openstack team mailing list archive

[Thierry Carrez <thierry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stefano Maffulli wrote:
> Here is the list of requirements we gathered:
> 
> * good search engine
> * ability to promote question and best answer to FAQ
> * good looking and nice to use
> * custom domain (like ask.openstack.org)
> * layout customizable, to give it the "openstack.org look"
> * use Launchpad login
> * Tagging
> * Use of a reputation system to encourage participation and get a better
> handle on authoritative answers
>  * a method or process for flagging topics which should migrate  into
> documentation and/or the wiki. In details: (1) a way of flagging a
> question or discussion as a doc bug, a potential enhancement, or even a
> product bug. 2) A way of closing the loop, and updating the question to
> indicate the issue is resolved/fixed, and no longer relevant.
> * a way to assign a question to a particular version (or milestone) in
> order to better mark questions (and answers) as obsolete
> 
> I would add an extra requirement: that the tool itself must be 'free as
> in freedom' software.
> 
> I'm assuming we want all of these requirements satisfied. We should
> start talking about tools now. 
> 
> What tool do you know that allows us to satisfy these requirements? Help
> me build a list of tools to evaluate. I'm especially interested in
> seeing whether we can improve upon the tools we already have.

I think a stackexchange clone could, with proper use of tagging, satisfy
all these. There are a lot of unfinished projects... The most
interesting candidate probably is:

AskBot (Python/Django, GPL) - http://askbot.com/
Used by Fedora at http://ask.fedoraproject.org/questions/, can use
Launchpad OpenID for auth.

The next two in line are:

Shapado (Ruby) - http://shapado.com/ : Very active, but confusing UI...
OSQA (Python) - http://www.osqa.net/ : No activity in the last 8 months

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack