Re: gEDA-user: Asking questions, obtaining answers ...

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

At the risk of being accused a Canonical / Launchpad fan-boy, if this
were an idea we wanted to implement, I'd take a fair bit of convincing
that we didn't just want to use Launchpad answers...


On Sun, 2008-03-30 at 17:55 -0400, Stuart Brorson wrote:
> The idea is twofold:
> 
> 1.  Create a web-based "support bulletin board".  This would be a lot
> like the e-mail list, except that you wouldn't need to subscribe or
> read your e-mail.

Launchpad answers does require a launchpad account, and reading your
email is a good way to know the question has had a response. Ok, there
is still some barrier to entry.

> 2.  Put a link into each program's help menu item which would open a
> browser up on the support bulletin board page.

Thats the basic idea.

> My thought:  In principle, a great idea.  Indeed, lots of commercial
> software products include stuff like this.
> 
> For us, however, it may represent a lot of maintainence work.  We're a
> small project with a finite  number of developers whose time is 
> already streched between family, work, other activities, and gEDA.
> However, maintaining a BBS means administering the box or finding
> hosting.  Next, somebody must diligently watch the BBS and remove
> spam, flames, and off-topic junk.  Oh, and answer questions too.


Using an existing service does take away the pain of writing /
maintaining the web-app code.

> Hmmmmm.... I'm sorry that sounds so negative.  Is there a way to make
> the support site self-service, like the wiki?  After all, we already
> link to the wiki from within gschem.....


For many projects I've come across, there are good users out there who
will monitor the the answers pages and help those in need of help.

If it worked, the community has a good opportunity to grow around this.
If not, it would be at least some of the pain you describe. The primary
concern I had that if it were to turn out the idea doesn't work, we've
deployed "n" copies of gEDA irrevocably with a given web-address in it.

We could, I guess, use a re-direct page on one of our servers, so if the
idea didn't fly we could replace the page with "Sorry, answers facility
closed, please see the geda-user mailing list".

The web-access logs a redirect page may provide interesting statistics
on the size of our user-base (without needing to make gEDA evil and
phone home). We can probably bet many users will click the menu item
even if they don't end up asking a question.

-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)



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