[Xorg] Projects suggestions

[Erik Harrison]

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 08:59:23 -0700, Alan Coopersmith
<alan.coopersmith at sun.com> wrote:
> 
> Ely Levy wrote:
> > 1)Doc project
> >    Creating and maintaining docs, translating docs to diffrent langauges
> >    Making howtos and newbie guides (like a newbie guy for X configuration
> >    could be highly helpfull). helping in ordering the wiki and faqs so
> >    people could find help solving their problems.
> 
> The first step, which has been discussed elsewhere, is getting all the docs
> translated to a common format that can be edited by free software tools,
> such as DocBook XML, instead of the multitude of formats currently used,
> including some propreitary ones like FrameMaker.  ESR's doclifter tool has
> been proposed as a way to get started, and then get volunteers to proof/polish
> the results.
> 
> > 2)Forum
> >    Yea, a support forum for X, its proven itself to be highly usefull
> >    in creating a community in various projects. Users/Developers help each
> >    other, and more than a few people find it nicer than mailing lists.
> 
> And yet another large group of people find web forums much worse than mailing
> lists.  It's a rare website that I can get around to visiting on a regular
> basis - forums are just much harder to follow and participate in than a mailing
> list or newsgroup.  Perhaps that's just proof that we should have both (and
> perhaps a gateway between the two) so that users can pick the medium they prefer.
> 

One of the nifty things about a forum is the low barrier to entry. If
the Xorg mailing list is flooded with support questions, then it's
hard for the mailing list to be productive. A forum makes it easy for
people to post questions and answers without their discussions
interfering with others. Of course, that's the reason that forum
discussions are generally less thoughtful that mailing lists.

 A forum helps make it obvious where the software is deficient with
Joe User, and provides peer to peer support. I don't think it needs to
be tied to the mailing list - the opposite in fact.

-Erik "lurk lurk lurk" Harrison

> --
>        -Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
>         Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
> 
> 
> 
> 
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