Re: Octave should create a forum

[Mike Miller]

On Sat, Jan 04, 2020 at 23:18:56 +0100, edmund ronald wrote:
> Mike, thanks for the reply. Yes, unfortunately by indicating you elided my
> name while addressing the topic, you confirm my point of view that the
> participants of this list avoid person-directed interactions. This is
> relevant here because forums are designed to be named-participant
> communities while tech response sites are primarily issue-solution
> databases. And a typical forum interaction will see a user navigate down an
> experience thread eg how do I install, how do I run, how do I locate the
> library to do X etc. And people will interact with the user along this
> forum thread, seeing them as a person with a goal, not as a tech issue . In
> a QA site each of these is a new purely tech-based interaction.

Fair points, yes a forum encourages conversational threads which may be
about a general topic or may be about a particular person's problem. And
I do agree that a forum probably tends to increase conversational type
interpersonal interaction, while a mailing list encourages brevity and
restraint, since every message is delivered to every other participant.

> If I may be so bold as to state a view, I dont think participants of THIS
> list should make the forum decision based alone on discussion here. It
> would be preferable to inform the decision by asking more naive users for
> their opinion.

Also a fair point. Maybe I jumped the gun a little when I asked for the
discussion to be moved here. But consider it's also important to get the
Octave maintainers and contributors to buy into this idea for it to
succeed.

If you think it's better to have a longer discussion on the help list
first, get users and contributors there to weigh in on whether they want
a forum at all and what needs it should meet, that's fair. Please feel
free to continue to have that discussion.

I have essentially assumed that it will be welcomed by newcomers, and I
think a bigger obstacle will be getting maintainers, developers, and
other contributors on board.

> PS I have pleasant memories  of our meeting and all going out for beer in
> Germany, and hope we will meet at a future conference.

Same!

-- 
mike

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