Discussion Forums/Problem Statement: Difference between revisions

Undo revision 1106196 by Maybe (talk)
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It's not at all clear that removing this requirement will make any difference. As long as we have mailing lists, we can convert them to news in various ways, including the gmane.org service (where anyone can apply to have it done, not just us). Also, the last time we did a survey, a significant proportion of current users used this access method.
It's not at all clear that removing this requirement will make any difference. As long as we have mailing lists, we can convert them to news in various ways, including the gmane.org service (where anyone can apply to have it done, not just us). Also, the last time we did a survey, a significant proportion of current users used this access method.


Ditching the news requirement would allow us to just go wholly to Google Groups. We would then, at least, have everything in the hands of one organization. However, [http://ejohn.org/blog/google-groups-is-dead/ John Resig has some thoughts] about why that might not be a good idea. Our own experience of the support we receive from Google Groups is poor. They are unlikely to be any more responsive to problem reports than they are now. And they are the source of our current spam problems, which also suggests spam issues would not improve (and we would have no control).
Ditching the news requirement would allow us to just go wholly to Google Groups. Posting via Google Groups is futile, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1225589#c5. We would then, at least, have everything in the hands of one organization. However, [http://ejohn.org/blog/google-groups-is-dead/ John Resig has some thoughts] about why that might not be a good idea. Our own experience of the support we receive from Google Groups is poor. They are unlikely to be any more responsive to problem reports than they are now. And they are the source of our current spam problems, which also suggests spam issues would not improve (and we would have no control).


===Would removing the requirement for mailing list access simplify things and give more solution options?===
===Would removing the requirement for mailing list access simplify things and give more solution options?===
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===Why can't we go web-only? One thing is much easier to maintain than three.===
===Why can't we go web-only? One thing is much easier to maintain than three.===


The UI of the web-based discussion forums we can find, particularly with relation to threading and unread message markers, still hasn't caught up with email and news (some might add "in the minds of those who like to read information using a mail/news style interface"). It's very hard to consume a large quantity of information this way. Google Groups may be an exception to this... but that takes us back to one of the earlier questions.
The UI of the web-based discussion forums we can find, particularly with relation to threading and unread message markers, still hasn't caught up with email and news (some might add "in the minds of those who like to read information using a mail/news style interface"). It's very hard to consume a large quantity of information this way. Google Groups may be an exception to this... but that takes us back to one of the earlier questions and posts to Google Groups can be lost due to its UI, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1225589#c5.


===Why don't we bring it all in-house?===
===Why don't we bring it all in-house?===
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* [https://www.sympa.org/ Sympa] - mail and web, but no news support
* [https://www.sympa.org/ Sympa] - mail and web, but no news support
* [http://cvs.prohost.org/index.php FUDForum] - [http://cvs.prohost.org/index.php/Features#Mailing_List_and_NNTP_Integration can be used] as a web-based gateway to newsgroups or mailing lists
* [http://cvs.prohost.org/index.php FUDForum] - [http://cvs.prohost.org/index.php/Features#Mailing_List_and_NNTP_Integration can be used] as a web-based gateway to newsgroups or mailing lists
* [http://www.jivesoftware.com/ Jive] - Collaboration suite
* [http://www.discourse.org/ Discourse] - Open source discussion platform from some of the folks behind StackOverflow. May not meet all our requirements, but could be a GSoC project away from doing so.
* [http://groupserver.org/ Groupserver] - mailing list manager with web interface
Account confirmers, Anti-spam team, Confirmed users, Bureaucrats and Sysops emeriti
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