I'll play Devil's Advocate...
>> Adding official forums would greatly benefit the Bacula project, I
>> think.
>
> That would require someone who'd act as a moderator for the forums, and
> knowledgeable people to frequent it and answer questions. Unlike mailing
> lists, forums stay usable only as long as someone is animating and
> moderating them.
Not really any more so than an email list, especially if the membership is
well-behaved.
>> Mailing lists are okay, but they do not provide some of the options and
>> benefits of forums. Forums would also provide easier support access to
>> younger folks (such as myself :P).
>
> I don't see how a forum would be any easier than E-mail. In my experience,
> it's the other way round. Whenever I have to use a forum for support it
> tends to be much more time consuming than simple E-mail.
One major advantage to forums over email is that if I can connect to the
forum, I've got a complete trail. Not necessarily with email.
>> Other advantages I see compared to using mailing lists only:
>> 1) Improved overview since it is visually more pleasing and more
>> sub-categories can be used.
>> 2) It's easier to track complex topics.
>
> I can't confirm either of these two statements from the forums I have
> encountered so far. But perhaps I am just too old. ;-)
>
>> I'm not suggesting the removal of mailing lists in favor of forums, I'm
>> merely suggesting the forums should be added to the main site, mainly in
>> order to get support.
>
> That would exacerbate the manpower problem. How many mailing list
> participants will find the time to frequent a forum in addition? And if
> none of the mailing list participants frequent the forum, who will provide
> support there? I see the danger of fragmenting the Bacula user community
> into "old hands" on the mailing list and "younger folks" on the forums.
> Crosslinking the two isn't a viable solution either, as demonstrated by
> the Opensuse mailing lists whose usability has suffered seriously after
> the merge with the previously separate Opensuse forums.
This one I'd agree with. One or the other, but not both. Cross
populating would be difficult at best.
For what it's worth, I'm the back end administrator for a North American
4wd club/site. The site sees a few thousand visitors a day, as well as
quite a few posts.
Re: spam posts. The site I administer had a severe spam problem a few
months back. CAPTCHA has been broken. At a minimum, reCAPTCHA is a
better alternative, as well as other anti-bot measures. This is a battle
that will never stop, it's going to be an arms race.
Jeff Kalchik
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