OK, all your arguments make sense and I now understand that I was a bit narrow-minded about that. I also agree that digging into mailing list archives is not a very comfortable way to get help.
If you already worked on some sort of a RoundCube board and have webspace available, I agree to open an "official" web-based forum/board. Alternatively we could use the SourceForge webspace with MySQL database (if phpBB doesn't need sockets). I currently don't have time to work on something like that but I can offer to create a DNS entry for the forum host or give away access to the SF space.
Thanks for all your effort!
Thomas
Brett Patterson wrote:
I was actually in the midst of making a phpBB 2.0 template based off of RoundCube. Maybe I'll continue it later, but I'm totally available to setup a phpBB board (with unlimited bandwidth) at my personal site. All I'd need was the okay of the Admins.....
Could be done as early or late as today/tomorrow....
~Brett
Robbie Garrett wrote:
The other thing you have to think about here is...
If people are using RC on a webhost. And there mail is also included with there webhost. And the only forum of help is email. That's taking up there allowed bandwith. Which sucks.
i'm 100% for forums. You made some really good points here. And i honestly feel that the people should make a forum. Weither it's supported by RC or not. This project has a good ways to go, with unlimited endings and modifications.
On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 12:29:33 +0000, Geoffrey McCaleb geoffrey@tabasco.net wrote:
Hi Thomas, With all due respect, a forum is not for you, its for the users. I know that sounds rude, but it isn't! A wiki is a great replacement for documentation, but Roundcube still needs a way to provide support to users who need help. Wiki's are not the place for asking questions, but as a sort of end point of all user and system knowledge.
If mailing lists are your preferred way to communicate for the community, then thats great! But what you need out of communication, is different from how I, for example, use it. Me? I personally loath mailing lists because my inbox gets stuffed with loads of threads, some I may be able to help with, some not. Also, if I unsubscribe, then I have to hack through the archive to see what I missed. What if I want to respond to a particular thread? Then I have to go through the process to subscribe again. With a forum, you chose what you get involved with, and if you leave its easy to pick back up again later.
But crucially, with a forum, you can do two things: first it cuts down on mailing list traffic because users have a different outlet for their queries. Second, over time the knowledge available on threads can be pushed upwards into the wiki. Over time, the wiki will still become the defacto knowledge center.
If you think about it, you have two fundamental streams of people. Developers and Users. Most Open Source projects keep these streams separate for a reason.
Users: forums -> wiki Developers: mailing lists -> wiki
With of course bug tracking working across the both.
Anyway, all I'll say is I'm open for people to disagree, as long as they understand that the two streams can and should be seperate. I don't see why the two can't co-exist peacefully. I mean, if you asked us, I'm sure there would be agreement that the developers should lurk where they feel most comfortable. I mean, without them (and you Thomas), there would be no Roundcube!!
Thoughts anyone?
Geoffrey
On Thu, 09 Mar 2006 11:59:12 +0100, Thomas Bruederli roundcube@gmail.com wrote:
I am happy to setup and host a forum, as long as there is a consensus
that it is needed. I have no desire to splinter the community though.
The decision to use mailing lists was made some time ago and I don't like to have multiple forums that I need to check periodically.