Re: [libreoffice-website] Houston, we have a problem.

Le 2010-10-18 10:51, James Wilde a écrit :
> Originally posted on the Discuss list, where the suggestion, quite rightly, was that I move it here.
>
> I've been reading the comments on list vs forum, traffic problems and so on, and taking a look at 
> the options available to users.  Why, I wondered, are so many questions that should be on [users] 
> coming to [discuss]?  So I took a look at the options for user support.  It was when I was about to 
> suggest that list moderators should be able to redirect list messages instead of just approve them, 
> and then realised that list moderators only see about five out of every thousand messages, that I 
> realised that it was a forum we needed, and began looking at LIbO's interface with the world.  And 
> discovered what a mess, sorry, eight-armed octopus it has become, from the users' point of view.
>
> This is what I found:
>
> I'm a libreoffice user and I want help.  I test libreoffice.org and I'm redirected to 
> documentfoundation.org.  Hello, who are these TDF guys and what do they have to do with my problem? 
>  I want help with LibO, not TDF.
>
> Action point 1:  redirect TDF to LibO and not vice versa or have TDF as a 'corporate' site.
>
> The Supporters page gives me a list of companies and individuals who think we're doing a great job, 
> but nothing on how to fix my problem.
>
> Action point 2:  Rename 'Supporters' to 'Admirers of what we're doing'.
>
> On the TDF site as it is, I _may_ find my way to the Contribute page - not the most intuitive.  I 
> want support, I'm not ready to contribute yet.  If I  stay on the Contribute page long enough,  I 
> _may_ notice that there is a bunch of lists, and I _may_ go and take a look at those lists and 
> discover, if I scroll a looong  way down that there is a Users list, which is for support.
>
> Action point 3:  Rename 'Contribute' to 'Support'.  Move Users to the top of the lists list.  But 
> see below.
>
> There is also a forum.  How I'm going to find that there is a libreofficeforum.org I don't know.  
> Maybe it's referenced somewhere.  I think there was a link on the Contribute page, alongside the 
> link to 'some lists'.  However, the forum address should be forum.libreoffice.org, so that one can 
> get there from libreoffice.org, via a link at the top, saying Forum.
>
> Action point 4:  Put a redirect on the libreoffice.org site to libreofficeforum.org.  Or better 
> yet, sink libreofficeforum.org altogether, and use forum.libreoffice.org.
>
> Now I have a lot of respect for Barbara Duprey, who is far and away better than I will ever be at 
> helping users.  Barbara prefers a mailing list to a forum for non-technical users.  Unfortunately, 
> I'm a technical user so I'm not typical, but I have to challenge her view on that.  I'm a member of 
> a site for those who read e-books, and help there is via a forum.  If there's one place where 
> technical illiterates could be considered to gather, it's on a site devoted to e-books. But the 
> forum there functions well.  Another forum which works well - for writers, perhaps even more 
> technically incompetent - is on the Scrivener site.
>
> An advantage of a forum over a mailing list is that the moderators can move threads which land in 
> the wrong place - like all these user questions in discuss, for example.
>
> Another advantage of a forum over a mailing list is that I can come and do a quick search for my 
> problem (which I can in the list archives also, of course) and then open a thread for my problem.  
> When I come back I just need to look at that thread - I can browse the others if I want, and that 
> way I may get involved - and get my replies.  And when I've solved my problem, if I'm not 
> interested in staying with the community, I just don't return until I have a new problem.  I don't 
> have to unsubscribe, which, since I'm illiterate as well as technically illiterate, I can't see how 
> to do from the lines at the bottom of the email.  So no 'help me unsubscribe' messages.
>
> Action point 5:  Let the list system fade out, or at least move it down the priorities for user 
> support.  I know there are people in here who live in the Unix world - I did myself once - and use 
> text-only email readers, and who therefore prefer mailing lists, but ordinary users don't like 
> them.  So keep and monitor the lists, but plug the forum.
>
> Thanks for listening.  Now, Houston, help us get back to Earth.  :)
>
> //James

I'm also leaving this note from the discuss thread and am adding this:

>
> yes, indeed, Mailman does support something like a
> mailinglist-forum-bridge. I am also involved in the new Mageia
> distribution and one of the participants there has for test purposes
> created such a forum-mailinglist gateway. You can read his
> introduction to the forum and the link to it in this email:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/mageia-discuss@mageia.org/msg01602.html
>
> I'm sure he would be willing to help out a bit - if asked nicely. ;)
>
> Sigrid
>

Thanks Sigrid, I was exactly going to recommend the same thing. I am 
also part of the Mageia marketing team and a lot of the mailist/forums 
problems are similar for both groups. It may be a good idea to "team up" 
with the Mageia people who are in charge and compare notes just for the 
sake of expediency.

Marc


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