From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 17 06:23:50 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 366021065673 for ; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:23:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: from igloo.linux.gr (igloo.linux.gr [62.1.205.36]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A20728FC19 for ; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:23:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: from kobe.laptop (adsl26-34.kln.forthnet.gr [77.49.153.34]) (authenticated bits=128) by igloo.linux.gr (8.14.3/8.14.3/Debian-5) with ESMTP id mAH6Nd0N029431 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:23:44 +0200 Received: from kobe.laptop (kobe.laptop [127.0.0.1]) by kobe.laptop (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id mAH6NcRG093378; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:23:39 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from keramida@localhost) by kobe.laptop (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) id mAH6Nc7D093377; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:23:38 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Wojciech Puchar References: <20081116160428.GD79046@valentine.liquidneon.com> <20081116195718.F26015@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:23:37 +0200 In-Reply-To: <20081116195718.F26015@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> (Wojciech Puchar's message of "Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:58:39 +0100 (CET)") Message-ID: <87r65a98gm.fsf@kobe.laptop> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-MailScanner-ID: mAH6Nd0N029431 X-Hellug-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-Hellug-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=-3.857, required 5, autolearn=not spam, ALL_TRUSTED -1.80, AWL 0.54, BAYES_00 -2.60) X-Hellug-MailScanner-From: keramida@ceid.upatras.gr X-Spam-Status: No Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Brad Davis Subject: Re: Official FreeBSD Forums X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:23:50 -0000 On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:58:39 +0100 (CET), Wojciech Puchar wrote: >> The FreeBSD project is finally, after much work, pleased to announce >> the availability of an official FreeBSD web based discussion forum. >> It is our hope that this forum will serve as a public support channel >> for FreeBSD users around the world and as a complement to our fine >> mailing lists. > > this will add lots of i...ts that are unable to configure mail program > and subscribe. is having as much "users" as possible really good for > FreeBSD? i don't think so. While I can see the point you are trying to make, and it's a valid concern, I don't fully agree. What you are essentially hinting at is that having a forum will attract less experienced users. I don't think less experienced people are, for some reason, 'idiots', but it seems plausible enough that having a _large_ number of inexperienced people may result in a significantly lower signal/noise ratio. I can definitely agree to that. Two of my usual gripes with forums and their software are: * Having five gazillion posts that say "me too", is not exactly a productive answer to a problem. Alas, this is often what you get when you gather hundreds of _very_ inexperienced people and you hand them a web interface to freely post short, often unintelligible snippets that are more suitable for Twitter than a FAQ page. * I hate crappy, slow, bug-ridden web interfaces. The word 'hate' is probably not strong enough to describe some of the sentiments that pop up when I have to type in tiny web-browser textboxes, only to find that hitting 'Back' throws away several minutes of editing. There *are* ways to amend some of these problems though, so even though I am not a great fan of forums and their software, I subscribed to the new forum and I will keep an eye for interesting stuff. The obvious solution to the ``too many newbies don't necessarily make a good knowledge base by their sheer number'' problem is to have _more_ of the experienced people subscribe to the forum. If you feel you are one of the people who can contribute useful, to the point, correct(TM) and complete answers to the forum, then you know what to do :-) The web interface and ``editing in tiny boxes'' problem may be slightly less irky or less nerve-wrecking for the ``old school'' people when an extension to Firefox is used to spawn an external editor. I do that all the time, and trust me it makes posting to forums a *lot* less painful for someone who likes writing in a _real_ text editor. I've been posting to forums with the mozex Firefox extension and GNU Emacs for more than a couple of years now. Here's how a typical ``post to a forum'' session looks like for me now: http://flickr.com/photos/74808312@N00/2961070181/ Having an Emacs instance running in ``server-mode'' means that I can also keep around a bunch of my previous posts, and go back to them, save them on disk, email them to myself, etc. This has helped me feel more at ease when posting to forums, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who feels web interfaces are giving them a lot of grief.