RE: [nv-l] another list
2003-10-15 14:30:23
Well,
I will weigh in on this from a different perspective.
I
think the mailing list and a newsgroup both have significant limitations. In
this day and age, more facilities should be available for a user community than
just a simple email thread. If you look around at other software products and
their support forums, you see a feature list like this:
1.
Message threads / bulletin board
2.
Download area for user contributions (i.e. let me share my script / rulesets
with you)
3.
Chat room for online meetings with product experts
4.
Patches
5.
Documentation
6.
Surveys / questionnaires
7.
Enhancement requests
Just
to draw a parallel - I play online games. If you go look at the support site for
a user community from one of the popular MMORPGs you find a suite of tools and
features that is quite robust and usually these are supported by fans without a
lot of capital to pay for fancy features - they just use whats easily obtained
and create some DAMN good web sites to support their "guilds". It is extremely
annoying to me, that the user community for NetView is still living in the text
only 1970s bulletin board format.
I
don't really have a preference about news vs. email, I just hate the limited
feature set for support so we have to keep answering the same questions for
folks over and over (no threads so we can't have a sticky topic with FAQs) - no
download area so we can't share files / scripts, etc.
Folks,
I sent a posting to this list a
couple days ago, which I don't seem to be able to find any more, so I'll try
again.
I inquired about this and
was told that a Tivoli executive had ordered the creation of this
NetView newsgroup so that he could say that all Tivoli products, like
all IBM products, had one. Furthermore, the mention of the newsgroup in
the next version of each product's Release Notes was also mandated. No
one in my group nor in NetView development even saw this boiler plate before
the ID group replaced that book on the CD. It was not considered
technical content and therefore was not given to them to review. That's
why the nv-l list was not mentioned there as well. I have already
escalated this and I think that will be rectified in the Release Notes to the
first FixPack for 7.1.4.
As
for the newsgroup itself, even the people who created it say that they do not
think of it is a replacement for the nv-l list, which they admit is monitored
by people with much more expertise than any newsgroup is.
So my advice is that, as users, you "vote
with your feet" as it were and use the vehicle you prefer. This list is
your forum after all; it was started by customers for customers, and until it
suddenly needed a home and a Tivoli guy volunteered to rescue it, it was
not maintained by IBM at all. If you choose not to participate on the
newsgroup, you need not. I don't plan to, myself.
James Shanks Level 3 Support for Tivoli NetView for
UNIX and Windows Tivoli Software / IBM Software
Group
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- Re: [nv-l] another list, (continued)
- Re: [nv-l] another list, Dietmar Gaulhofer
- RE: [nv-l] another list, bernard.baudoux
- RE: [nv-l] another list, Mahesh Tailor
- RE: [nv-l] another list, Davis, Donald
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- RE: [nv-l] another list, Evans, Bill
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Barr, Scott <=
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- FW: [nv-l] another list, Hany Abadir
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