There are many folks that are transient in terms of interests as evidenced by the serial nature of their endeavors and defunct projects (although I post occasionally, I prefer to contribute in other ways; e.g. occasional stray payments via paypal, helping users offline, etc.). It does seem that a web forum, whether it is their ease of access or their churn in volunteer moderators or their proprietary software (which becomes a prison for content), generally reduces the quality of the information exchange. Although I believe a better search interface would be a valuable tool to the mailing list as well as a a web-based forum (with RSS support, etc.) for "newbies", most users like the fact that one can use a program or service (Thunderbird, Outlook, Gmail, etc.) that they are comfortable with to perform rather simple searches to watch topics in which they are interested. All without having to worry about some poorly written SQL queries executed by a program running on under powered servers resting in the cloud that you have to go through layers (e.g. advanced search prompts, CAPTCHA, etc.) to do something that should only take a few seconds. What might be most useful is to author a more polished introduction (newbie) guide. Although I don't have the time now to it myself, I would be willing to sponsor (i.e. fund) it so that more people are introduced to FS. -metik Ben Langfeld wrote:
There may be a forum, but such a thing cannot be expected to succeed if there's competition with an already established list. Such a thing would have to replace the mailing list to succeed. I believe this would help the FreeSWITCH effort amongst newer users and lead to much faster growth. The barrier to entry of a mailing list is a tad too high for some since it presents an impression, justified or not, that the list is where the elite hang out and is off-limits for newbies, whereas with a tidier forum setup that would allow for a "Newbies Corner" might avoid this. Mailing lists are showing their age these days - as demonstrated by the difficulty in responding to this on digest mode - I have to strip away every other thread first.
I'm convinced that a full shift to newer, better organised and more friendly technology would only be a good thing for the FreeSWITCH project. Does anyone agree, or am I out on my own on this one?
Regards, Ben Langfeld
Wave > Email
On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 12:11 AM, <freeswitch-users-request@lists.freeswitch.org <mailto:freeswitch-users-request@lists.freeswitch.org>> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael S Collins <msc@freeswitch.org <mailto:msc@freeswitch.org>> To: "freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org <mailto:freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org>" <freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org <mailto:freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org>> Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:54:15 -0700 Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] FreeSWITCH Mailing List - Why not a forum? There *IS* a forum. A volunteer set it up a few years ago and promised to maintain it. The fact that you can't find it is proof positive that a forum just isn't the best choice for this particular online community. I'd say the nabble site is your best option.
-MC
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 27, 2010, at 4:51 AM, William Suffill <william.suffill@gmail.com <mailto:william.suffill@gmail.com>> wrote:
It's been brought up before. I don't recall exactly all the +/- discussed but there are some alternatives for the user depending on their preference. Digest can get a bit annoying in high volume. The list is archived in various places (Gmane.org <http://Gmane.org>,nabble.com <http://nabble.com>)
Nabble does provide a forum style interface to the current list if you rather follow it that way. http://n2.nabble.com/freeswitch-users-f2379917.html "This forum is an archive for the mailing list: *freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org <mailto:freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org>* (more options <http://n2.nabble.com/mailing_list/MailingListOptions.jtp?forum=2379917>) Messages posted here will be sent to this mailing list."
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