[libreoffice-design] Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: Migrating from Mail Listing to Forum

Hi Miguel, Kevin, Paulo, all,

I already wrote a very(!) long mail, so I try to shorten it and send this
version first...

Miguel Boto wrote:
> On Saturday, 29 January, 2011 at 8:07 PM, Kevin Soviero wrote:
>
> > I would agree with you, except, you guys are the design team... 

I read in one of the previous mails that someone (Andy?) referred to 
unstable Internet connections. It would be much easier if you had 
kept the phrase you cite here (and the name of the poster).

Reading several hundred LibO mails a day this would spare me 
some time I coudl spend on design work...

> > That means your jobs are to work with graphic design among other 
> > things. If a user is paying per kilobyte, it will be difficult to contribute 
> > graphics and artwork, not to mention visiting the wiki, and download all 
> > those images on WIP pages...

Please think about the people reading this mailing list because their area
of interest is related to Design: developers, marketers, website and 
native-lang teams. They didn't have to do anything but subscribing to
another mailing list and can follow the threads they are interested in.

With mailing lists this is possible with poor connections too.
 
> > A forum would not limit them anymore than they already are.

Not the main contributors - but perhaps someone able to contribute only
from time to time (e.g via Internet cafe)
> > -- 
> > Kevin Soviero [... removed your phone number... ]
> That´s true. Having or not a forum will not make things easier
> or harder than what they already are. People without broadband 
> access still have to access the images to comment or improve 
> one way or another.

Reading the mails first and deciding afterwards, if the linked graphic
is worth spending time and money is a difference I think.
> Usually there´s options in the forum control panel where the user 
> can disable the display of signatures, avatars and so forth. 

I don't see any necessity for avatars and long signatures - but 
this might help others perhaps in their workflow...

> There´s 
> also administration options to limit the size of the images posted by 
> users in threads to make the forum more accessible for those without 
> broadband connections. 

Limitation per thread might be problematic - who knows how many 
iterations will be necessary to finalze a design?

> And optionally those " thumbnails" can be 
> linked to full size images. This allows the user choose if it´s worth or 
> not to load the full version of the image.

This is an advantage - no question. Perhaps we could allow very small 
attachments (up to 20 or 50 kB) to this list too?

We'd have to ask Florian ...
> It´s certainly not the perfect solution for everyone, but it has some 
> advantages that may be worth considering.

It is important to keep an eye on the goals and find the best workflow to 
reach it. Some parts are easier in a forum, others are better handled in a 
mailing list.

I'll try to sum up what is important to me: 

ACCESSIBILITY:

1. With unreliable and expensive Internet access following a ML is easier
than a forum. It is no option to reduce the desing members to the
ones with the best Internet access. Even if they have to go to (e.g.) 
Internet cafe's for better bandwidth we don't wan to exclude anybody.

Especially community members in other related teams (developers, 
marketers, website and native lang group members) should be able to 
follow our discussions. As they don't contribute at the moment (possibly
in future - who knows?), they can read our mails without good connections.

2. Mailing lists are necessary for people working offline (like me).

3. Employers block forum URL while webmail is allowed (here).

4. Community needs people working in different teams to transport 
interrelated questions and development. They profit from a unified workflow.


PRESENTATION OF WORK:

1. Some small previews, intermediate mockups and proposals don't need to
be stored in a central place, if they are only related to the posting. Here 
attachments to a forum or attachments to the ML are reasonable. Both are 
easier than uploading the image to an external image server and provide
the link.

2. Iterative work needs to be stored centrally, so people can download one
version and upload the next one to the same place. This can't be done 
with a forum or a ML, we need the wiki for the majority of our work.

3. Comparison of alternative proposals is easy in the wiki, because the 
work is accessible by adding the name of the file to the wiki page. I don't 
know if anything similar is possible with forum attachments, it is probably similar
to ML postings (if attachments are allowed), where the attachment is stored 
with a more or less cryptic URL.

4. Presentation of our activities (even if they are work in progress) invite 
others to join our group - leading to more and better contributions.
Here the wiki is crucial!


EASE OF USE

1. For mailing lists you have to use a good client, providing citation,  threading,
filtering and marking the mails. With this tools a sufficient workflow should be 
possible.

2. Forums provide threads very easily, postings can be marked too - I don't 
know if custom filters are possible to sort the mails in other categories than
the predefined ones.

3. Replying to several parts of a posting is easy in mailng lists (just reply to 
the mail, snip the unrelated content and reply to every part of the mail directly 
below the citation). In forums it depends on the layout: Adding citation tags, 
copying and pasting the original mail several times might be problematic. 
Full quotes are very time consuming to read and distract from the important
parts of the postings.


INTEGRATED APPROACH

This would be the best way to handle the needs and interests of most of the 
team members. But mailing lists need to stay the central part of the work
in order to allow other teams to contribute easily and follow the evolution of
our design.

When the website team will start again to evaluate Drupal for our main 
website (probably in a few months), there might be an option for integrated 
mailing lists and forums inside our infrastructure.  

But as our mailing lists contain thousands of mails the capacity of these 
services need to be evaluated very thoroughly.


MY PERSONAL CONCLUSION

I'd like to learn more about the integrated mailinglist/forum Paulo wrote
about, but I still think that we can work with properly sorted mails from
the mailing list without major drawbacks against a forum. If you want to,
we could ask Florain, if it is possible to allow (small) attachments to this 
list. 

At the moment I see other - directly design related - work 
to be done more urgently (and I spent two hours for these two mails).

If I can help anybody with threads, filters and marks in mails to make it 
easier to follow the discussions in our mail clients, I'd be happy to do so.

> Sorry my limited English :(

Most of us here aren't native speaker, so don't be afraid, your English is
very good to understand. The longer I've been present on these 
international mailing lists, the more I improved my English :-)

Best regards

Bernhard




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