[ubuntu-uk] Uk Loco team forums

[alan c]

Alan Pope wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 06:56:21PM +0000, Tony Arnold wrote:
>> Nik,
>> 
>> Nicholas Butler wrote:
>> 
>> > My personal preferences are to use the Mailing list, however if a Forum 
>> > exists I will make sure I drop in and keep an eye on it and let people 
>> > know about the mailing list and the archvies and the thriving 
>> > communication we have here as well as the IRC Channels.
>> > 
>> > Can I assume this has been the consensus of the group ?
>> 
>> Me preference is for the mailing list, but I support the creation of a
>> forum too. If it can be integrated with the list, even better.
>> 
> 
> Indeed. If there is no integration between forum and list then there *will* be fragmentation of 
> the "membership". There will be conversations that happen on the forums which people on the 
> mailing list never see and vice versa. There will likely be dilution of conversations as people 
> won't reply in one medium because they've seen similar replies on the other. 
> 
> This isn't just my opinion, this is what I've seen happen for many groups who have run a mailing 
> list and forum side by side. Many people who are familiar with one method stick with it, rightly 
> or wrongly.
> 
> Those of us who are actually committed to doing good things for Ubuntu-UK will end up having to 
> spend even more of our own time than we already do keeping up with threads in multiple 
> locations. In my view this is sub-optimal.
> 
> Another non-FLOSS community I am a member of recently switched from mailing list to forums and 
> instantly I was unable to devote any time to the communication as a result. Whilst they did in 
> fact go some way to integrate the forums with the mailing list there was a fundamental flaw. 
> They had multiple forums. Each forum had to be separately subscribed to in order to receive the 
> posts as emails. When a new forum was created the mailing list members had no idea and went on 
> in complete ignorance of conversations happening in forums they weren't in.
> 
>> I think we could spend months discussing this, so I suggest we get on,
>> create the forum and then review it in 6 months time and see how it's going.
>> 
> 
> I can see that there is a large contingent on the web for whom mailing lists are somehow scary 
> and intimidating. And for that reason I can totally understand why they want a forum. What irks 
> me more than anything is the assertion that somehow forums are better than mailing lists for 
> those of us that are actually pretty handy with ssh and an email client.
> 
> I also fail to see what the remit of those forums would be. At the moment it seems to me that 
> there is the assertion that a forum should be created "because we can" not because there is some 
> burning need to do so.
> 
> What will the new forums mandate be? The same as this mailing list or something different?
> 
> Of course there's nothing I can say that can disuade anyone from creating these forums, I'm just 
> voicing my concerns before the forums get established.
> 
> Cheers,
> Al.
> 

I support much of what you say. I too would not use forums much,
except that
this present list is 'British Ubuntu Talk' it is not specific to the
type of talk etc. We have and will have,  specific projects in hand,
people will be interested in some maybe not all of these. It is hard
to keep track of what is being said in a project.
There are currently 42 items in this particular thread. I hope a
summary is made in a separate thread later on(!)

This thread is a creative one and sometimes other topics arise and are
also discussed.

I can see a benefit in having a flexible facility to deliberately
fragment in some way, simply to focus and condense some of what may
need to go on. This might possibly be done by, say, having a
convention of tight subject names - projects are handled by the formal
subject title. I think I could manage that information ok.
Alternatively, certain activities here could be done in detail in
another place - a sub forum/list (?)

A second level, also open membership, is useful for greater detail and
more formal handling of projects.
 --
alan cocks
Linux registered user #360648