openstack team mailing list archive

[Rick Clark <rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

a few comments about a forum:

+ While I agree with Thierry that most end user apps have forums, some 
SA/Dev oriented software also have forums.

+ I think there is a need for a place where people can ask simple 
questions they would not feel comfortable asking on the ML.

- Forums are very labor intensive, we need to ensure that we actually 
have people to do the work

- the successful forums tend to be in communities that number in the 
hundreds of thousands or millions.

-+ Devs tend not to participate, but that is ok.  They don't have to, if 
you have a robust user community, which I am not sure we do, yet.

+ it's ok to try and fail.  If there are people like Jordan that want to 
do the work and start up a forum, I say let them.  We just need to watch 
it and be prepared to shut it down if it is not succeeding.

!!!Please do not try to combine the forums with the mailing list. It is 
ok to have different communication channels for different groups.

+1 to a stack exchange type of forum.


On 05/03/2011 08:59 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Jordan Rinke wrote:
> > Can anyone name a large successful project that either doesn't have an
> > official forum, or that multiple unofficial forums haven't sprung up around?
>
> The Linux Kernel ? Apache HTTPD ? Most projects that have forums are
> end-user-oriented, not sysadmin-oriented.
>
> > Also, I looked and phpbb has a mod that allows marking topics as solved,
> > selecting a post as the answer and also giving posts solve ratings so I
> > think that is a good combination of both worlds (and we could tweak expand
> > on the concept if needed)
>
> That doesn't solve the duplication of questions which usually plague forums.
>
> In the end, it all depends on what you're after. If you want a place for
> random people to randomly discuss OpenStack, then a forum system is
> definitely the good answer. If you want an area where to ask questions
> and find answers, then a stackexchange-type site is what you need. Using
> one to do the other is a recipe for pain.