openstack team mailing list archive

[Anne Gentle <anne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey all, thanks for asking for my input. :)

A few months ago, I said it's too early. This month, I do sense a need for
community support, based on questions I see on the docs site and the types
of questions in Launchpad Answers.

I think we're getting to a real user community and it would be good timing
to start a forum, so I say yes, with the request that we have strong guides.
Jordan and Ron can be our one-percenter guys, the ones who are helpful and
responsive. We'll need other one-percenters. Vish has done a _great_ job
responding to Launchpad Answers. It's getting to be really helpful. But it's
not quite a forum. And it's not about the tool, it's about being responsive,
right?

I don't want to weigh in too heavily on a tools discussion, because it's
more about the community and people than a tool. The responses here seem to
indicate that sys admins would lean towards forums. I personally like the
Stack Exchange style sites for building a reputation which motivates
participation if done well. However, OpenStack is not a big enough draw for
them to be a "Top Network Site" like Ubuntu. And the tool is certainly not
open source. I don't honestly know pricing or licensing or availability of a
standalone Stack Exchange site. Does anyone have details there? That info
might help with the tools discussion.

My main point is that I'd like to ensure responsiveness, so we don't have
empty restaurant syndrome in a forum-like support site. The people who will
be most responsive to users and adopters should probably weigh in on the
tools discussion. Devs won't need to monitor the admin community support
site once we get a core group of admins running OpenStack and helping
others.

So that's my current thinking.
Anne



On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 9:36 AM, Jordan Rinke <jordan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Interesting because Ron very specifically mentioned being able to find
> useful and relevant information on the Ubuntu forums without bothering devs
> at the beginning of this discussion (which Soren then noted as an excellent
> point).
>
> We don't have an extended answer from Anne yet, but she did vote Yes on the
> survey (unless someone else used her name since there is no real auth).
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thierry Carrez [mailto:thierry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2011 9:27 AM
> To: Jordan Rinke
> Cc: openstack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Openstack] Creating a forum
>
> Jordan Rinke wrote:
> > I think a purely QnA site misses the mark a little, that style is
> > great for a very specific question (And the OSQnA stuff Everett linked
> > looks great) but I think a lot of users are lacking the knowledge to
> > ask a very specific question just yet. So maybe it is that we need a
> > place for random discussion, but that can also specifically answer a
> question as well.
>
> If you take Ubuntu (arguably one of the largest software-related forums in
> the world), the forums are completely ignored by developers, so it relies
> on
> a completely separate user community. It is a source for wrong (or
> outdated)
> technical answers and user frustration.
>
> They recently set up a stackexchange site at ask.ubuntu.com, and it is a
> huge success. Developers and users contribute to it, and it's a valuable
> and
> continuously-updated source of information.
>
> I don't want us to run into the same failure before realizing there is a
> better and more targeted tool available... Personally I would ignore forums
> (since they are a waste of time), but contribute to the stackexchange site
> (since they are an easy way to contribute reference information).
>
> > 77.8% voting for a forum at this point (out of 18 responses)
>
> I would wait on Anne's answer before taking any hasty decision based on a
> binary poll.
>
> --
> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
> Release Manager, OpenStack
>
>
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