dhis2-devs-core team mailing list archive

[Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,
I have chatted with a few more people about this, and I think the general
consensus is that we should continue to attempt to get the StackExchange
mechanism rolling. If we are not able to generate the volume which is
required, then we will consider another mechanism such as the Discourse
site (dhis2.info) or a similar type of Q&A/Forum in Drupal on dhis2.org,
Unless there are any objections, I will liaise with Matthieu and we will
come up with a sort of deployment plan. What is pretty clear though we
need, is a lot of content already seeded in the site

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/77757/dhis2/

So, please start adding your questions. Upvote others questions as well. We
should have little problems coming up with 40 more questions between us,
but it will require a bit of effort from each of us. So, please go ahead
and join if you have not already and post your favorite questions. In the
next few days, we will send out a mail to the community to ask everyone to
join up and help us get things moving to the next step.

Please feel free to provide any further feedback/concerns.

Regards,
Jason
'

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 10 October 2014 14:46, Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>> Not to throw out too many ideas, but before you send out the email, I
>> thought we should also consider potentially using discourse. It seems like
>> a good tool, and I managed to get a demo setup here.
>>
>> http://dhis2.info
>>
>
> That looks nice.
>
>>
>> An obvious advantage here is that we would have a lot more control over
>> the entire process, rather than being subject to StackExchange's rather
>> arcane rules. I think we could rather easily achieve a good Q&A site with
>> this as well. Downside of course is that this server is being managed by us
>> at the moment, and one more thing which we would need to take care of,
>> although something we could likely push off to our friends a BAO Systems.
>>
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Jason
>>
>> P.S. On a totally unrelated note, I came across https://mandrillapp.com
>> which is described in the Discourse setup, and it also seems like a very
>> good alternative for sending emails, without having to worry about getting
>> an SMTP server setup.
>>
>
> I have tried mandrillap with dhis2 before (not in production).  It works
> well and is certainly a good replacement for "spamming" through a gmail
> account.  Not that it replaces the utility of running a local MTA - but
> that too can be configured to hand off to a smarthost. Useful if the
> machine does not have a fqdn.  But we drift off topic ... maybe this is all
> good content for a mail-related meta-topic in discourse/tutorials or what
> have you.
>
> Bob
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Matthieu I am always enthusiastic :-)  And of course I will participate
>>> ...
>>>
>>> On 10 October 2014 13:18, Matthieu Pinard (UiO) <matthiep@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> *Jason*,
>>>> yeah, I'm reading through the FAQ etc and I'll suggest a phasing to
>>>> make our best to reach each of the stages.
>>>>
>>>> Here is the rough plan: Once the mailing list info@ is informed I will
>>>> publish on FB. Then I suggest that you or webLars (we need someone with
>>>> enough legitimacy) will announce that on our mailing lists. Then we need to
>>>> monitor and encourage ;).
>>>>
>>>> *Bob*,
>>>> I love your enthusiasm :P. I will not try too hard to convince you and
>>>> hope that you will join the effort ;). Just a couple of things:
>>>> - yes mailing lists will still be part of the our community support
>>>> tools
>>>> - on the bright side, this forum, if we succeed to make it a true and
>>>> sustainable DHIS2 Expert Q&A site will have a great and positive impact on
>>>> knowledge sharing among the community member (beautiful).
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Matthieu
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Matthieu Pinard
>>>> DHIS 2 Academy & Community Coordinator | University of Oslo
>>>>
>>>> On 10 October 2014 13:54, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I have something of an aversion to forums for all things, but I can
>>>>> see they might have their place.  Many of the questions raised on the users
>>>>> list (some of which filter into the developers list) as well as the even
>>>>> more common private mail requests might well lend itself to this sort of
>>>>> format.  Whether we have sufficient traffic to drive some of these social
>>>>> engineering engines in a meaningful way or not I am not sure, but perhaps
>>>>> no harm in trying.  One of the potential issues with forums is how to get
>>>>> back off again (with the data) if we decide it wasn't such a good idea at
>>>>> all.  Perhaps this should also be a factor to consider when selecting a
>>>>> forum platform.
>>>>>
>>>>> Having said that, there is still a place for mailing lists for
>>>>> discussion (rather than Q&A).  For example, the sysadmin list suggested by
>>>>> Steven, and which seems to have attracted some interest, I think would work
>>>>> better in a list format, at least at formative stage.  Over time there will
>>>>> be nuggets mined from the list which can form the basis of a more dynamic
>>>>> faq/forum type thing.
>>>>>
>>>>> As a minor aside, there is perhaps an interesting gender perspective
>>>>> to this (and I believe possibly also age).  In some research that was done
>>>>> some years back (to which I have no reference but I remember well!) the
>>>>> problem of women's participation in free/open source projects was
>>>>> examined.  The level of women's participation was known then (and probably
>>>>> still is) to be substantially less in FOSS than in the industry at large.
>>>>> Interestingly, one of the findings was that women apparently had a greater
>>>>> preference to use web forums than email lists.  Moreso than men.  So
>>>>> there's another dimension for mobilars to explore in his discourse analysis
>>>>> :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Bob
>>>>>
>>>>> On 10 October 2014 12:36, Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, be sure to communicate to everyone that they need to "upvote"
>>>>>> the questions, after they have been created. Each person gets 5 upvotes it
>>>>>> seems, perhaps depending on reputation or something similar.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> See here for some more metrics on another topic
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/55053/data-science
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not so sure we could generate 5 questions per day?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Jason
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Jason Pickering <
>>>>>> jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Matthieu,
>>>>>>> Sounds good to me. The process to get it setup seems rather involved
>>>>>>> but given the supposed number of people out there , we should have little
>>>>>>> problem gathering enough supoort.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Jason
>>>>>>> On Oct 10, 2014 6:59 AM, "Matthieu Pinard (UiO)" <
>>>>>>> matthiep@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> after discussing with web Lars and with the enlightenment of Mark
>>>>>>>> we came up with the following consensus after going back to the initial
>>>>>>>> needs to be addressed in this thread:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *How to make it easier for the users, developers and implementers
>>>>>>>> to look for an answer for a given question?*
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> For that matter *Stackexchange* seems to be a very good option.
>>>>>>>> Paraphrasing Ubuntu we can say that Stackexchange should become the
>>>>>>>> site for DHIS2 users, implementers and developers can collaboratively edit
>>>>>>>> question and answer them.
>>>>>>>> "Instead of posting a mailing list, this site would work by you
>>>>>>>> repeatedly editing your question with what you’ve learned about your
>>>>>>>> problem, and then users can rate the quality of the questions and answers
>>>>>>>> by voting" (Source:
>>>>>>>> http://community.ubuntu.com/help-information/finding-help/support/
>>>>>>>> ).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *Discourse* serves another purpose, which will be very useful for
>>>>>>>> the DHIS2 Community as well: a place where to discuss about the latest news
>>>>>>>> of DHIS2, discuss ideas etc. We will put that in place later on.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So in a step-by-step approach, let's start with *Stackexchange* to
>>>>>>>> serve the most urgent need. Once the community has adopted it we can
>>>>>>>> continue providing new tools, namely *Discourse*, for our
>>>>>>>> community to grow and engage (and vice versa).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So let's back Jason's initiative and *start posting* on
>>>>>>>> http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/77757/dhis2/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *NEXT STEP:* Diffuse this initiative to the info mailing list
>>>>>>>> explaining the goals and steps to make this initiative a success.
>>>>>>>> If you agree, Jason, web Lars and me could be assigned to this task.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *Question: Do you agree?*
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>>> Matthieu
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> PS: Interesting link that we will proudly imitate:
>>>>>>>> http://community.ubuntu.com/help-information/finding-help/support/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Matthieu Pinard
>>>>>>>> DHIS 2 Academy & Community Coordinator | University of Oslo
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 10 October 2014 12:25, Halvdan Grelland <halvdanhg@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Discourse seems to strike a great balance between power and user
>>>>>>>>> friendliness. +1
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 2014-10-10 11:20 GMT+02:00 Lars Kristian Roland <lars@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Here's another one I like:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> http://www.invisionpower.com/features/
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> (not that I don't like the ones Matthieu mentioned)
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Lars
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 2014-10-10 11:07 GMT+02:00 Matthieu Pinard (UiO) <
>>>>>>>>>> matthiep@xxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I'm glad to read that people with technical know-how are on this
>>>>>>>>>>> topic as well :).
>>>>>>>>>>> Forums being a fundamental building block of our (web) community
>>>>>>>>>>> choosing the right tool is key:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> The right tool for me means a tool that:
>>>>>>>>>>> - is easy to use for non-techies, as the community grows fast
>>>>>>>>>>> behind it's early adopters
>>>>>>>>>>> - encourages interaction though a good UX
>>>>>>>>>>> - helps the community to highlight what are the current hottest
>>>>>>>>>>> topics
>>>>>>>>>>> - enables "easy" moderation
>>>>>>>>>>> - can be used on different screens
>>>>>>>>>>> - ...and well... are open source ;)
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> So far I see two tools:
>>>>>>>>>>> - the Ubuntu Discourse http://www.discourse.org/
>>>>>>>>>>> - as we are using the CMS Drupal for our website, we can simply
>>>>>>>>>>> activate the forum (limited)  or better probably go the the Harmony
>>>>>>>>>>> Core <https://www.drupal.org/project/harmony_core> that is part
>>>>>>>>>>> of the Commons distribution
>>>>>>>>>>> <https://www.drupal.org/project/commons>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> So far from a user perspective I favor Discourse
>>>>>>>>>>> <http://www.discourse.org/>. BTW Ubuntu is using it. I can only
>>>>>>>>>>> encourage you to give it a try <http://try.discourse.org/> and
>>>>>>>>>>> tell me.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>>>>>> Matthieu
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Matthieu Pinard
>>>>>>>>>>> DHIS 2 Academy & Community Coordinator | University of Oslo
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On 9 October 2014 22:39, Lars Helge Øverland <
>>>>>>>>>>> larshelge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Does anyone know about any other existing forums that could be
>>>>>>>>>>>> potentially more suitable?
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> If not I'm all for giving this a try. I think going for a forum
>>>>>>>>>>>> that is well-known has more legs than starting our own.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Lars
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Lars Kristian Roland
>>>>>>>>>> Research Fellow, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
>>>>>>>>>> Email: lars@xxxxxxxxx - roland@xxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>>>> Phone: +47 90733036
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs-core
>>>>>>>>>> Post to     : dhis2-devs-core@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs-core
>>>>>>>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Jason P. Pickering
>>>>>> email: jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx
>>>>>> tel:+46764147049
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs-core
>>>>>> Post to     : dhis2-devs-core@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs-core
>>>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jason P. Pickering
>> email: jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx
>> tel:+46764147049
>>
>
>


-- 
Jason P. Pickering
email: jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx
tel:+46764147049