[mythtv-users] Forums??

[Kevin Thorwesten]

If someone is going to help they are going to help. If they will take their
time to respond to an email why would they not respond to a forum post? If
there is no mailing list and forums only, the experienced users will still
log on to the forums to check the posts as they log on to their email to
check their emails. I dont see any difference there.

The only difference I see, which is also the benefit is the orgranization.
And all the points that Ben Davies stated in his email.

Thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Olszewski" <ray at comarre.com>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at snowman.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Forums??


> The problem with using forums to support beginners ("newbies") is that the
> forums need some experienced users to answer the questions that beginners
> ask. In my experience (with Linux and elsewhere), there is no shortage of
> people who ask questions, but too few who both have the knowledge and are
> willing to spend the time to answer them (correctly).
>
> So don't pay attention to what people who *ask* questions want (unless you
> are trying to set up a paid-support system or have some other, practical
> reason of that sort). Pay attention to how the people who will *answer*
> questions want them asked. This recurring thread suggests to me that the
> experienced people -- Isaac himself,  I note, but I think others too --
> prefer the mailing list, and they get more votes than the beginners.
>
> This same consideration, BTW, also argues for not setting up a separate
> beginners list ... it makes it too easy for experienced users not to see
> the beginner questions.
>
> I suppose if there is some painless way to combine the two, that's fine.
> (Though I'm on one Sourceforge list that does it poorly -- forum questions
> get mailed to the list, but there is no way to mail answers back to the
> forum; you have to log into the forum to post answers, and getting someone
> actually to do that is an ongoing weakness of the method.) Actually, a
> forum doesn't then even need to be part of the Myth site, just to interact
> with the list ... so anyone really interested in setting it up can do so
at
> any convenient site.
>
>
> At 04:01 AM 5/30/2003 +0200, Ben Bucksch wrote:
> >Taking the risk of beating the dead horse...
> >
> >Ben Davis wrote:
> >
> >>Email lists are good for support, but I think regular discussion that
> >>does not require support should be posted in a forum.
> >heh, and I thought the opposite - forums for the newbies support and
> >regular development / idea discussion on mailing lists :).
> >
> >Personally, I think that email software is far superiour and more
> >(time-)efficient than a web based solution, but I see that others
(usually
> >newbies, in my biased world-view :-) ) disagree. What might be nice would
> >be a forum<->mailing list gateway, similar to
> ><http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/Users_F11/>, but with
> >posting capabilities. Isaac's concern of invalid From email addresses
> >could be addressed with requiring a working email address for subscribers
> >(and only allowing subscribers to post, of course), if you handle the
> >bounces :).
>
>
>
>
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