Hi,
16.12.2008 18:14, Kevin Keane wrote:
> Alex Chekholko wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:05:49 +0100
>> Sven-Hendrik Haase <sh AT lutzhaase DOT com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> 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.
That is a disadvantage IMO. Whenever I have to use a forum for support
thingies, I find I have to navigate many subcategories - often because
other users seem to have difficulties placing their posts into the
right category, or during a conversation, the topic moves.
Searching in the forum systems I know is usually very limited,
compared to what I can do with Thunderbird's search functions (and I
know other mail clients are much more flexible!) or, if everything
fails, using egrep on the mail storage itself.
Finally, mail allows me to keep the whole history of this list on my
site (disk space is cheap, and Bacula can back up my mail storage). I
see no way to easily access a larger forum locally.
>>> 2) It's easier to track complex topics.
I disagree...
>>> 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.
>>>
>> One could also view them as the same thing just with a different interface.
>>
>> Curtis Preston's site already translates this list into forum form:
>> http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/two-way-mirrors-of-external-mailing-lists-3/bacula-25/
>>
> Admitted, it's quite browseable as an archive. But posting from it? How
> many more accounts do I have to create all over the place, and how many
> more passwords to track? No thanks.
The same here... I would simply not use a forum.
> One signup per product for a mailing
> list or forum is acceptable. TWO for the same product? That's much.
>
> That is why any forum or the like should be ONE single message one
> that's easily searchable (and I agree with other posters that the SF
> browsing is frustrating, to term it politely). Preferably, there should
> be a mechanism to prevent republishing on other sites (Currently, many
> sites are republishing mailing lists for advertising $$$, and it makes
> Googling a real chore).
>
> That said, I do think that a forum format for posting would be good.
> Right now, I accidentally deleted one of the emails in this thread, and
> suddenly it is impossible for me to respond to it.
Seems to be a question of how you set up your mail client mostly -
myself, for example, I don't delete mail in the mailing list folders.
Even if I deleted it, I could find it in the Trash folder.
> Also, there are times
> when I don't have email (such as when I stop my mail server for a full
> backup - yes, I know, I can use LVM snapshots) but still have Web access.
Nah, that's no argument - here, I might easily have access to my mail
system, but not to the internet. The benefits of running your own mail
storage...
> There is another problem with the email mailing list: please keep in
> mind that the majority of people on this mailing list are ordinary
> users. Not people who live and breath bacula 24 hours a day the way
> developers do,
Actually, I hope our developers don't breathe Bacula 24/7...
> but people who have another job to complete, and bacula
> may be just 1% of that job. For such people, like me, an email list
> means that my mailbox gets filled up every day with posts from people
> who have questions completely unrelated to how I use bacula.
Easy to ignore...
I don't see why a forum would be more useful then. Finding new,
interesting things only works when all the other users place their
postings into the right section, and use the right keywords in the
subjects.
There are no sections in email lists, so this is no problem. The
subject problem remains, but is the same for mailing list and forum.
But, with an email list, you automatically get everything that is
posted, so you don't have to search a lot remotely - you can, instead,
do all the necessary searching locally, which should be a lot quicker
and more flexible.
> As a matter
> of fact, I get more emails from the bacula mailing list every day than
> pass my spam filter! Once I have bacula running, hopefully I will not
> need this mailing list for weeks on end.
So you are mainly interested in replies to your own mails - that's ok,
and I believe with a decent mail client, you should be able to achieve
that easily, either using automatic filtering, or using the threaded
view plus setting the sort order sensibly.
>
> With all that said, I think there already is an excellent solution
> available that solved all these problems: Yahoo Groups. OK, Open-Source
> purists probably don't like it because it's proprietary. Quite frankly,
> though, I have to say: "so what?"
Quite frankly - feel free to create such a group :-)
> - It works both as a forum and as a mailing list, and is nicely
> integrated between the two.
> - Single sign on for many groups. VERY important.
Single sign on to my mail accounts is also not a hard task.
> - You can post by email or on the Web.
Actually, I don't even want to post by web. I prefer a plain text
display, where I can navigate in and among mails by keystrokes, don't
have any advertisements displayed, and can rely on most other users
sensibly quouting and trimming - something that, in my experience,
requires quite a bit of mouse-shuffling with a web-based interface.
> - Spam doesn't seem to be a major problem; Yahoo solved it (except for
> their Grouply problem).
I don't see a spam problem to the bacula mailing lists (but I don't
even know how much my local spam filtering has to do with that).
> - It preserves threading properly (unless somebody using email breaks it
No problem with any decent mail reader.
> - that's even more of a problem with mailing lists).
Indeed? I never noticed, but I admit I'm not usually using a threaded
view.
> - Nearly everybody already has a Yahoo account anyway - and tied to an
> email address.
Now that's a big claim. For example, I don't have a yahoo account, and
I'm pretty sure I never will.
> - You can turn off email delivery, and still participate in the group.
Actually, I think we've got a nice group of very active users here who
probably don't even *want* to turn off mail delivery, but instead
wouldn't show much activity if they had to use a web-based interface.
People searching for help can easily unsubscribe from the mailing list
after their questions are answered.
> Maybe of SF improves their email list, it would be the ideal solution.
If they improved their list archives - ok. I don't see that the
mailing list software itself needs much work - it seems to work correctly.
Arno
--
Arno Lehmann
IT-Service Lehmann
Sandstr. 6, 49080 Osnabrück
www.its-lehmann.de
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