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

[Stuart Brorson <sdb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

FWIW, somebody already signed gEDA up for a Launchpad acct:

https://launchpad.net/geda

Therefore, it's probably a simple matter of activating the "answers: 
thingie and embedding a link into each app.....

Stuart



On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, Peter Clifton wrote:

> 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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> geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>


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