses, scan it to compute a spam rating, and then deliver it to the list admin who then has to further filter it, either manually or with automated tools or both. I think the one thing we would lose with a forum system would be the ability to sort individual messages that are important to the recipient (such as a todo item, or an item requiring further investigation) into our own mail box system. There's more opposition to this idea than I expected, so perhaps this issue should go on the back burner for now and we can revisit it in a few months or a year (or not at all.) Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Curtis L. Olson schrieb: > I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > over to online/web-based forums? I hate forums. At a mailinglist I've got nothing to do - they come to me. At a forum I must think of querying it once in a while - I have to come to them. It's like the difference between polling and interrupts... > - I'm getting really sick of spam. That's a valid point. But I think that can be handeld automatically. THe admins get 2 kind of mails: 1) valid mail that bounced 2) SPAM If you'll just have an autoresponder that tells all reasons why a mail bounced (like: "your email address isn't registerd and/or your mail is bigger than 40kb") valid users know how to get their next mail through - and the SPAM doesn't affect *you* anymore. If you really want to switch to a forum I'd only use it for the fgfs-users mailinglist. There I can think that the advantages outweight the disadvantages - but we still need some people that poll that forum. An average developer probably hasn't got the time... CU, Chris -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (MingW32) iD8DBQFDKG3GlhWtxOxWNFcRAi5CAJwO2hL4oxdyFLMPJuPMx3YBGDd9CQCgmVSJ BIMR2XKw0zGNIhISL3dapnY= =GLzg -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 08:00:33PM +0200, Melchior FRANZ wrote: > On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 12:03:07PM -0500, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > > - I'm getting really sick of spam. > > What's wrong with spam filters? e.g. bogofilter, Or simpler: don't allow anyone who isn't subscribed to post to the lists. There's still the AVSim forum and the IRC channel for notorious non-subscribers. I'd prefer an official forum on flightgear.org for that, though. AVSim does in no way feel official. (Is it 'official' at all?) Postings to the forum could be forwarded to the users list, and replies to such messages there could get copied back to the forum. Unfortunately, I've not the slightest idea which forum software to choose. :-( m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 12:03:07PM -0500, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > over to online/web-based forums? Shudder. This would probably be the end of my participation. I can't work with forums, and I don't want to. > - I'm getting really sick of spam. What's wrong with spam filters? e.g. bogofilter, which does an *excellent* job here. It's self-learning and does hardly let any spam through. I'd run something like it on the server, with an extra email address to forward false negatives (= spam) to. m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
RE: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
AJ MacLeod wrote > Personally, I very much prefer mailing lists. I can quite see the > advantages > of web-based forums, but I'm not convinced they outweigh the > disadvantages. > > For one thing, it's much easier to keep up with the mailing lists, as I > monitor my email through most of the day for real work purposes anyway. > In > contrast, although I do visit some web-based forums now and again, it's > very > infrequently, and you have to keep revisiting to see whether anything's > been > posted or not - automatic emails to say something's been posted would > obviously be very annoying. > I'm in much the same situation as AJ, and agree with his view on this one. Regards Vivian ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
A J MacLeod wrote: > Curtis L. Olson wrote: > > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and > > converting over to online/web-based forums? > > Personally, I very much prefer mailing lists. I can quite see the > advantages of web-based forums, but I'm not convinced they outweigh > the disadvantages. Ditto. Reading threaded mail with Thunderbird vs. with PHPbb or the like isn't even a fair comparison. It would be a very significant hardship for me to have to deal with web forums for flightgear stuff, and I'm not normally one to be a stubborn complainer. :) That said, I know I've seen "gatewayed" implementations that do both successfully. They have a registration-required, no-authorizing-stray-posts-necessary email interface for the clueful, and a more permissive environment for the browser jockeys. I'm not sure whether any of these are free software, but I'm sure someone's tried it... Andy ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
While I'm not an active developer (just lurk on the list), I'd like to give my opinion on this. I think a forum is a great idea. The biggest advantage I see over most mailing lists is that a forum is searchable. I see too many F/OSS projects with mailing lists that aren't searchable. Having a searchable forum/list really cuts down on duplicate questions. Having said that, I really like phpBB for forum software. It's actively developed, has a lot of mods, and has an active community. It can also use PostgreSQL, so you won't have to use MySQL. Another feature I really like is a mod for phpBB called "Mail 2 Forum" or m2f. It allows people to post and see responses to a forum using e-mail. It's a nice feature if you have some people who want a forum and some who want a mailing list. I've used this mod in the past and it's pretty neat. Anyway, just my $.02. Dalen Quoting "Curtis L. Olson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting over to online/web-based forums? - People would only have to subscribe once and they could access all the *Gear forums. - I'm getting really sick of spam. I think we do a pretty good job of protecting the list members themselves, but the list admins get continually pummeled with spam rates measured in messages per hour and sometimes messages per minute ... If we would like to move towards using forums instead of mailing lists: - Should we manage the forums ourselves on our own FG servers? - Should we use some other forum hosting service? - Should we piggy-back off of a place like avsim.com (which already has one general FG forum.) - I generally favor the idea of local admin control so we can set up the various sub forums exactly how we like, but that means additional setup and maintenance efforts on this end. - If we run our own forum software, does anyone have any recommendations. (Bearing in mind that right now, mysql is hopelessly hosed on our FG servers and a complete purge and reinstall has not fixed it.) Are there any mainstream, quality forum packages that don't require mysql? Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
On Wednesday 14 September 2005 18:03, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting > over to online/web-based forums? Personally, I very much prefer mailing lists. I can quite see the advantages of web-based forums, but I'm not convinced they outweigh the disadvantages. For one thing, it's much easier to keep up with the mailing lists, as I monitor my email through most of the day for real work purposes anyway. In contrast, although I do visit some web-based forums now and again, it's very infrequently, and you have to keep revisiting to see whether anything's been posted or not - automatic emails to say something's been posted would obviously be very annoying. The spam issue I'm not certain I've grasped properly - if you mean that "moderators" of these lists are getting bombarded with spam that's destined for the mailing lists, can't this just be automatically dumped? AJ ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
[Flightgear-devel] Question: Online forums?
I have a question I'd like to toss out to the group for discussion/comment. What would people think of abandoning our mailing lists and converting over to online/web-based forums? - People would only have to subscribe once and they could access all the *Gear forums. - I'm getting really sick of spam. I think we do a pretty good job of protecting the list members themselves, but the list admins get continually pummeled with spam rates measured in messages per hour and sometimes messages per minute ... If we would like to move towards using forums instead of mailing lists: - Should we manage the forums ourselves on our own FG servers? - Should we use some other forum hosting service? - Should we piggy-back off of a place like avsim.com (which already has one general FG forum.) - I generally favor the idea of local admin control so we can set up the various sub forums exactly how we like, but that means additional setup and maintenance efforts on this end. - If we run our own forum software, does anyone have any recommendations. (Bearing in mind that right now, mysql is hopelessly hosed on our FG servers and a complete purge and reinstall has not fixed it.) Are there any mainstream, quality forum packages that don't require mysql? Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d