Re: Gnome community

["c. schwarm" <c schwarm gmx net>]

Hi, Dave.

David Neary wrote:
> 
> I noticed that you mention "the forum" and "desktop notes" as
> being two different things - I assumed that that gnomedesktop.org 
> was what you meant by the forum, but it seems I was wrong... what 
> is the forum?
> 

Oops, sorry.

 http://gnomesupport.org/forums/

That's not the comments section of footnotes.

> 
> I don't think that the cheerleading base is small, but I do think
> that it isn't funnelled - right now there is not a clear GNOME
> community site like spreadfirefox (why do we keep comparing
> things to mozilla? Because for the last year they have done so
> much right). 

Footnotes is a little bit like spreadfirefox - at least I think it could be
turned into something like it. And Stro - its admin AFAIK - tried hard to do
a good job: There's not just footnotes, and the forum, but also a wiki, for
example. [5]

> But now even spreadfirefox is losing value, because
> a lot of the things coming up on the forums have come up before,
> and they're hitting the classic problem open source and free
> software projects have always had - managing knowledge bases.
> Your information needs to be 
> 1) Easily discoverable
> 2) Filterable
> 3) Pertinent
> 

Being active in forum support over the last years, I can say that this is
also a user problem: People don't use search engines. One usually needs
people to point into the right direction over and over again. That's just
how it works.

And search engines sometimes don't help, too. Last year, I searched a
nautlius patch in bugzilla twice: Each time it took over half an hour. The
bugzilla people have my highest respect - I wouldn't be able to overview
this.

> That means having one site for docs, which has a well thought out
> hierarchy, and a search facility. And that site needs to be
> pointed to *everywhere* - want to know whether you should use
> Bonobo? Go look at the bonobo section of the knowledge base.
> Can't figure out how to contribute to GNOME? Go look in the
> Helping out section of the knowledge base. Want to get some tutorials
> on common tasks in GNOME? Go to the "getting started" section of
> the knowledge base. 

I've once suggested a hierachy for a development forum but since I recently
found my first development cookbook, I plan to use it for a sort of
collaborative notes web app, too. [1]

> 
> This needs to be complimented with one, and only one,
> slashdot-type site for GNOME news and user feedback, which gets 
> syndicated on the sidebar of the web page, and one (and only 
> one) planet, which gets aggregated on the sidebar of the web page. 
> 
> You would end up with the same style sheets and the same sidebar
> for all gnome.org pages. So your news items are available on all
> pages, as are your planet entries.
> 

Yes, the aggregation might help. If we need more developers and other people
to help on various issues, we need a way to let them participate easily:
Posting stuff (comments , for example) is the most easy task. Then, we need
a way to find very active people easily to ask them for help here and there,
so that they get integrated in one of the various sub-communities.

> Right now our major problem is taht here, we are not talking to
> the right people. We're not talking to the web team, we're not
> talking to the forum admins, we're not talking to the
> gnomedesktop people or gnomefiles people or any others. That
> conversation needs to start first :) I'd suggest going through
> foundation-list for something like this - we don't really have a
> central website for community type issues right now (perhaps
> that's part of the problem, but then who would subscribe?).
> 

The best place would be the web list since its a GNOME web page issue. I
think, the art.gnome.org admins have subscribed there. However, I don't know
if Stro is subscribed on the list.

However, last year, I tried two times [1][2] to get an apps.gnome.org page
going on the web list - and each time I got a "No" with other explanantions.
Please note the first attempt was earlier than gnomefiles. The current beta
runs on [4].

I don't see a chance if it's judged as non-important. So, maybe the
foundation needs to discuss this first.

Cheers, 

Claus

[1] http://gnomesupport.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=42507#42507

[2]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2004-February/msg00025.html

[3]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2004-September/msg00031.html

[4] http://gnome-apps.berlios.de/news.php

[5] http://gnomesupport.org/

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