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Re: Users - Forum+Knowledge base instead of mailing list

Posted by David E. Jones on May 24, 2006; 10:58pm
URL: http://ofbiz.116.s1.nabble.com/Users-Forum-Knowledge-base-instead-of-mailing-list-tp139454p139457.html


Yes, this is a good approach.

Right now my biggest priorities are on the Apache effort and documentation for this reason. And of course, the marketing areas could directly push this direction and really need some attention...

Right now the only group marketing effort I'm aware of is being spearheaded by Si and is the booth at the OSCON exhibit in July. This, of course, is a marketing opportunity for the individuals and companies who participate as well as for the project as a whole.

Of course, the tricky side to this approach is attracting community members that will contribute to the project. For the most part this excludes "out of the box" users, so that is something that I often consider with marketing efforts for OFBiz.

-David


Adrian Crum wrote:

> Maybe focus on the list items that will help enlarge the community - who will
> then provide the resources for the remaining list items.
>
>
> David E. Jones wrote:
>
>> Yeah, exactly... This has been discussed a few times, ie creating a forum-like system (extending the current forum stuff...) to be a nice flexible mailing list management type of tool. A lot of infrastructure is actually in place for this now, including stuff to send and process emails.
>>
>> The problem is usually that there is a lot to do, and too few resources to do it, so most of what gets into OFBiz is either funded by some paying project, or is a big enough issue to attract attention from contributors in spite of not being paid.
>>
>> With what has been developed recently, perhaps we are close enough that this could be a feasible 2-3 day project... Is this more important than other outstanding issues, like:
>>
>> 1. fixing outstanding issues... just check out Jira to get a glimpse of this increasingly fun mountain of stuff ;)
>> 2. library refactoring to eliminate LGPL/GPL libraries
>> 3. documentation consolidation
>> 4. writing and producing additional documentation (documents, videos, etc)
>> 5. creating and distributed marketing collateral and other such things
>> 6. testing infrastructure completion and "best-practice" testing examples in the example component
>> 7. adding a comprehensive test suite for the existing OFBiz functionality...
>>
>> Of course, to make things more difficult we are moving toward becoming an ASF project and I don't know if they would host this sort of thing. We could do it on the Undersun server (sponsored by Undersun and Contegix) where everything is hosted now, and it looks like some things will be staying there anyway, so this is probably not a big issue.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> Vinay Agarwal wrote:
>>
>>> Chris,
>>> When can I have that? ;)
>>> Vinay
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
>>> On Behalf Of Chris Howe
>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 1:15 PM
>>> To: [hidden email]
>>> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Forum+Knowledge base instead of mailing list
>>>
>>>
>>> So, uh, hey.  I came across this rather flexible open
>>> source framework project called Open for Business a
>>> while back.  I'm sure with minimal tweaking it could
>>> provide this functionality as both a forum and a
>>> mailing list. ;)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ======David Jones wrote:
>>>
>>> So, wait, are you talking about the need for
>>> threading, or the idea of doing more granular topics
>>> for different forums (which could also be done with
>>> mailing lists)? There was a discussion about more
>>> granular topics recently, might be of interest.
>>>
>>> For threading, I'd say get a better mail reader ;),
>>> like Thunderbird (which is what I use these days) or
>>> something.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>> Vinay Agarwal wrote:
>>>
>>>> David,
>>>> I feel that forums may actually increase the answers
>>> to questions because
>>>
>>>> people like me can answer certain questions while
>>> not all questions. In
>>>
>>>> addition, I am personally more interested in some
>>> topics than others. For
>>>
>>>> me, emails don't automatically get organized in
>>> threads and, therefore, can
>>>
>>>> feel overwhelming at times. Forums, on the other
>>> hand, are always thread
>>>
>>>> organized. They normally can send email notification
>>> with an effect similar
>>>
>>>> to the mailing list. I was originally thinking about
>>> OFBiz forum but not
>>>
>>>> sure if it has all these features.
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Vinay
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: users-bounces at lists.ofbiz.org
>>> [mailto:users-bounces at lists.ofbiz.org]
>>>
>>>> On Behalf Of David E. Jones
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 11:20 AM
>>>> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
>>>> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Forum+Knowledge base
>>> instead of mailing list
>>>
>>>> Backing up a little bit... what would be the
>>> benefits of using forums versus
>>>
>>>> mailing lists? Or is it forums versus the wiki?
>>>>
>>>> I've seen 2 in these messages so far:
>>>>
>>>> 1. "generally better at organizing information"
>>>> 2. easier to search in a forum
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure what #1 is supposed to mean, and I'm
>>> not sure that #2 is
>>>
>>>> actually true... I'd be interested in hearing other
>>> benefits of using a
>>>
>>>> forum...
>>>>
>>>> Unless the forum could be used like a mailing list,
>>> ie get messages in email
>>>
>>>> and reply to them with email, then you can use them
>>> all you want, but
>>>
>>>> chances are questions won't get many answers because
>>> it will require more
>>>
>>>> effort from those that do monitor the lists and
>>> answer questions...
>>>
>>>> -David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Vinay Agarwal wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Jacques,
>>>>>
>>>>> I agree that forums take some administration but it
>>> certainly is less
>>>
>>>>> than administration of Wiki. If we give forum admin
>>> rights to more
>>>
>>>>> people (committers + regulars on the mailing list),
>>> forum administration
>>>
>>>>> would not be a problem. The most difficult part
>>> would be to set it up.
>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Vinay
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> *From:* users-bounces at lists.ofbiz.org
>>>>> [mailto:users-bounces at lists.ofbiz.org] *On
>>> Behalf Of *Jacques Le Roux
>>>
>>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 24, 2006 8:12 AM
>>>>> *To:* OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [OFBiz] Users - Forum+Knowledge base
>>> instead of mailing
>>>
>>>> list
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Vinay,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You certainly guess that this has alreday been
>>> asked in the past. If you
>>>
>>>>> search in MLs you will find answers. But yes, it
>>> was a lot easier
>>>
>>>>> when MLs had an internal search option (and even a
>>> plugin to search from
>>>
>>>>> firefox-google field).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The other way is to use Google option
>>> "site:lists.ofbiz.org" but you
>>>
>>>>> have to crawl between every ML and svn ml is
>>> prominent...
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In think the reason is that it's a lot less time
>>> consuming to admin a ML
>>>
>>>>> than forums... Because forums to be good tools must
>>> be regularly
>>>
>>>>> administred.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Jacques
>>>>>
>>>>>    ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>
>>>>>    *From:* Vinay Agarwal <mailto:VinayKAgarwal at
>>> hotmail.com>
>>>
>>>>>    *To:* 'OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion'
>>> <mailto:users at lists.ofbiz.org>
>>>
>>>>>    *Sent:* Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:19 PM
>>>>>
>>>>>    *Subject:* [OFBiz] Users - Forum+Knowledge base
>>> instead of mailing
>>>
>>>> list
>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>    Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>    Is it worthwhile to switch to forum format
>>> (possibly with a
>>>
>>>>>    knowledge base) since forums are generally
>>> better at organizing
>>>
>>>>>    information? Many new OFBiz users may benefit
>>> for this format and,
>>>
>>>>>    as a result, reduce questions whose answers can
>>> be found easily on
>>>
>>>>>    the forum. Also, if OFBiz forum component is
>>> operational, it may be
>>>
>>>>>    a good test for it.
>>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>    Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>>    Vinay Agarwal
>>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>>>    _______________________________________________
>>>>>    Users mailing list
>>>>>    Users at lists.ofbiz.org
>>>>>    http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Users mailing list
>>>>> Users at lists.ofbiz.org
>>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Users mailing list
>>>> Users at lists.ofbiz.org
>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Users mailing list
>>>> Users at lists.ofbiz.org
>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Users mailing list
>>> [hidden email]
>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Users mailing list
>>> [hidden email]
>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>  
>> _______________________________________________
>> Users mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
 
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