Future of this mailing list

[Nikolai Prokoschenko]

Dear MusicBrainz users,

as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
relevant either for developers or customers.

A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
this idea first, so here it comes:

1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?

2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
forums?

Thank you for your replies.

Nikolai.



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[Age Bosma-2]

Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:

> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>

I have no real objections against closing down the mailing list though
there are two things that came to mind:

- Is there a solid group of people with sufficient in-depth knowledge of
MB replying to users on a regular base? I.e. do people get sufficient
help at this stage?

- Are there people willing to monitor and/or deal with the interesting
issues and requests for enhancement which should be passed to the dev's?
I.e. is there a way to prevent important bugs from being ignored by the
people who can/should fix them?

> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>

Not really, go for it.

Age

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[Frederic Da Vitoria]

2009/6/29 Nikolai Prokoschenko <nikolai@...>

Dear MusicBrainz users,

as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
relevant either for developers or customers.

A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
this idea first, so here it comes:

1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?

2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
forums?

Thank you for your replies.

Nikolai.

I am not sure: with the ML, I receive a copy of every post and answers to posts. I don't think this can be achieved with the forum. I don't see why it can't but I couldn't find out how to have it. I feel this is important because often it is not the first mail which is interesting, but a distant answer, after several turns in the conversation. With the forum I receive automatically only the first post of each thread. Which means that I must either subscribe manually to each thread (definitely not user-friendly) or accept to let answers pass without knowing about those answers.

--
Frederic Da Vitoria
(davitof)

Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org


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[Stephen Nesbitt]

On Monday 29 June 2009 01:51:01 pm Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:

> 2009/6/29 Nikolai Prokoschenko <nikolai@...>
>
> > Dear MusicBrainz users,
> >
> > as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> > support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> > opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> > they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> > lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> > relevant either for developers or customers.
> >
> > A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> > the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> > close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> > this idea first, so here it comes:
> >
> > 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> > forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
> >
> > 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> > forums?
> >
> > Thank you for your replies.
> >
> > Nikolai.

It really depends on the forum software.

The primary advantages to the mailing list are 1) it is delivered to me - I
don't have to initiate the review or check a web site to determine if a reply
has been posted 2) it is easy to quickly scan and review messages 3) I can
easily archive posts of interest

If the forum provides a decent RSS capability then the forum will work ok.
Otherwise it's a pain and keeping up to date becomes more difficult.

-steve


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[PALMER, Mark-2]

The only negative I can see with the forums, is you have to actually go to the site to read them. The mailing lists are delivered to my mailbox, which is much more convenient. Perhaps similar functionality could be implemented for the forums.

-----Original Message-----
From: musicbrainz-users-bounces@... [mailto:musicbrainz-users-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Nikolai Prokoschenko
Sent: Tuesday, 30 June 2009 5:43 AM
To: musicbrainz-users@...
Subject: [mb-users] Future of this mailing list

Dear MusicBrainz users,

as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
relevant either for developers or customers.

A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
this idea first, so here it comes:

1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?

2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
forums?

Thank you for your replies.

Nikolai.



_______________________________________________
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[trolley]

I personally prefer the forum idea, but I'd definitely like it if the
forums had RSS feeds for subforums/threads/etc. to make it easy to
keep up-to-date without having to visit.

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 7:32 PM, PALMER, Mark<Mark.PALMER@...> wrote:

> The only negative I can see with the forums, is you have to actually go to the site to read them. The mailing lists are delivered to my mailbox, which is much more convenient. Perhaps similar functionality could be implemented for the forums.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: musicbrainz-users-bounces@... [mailto:musicbrainz-users-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Nikolai Prokoschenko
> Sent: Tuesday, 30 June 2009 5:43 AM
> To: musicbrainz-users@...
> Subject: [mb-users] Future of this mailing list
>
> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
>
> This e-mail is sent by Suncorp-Metway Limited ABN 66 010 831 722 or one of its related entities "Suncorp".
> Suncorp may be contacted at Level 18, 36 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane or on 13 11 55 or at suncorp.com.au.
> The content of this e-mail is the view of the sender or stated author and does not necessarily reflect the view of Suncorp. The content, including attachments, is a confidential communication between Suncorp and the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, interference with, disclosure or copying of this e-mail, including attachments, is unauthorised and expressly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please contact the sender immediately and delete the e-mail and any attachments from your system.
> If this e-mail constitutes a commercial message of a type that you no longer wish to receive please reply to this e-mail by typing Unsubscribe in the subject line.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
>

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[Chad Wilson-2]

Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:

> I am not sure: with the ML, I receive a copy of every post and answers
> to posts. I don't think this can be achieved with the forum. I don't
> see why it can't but I couldn't find out how to have it. I feel this
> is important because often it is not the first mail which is
> interesting, but a distant answer, after several turns in the
> conversation. With the forum I receive automatically only the first
> post of each thread. Which means that I must either subscribe manually
> to each thread (definitely not user-friendly) or accept to let answers
> pass without knowing about those answers.
>

Every time you visit the forums, it will highlight threads with new
posts that you haven't read. This means you will never miss answers.
This is roughly the same as seeing an unread email in your mail inbox.

Chad / voice

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[Chad Wilson-2]

Age Bosma wrote:

> Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:
>  
>> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>>
>> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
>> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
>> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
>> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
>> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
>> relevant either for developers or customers.
>>
>> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
>> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
>> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
>> this idea first, so here it comes:
>>
>> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
>> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>>
>>    
>
> I have no real objections against closing down the mailing list though
> there are two things that came to mind:
>
> - Is there a solid group of people with sufficient in-depth knowledge of
> MB replying to users on a regular base? I.e. do people get sufficient
> help at this stage?
>  

At the moment, the communication options are lopsided IMO. I haven't run
the numbers, but it feels there are vastly more people actively/quickly
replying on the Users mailing list, but fewer people asking questions -
the traffic and query volume on the forums feels much higher to me; and
there's a lot fewer people replying and helping users. I probably do
most of it, since I check the forums very regularly compared to most people.

I'm hoping that this is due to the fragmentation and that by moving to
the forums we can increase the number of people expressing their
opinions and helping users.

> - Are there people willing to monitor and/or deal with the interesting
> issues and requests for enhancement which should be passed to the dev's?
> I.e. is there a way to prevent important bugs from being ignored by the
> people who can/should fix them?
>  
This is an issue regardless of delivery format; but I personally have
raised several bugs that have been brought to my attention based on
discussion in the forums. I've essentially been doing this task with
respect to the forums for a year or two now. As long as there are
experienced users there who are willing to work with newer users to
track down a bug, the forums can be a very effective tool.

I wholeheartedly support closing down this mailing list and moving to
the forums. It just makes sense to me; web forums are a more natural
communications mechanism for newer users and those who are less "aged"
of the internet and fragmenting support/discussion doesn't do much good
IMO. :-)

On the same vein, has anyone given thought to a new "Developer Support"
forum; intended for discussion on writing Picard Plugins, building
Picard on whatever Linux variety, setting up your own virtual server,
hacking on the MB codebase, using the XML web service and so forth? I'm
not sure how high the traffic would be, but it's a somewhat distinct
category and class of discussion compared to asking how to do X on the
website, or how to make Picard do Y file naming.

Cheers
Chad / voice



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[Chad Wilson-2]

Mark Trolley wrote:
> I personally prefer the forum idea, but I'd definitely like it if the
> forums had RSS feeds for subforums/threads/etc. to make it easy to
> keep up-to-date without having to visit.
>
>  
They kinda do; i.e a feed of threads (not posts, AFAIK)

Forums wide:
http://forums.musicbrainz.org/extern.php?action=new&type=RSS

Website support forum (for example):
http://forums.musicbrainz.org/extern.php?action=new&type=RSS&fid=1

Not sure what happens when someone makes a post to an existing thread
though; I don't think it gets bumped to the top of the feed.

Chad / voice

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[Aaron Cooper-3]

I think the forums would be easier for people to use than the mailing
list so my vote goes for the forum.

Forums are easier to "browse", easier to sign up for (I'd assume), and
most likely the forum can provide the same functionality as the
mailing list (send an email each time a message is posted or RSS).

-cooperaa


On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Nikolai
Prokoschenko<nikolai@...> wrote:

> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
>

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[Paul C. Bryan]

There's this really neat service called Google Groups, that lets you
have a web-based forum AND allows users to read/submit to the group
through email (a.k.a. a mailing list). Can we consider that?

I'll say that if you switch to forums-only with no email support, I
won't visit often (if at all). If you count the number of individual
forums I'd have to visit in order to keep-up with message traffic --
each with different software, credentials, user interface, ways of being
notified of changes -- it would be astonishing.

FWIW:

My vote for shutting down the mailing list if email reading/submission
is supported: +1.
My vote if no email support: -1.

Paul

On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 21:43 +0200, Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:

> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users

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[Sami Sundell-2]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 09:43:27PM +0200, Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:

> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place
> at forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?

I think it will pretty much guarantee I won't be part of the discussions
anymore. Not that I've been too active lately, but see below.

> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?

The forums are one huge usability issue. They are ok for browsing
existing discussions for an answer, or for asking a quick question, but
for having a discussion, they are terrible. They require you to go to
the site and browse around, they don't have threading, and the interface
for writing the posts isn't that good either.

So yeah, I'm old school, and I think discussion should be kept on media
that was meant for it - mailing lists, or even NNTP. On these ajaxy days
there probably could be more usable forums, but for some reason, there
aren't. I haven't found a single forum software yet which would be even
close to any e-mail/NNTP application in terms of usability.

There are some forum platforms that also provide the discussions as
mailing lists. The last I checked, the www side of them (I don't even
remember the name) was pretty horrible, but maybe they've evolved. I
only wonder if they would make the mailing lists as ugly as the forums
:P

Someone mentioned Google Groups. I don't have any real experience with
that, particularly with private groups. The only thing I've used there
occasionally is Usenet, and I've seen the usability of that part slowly
deteriorate as they try to make it more forumy...

--
 Sami Sundell
 ssundell@...

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[Sami Sundell-2]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 07:56:23AM +0300, Sami Sundell wrote:

> > 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place
> > at forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> I think it will pretty much guarantee I won't be part of the
> discussions anymore. Not that I've been too active lately, but see
> below.

Just to soften this a bit. I do realize forums are more familiar for
newer users, so if the decision comes to shut down mailing lists, that
totally ok. I don't think it's a good choice, but I don't think having
discussions in multiple places is good either.

--
 Sami Sundell
 ssundell@...

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[Frederic Da Vitoria]

2009/6/30 Chad Wilson <chad.wilson@...>

Mark Trolley wrote:
> I personally prefer the forum idea, but I'd definitely like it if the
> forums had RSS feeds for subforums/threads/etc. to make it easy to
> keep up-to-date without having to visit.
>
>

They kinda do; i.e a feed of threads (not posts, AFAIK)

Forums wide:
http://forums.musicbrainz.org/extern.php?action=new&type=RSS

Website support forum (for example):
http://forums.musicbrainz.org/extern.php?action=new&type=RSS&fid=1

Not sure what happens when someone makes a post to an existing thread
though; I don't think it gets bumped to the top of the feed.

The RSS feed only receives new threads, nothing happens upon answers. Which leads to a strange mix: you have to use RSS to be warned that a new thread was created, then if you subscribe to the thread, you will be warned by mail. Not very consistent ;-) I feel that this is caused by MB forums configuration or because the forum used doesn't offer the option, but I would really like if the forum offered a consistent way to get all forum information (all feed or all mail, I don't personally care, but I guess more users will want mail than RSS) and if this system could be set to wanr me without having to set a subscription. In other words, I really want an equivalent of the current ML.

--
Frederic Da Vitoria
(davitof)

Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org


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[Frederic Da Vitoria]

2009/6/30 Frederic Da Vitoria <davitofrg@...>

2009/6/30 Chad Wilson <chad.wilson@...>

Mark Trolley wrote:
> I personally prefer the forum idea, but I'd definitely like it if the
> forums had RSS feeds for subforums/threads/etc. to make it easy to
> keep up-to-date without having to visit.
>
>

They kinda do; i.e a feed of threads (not posts, AFAIK)

Forums wide:
http://forums.musicbrainz.org/extern.php?action=new&type=RSS

Website support forum (for example):
http://forums.musicbrainz.org/extern.php?action=new&type=RSS&fid=1

Not sure what happens when someone makes a post to an existing thread
though; I don't think it gets bumped to the top of the feed.

The RSS feed only receives new threads, nothing happens upon answers. Which leads to a strange mix: you have to use RSS to be warned that a new thread was created, then if you subscribe to the thread, you will be warned by mail. Not very consistent ;-) I feel that this is caused by MB forums configuration or because the forum used doesn't offer the option, but I would really like if the forum offered a consistent way to get all forum information (all feed or all mail, I don't personally care, but I guess more users will want mail than RSS) and if this system could be set to wanr me without having to set a subscription. In other words, I really want an equivalent of the current ML.

After re-reading this thread and thinking about it, I was reminded that a lot of my friends don't really understand feeds and don't use them, while I don't know of anyone who uses Internet but not emails. So although RSS only would work for me, my position will be the same as Paul:'s:

My vote for shutting down the mailing list if email reading/submission
is supported: +1.
My vote if no email support: -1

"email reading" means getting a copy of each post to the forum *without* needing any action from me (which means that the current situation is not correct).

--
Frederic Da Vitoria
(davitof)

Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org


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[mll-2]

If people are too reluctant to switch to a forum, you can see the good
practices of squeezebox's forums (http://forums.slimdevices.com/) which
marry happily mailing-lists and forums IIRC.

MLL

Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:

> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
>

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[Fabe56]

About Google Groups, anybody use ML via Nabble? It's my case and I thinks it's a good alternative: keep the ML and web-based (everyone could choose).

Fabien.

Paul C. Bryan wrote:

There's this really neat service called Google Groups, that lets you
have a web-based forum AND allows users to read/submit to the group
through email (a.k.a. a mailing list). Can we consider that?

I'll say that if you switch to forums-only with no email support, I
won't visit often (if at all). If you count the number of individual
forums I'd have to visit in order to keep-up with message traffic --
each with different software, credentials, user interface, ways of being
notified of changes -- it would be astonishing.

FWIW:

My vote for shutting down the mailing list if email reading/submission
is supported: +1.
My vote if no email support: -1.

Paul

On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 21:43 +0200, Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:
> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users


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[Jeroen van den Brink]

My vote goes for closing down the mailinglist and go to the forums.
Apart from the regulars here that are used to mailinglists, I believe a
(very) large portion of general users are not familiar with
mailinglists. Many sites offer forums for their discussions, so the
concept of a forum is usually very familiar to most people. I therefore
also believe it would be easier for a normal/new user to go to a forum
for questions as opposed to subscribing to a mailinglist. And this being
a user support list/forum, I believe the focus should be to help these
newer users, and not use what the "old-timers" are used to (no offense
intended of course).

It would be even better I think if we could integrate the users of the
main site to the forums, so you don't have to create a new account for
the forums. This would lower the barrier for new users to access the
forums. But I do understand this can be challenging from a technical
perspective.

Furthermore, I think it would be wise to close the mailinglist, or at
least merge it with the forums, since I think MusicBrainz currently has
way to many communication channels. It's very hard for a new user to
find the correct information he is looking for since there are way too
many places to discuss stuff (e.g., the mailinglist (/nabble), the
forums, IRC, discussion pages on the Wiki, bugtracker, uservoice,
whatnot). This I why I also wouldn't use yet another service like Google
groups, unless everything can be hosted there (and it would become yet
another additional means of communication).

Regards,
Jeroen (MightyJay)

Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:

> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?
>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
>  

_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-users mailing list
MusicBrainz-users@...
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users

[Frederic Da Vitoria]

From a new user's point of veiw, I agree: forums are probably the best option, they are more focused, allow better searching / browsing, are clearer to read...

But, don't forget the people who answer, old-timers or not. I don't have any problem asking something on a forum. But answering to a forum is another matter. Let's use a small example:

1. newUser asks question A
2. oldUser1 receives the feed and decides that he has no answer to offer.
3. oldUser2 has an answer and posts it (PunBB does not send anything to users who have not subscribed to the thread)
4. newUser raises a new question because he did not understand everything in oldUser2's answer (PunBB does not send anything to users who have not subscribed to the thread)

This is where the current system does not work IMO. oldUser1 may have something to say now, but he will never know it, because PunBB sends a feed only when a new thread is created. So we arrive to the current situation, where mainly 2 or 3 forum freaks (no offence meant either) answer almost all the questions.

So we'd need either to switch to another forum which offers full feed (RSS/Atom or mail) or find a plugin for PunBB to correct the issue.

2009/6/30 Jeroen van den Brink <Jeroen@...>

My vote goes for closing down the mailinglist and go to the forums.
Apart from the regulars here that are used to mailinglists, I believe a
(very) large portion of general users are not familiar with
mailinglists. Many sites offer forums for their discussions, so the
concept of a forum is usually very familiar to most people. I therefore
also believe it would be easier for a normal/new user to go to a forum
for questions as opposed to subscribing to a mailinglist. And this being
a user support list/forum, I believe the focus should be to help these
newer users, and not use what the "old-timers" are used to (no offense
intended of course).

It would be even better I think if we could integrate the users of the
main site to the forums, so you don't have to create a new account for
the forums. This would lower the barrier for new users to access the
forums. But I do understand this can be challenging from a technical
perspective.

Furthermore, I think it would be wise to close the mailinglist, or at
least merge it with the forums, since I think MusicBrainz currently has
way to many communication channels. It's very hard for a new user to
find the correct information he is looking for since there are way too
many places to discuss stuff (e.g., the mailinglist (/nabble), the
forums, IRC, discussion pages on the Wiki, bugtracker, uservoice,
whatnot). This I why I also wouldn't use yet another service like Google
groups, unless everything can be hosted there (and it would become yet
another additional means of communication).

Regards,
Jeroen (MightyJay)

Nikolai Prokoschenko wrote:
> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?

--
Frederic Da Vitoria
(davitof)

Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org


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[gnu_andrew]

2009/6/29 Nikolai Prokoschenko <nikolai@...>:

> Dear MusicBrainz users,
>
> as you know, there is an ongoing effort to reorganize and simplify user
> support at MusicBrainz. One of the usual suspects are mailing lists as
> opposed to forums -- many users are confused as to where
> they should ask for help. It has been noted that only one of the mailing
> lists has any relevance for the users (this one), all the others are
> relevant either for developers or customers.
>
> A proposal has been made about moving all user-relevant discussion to
> the forums at http://forums.musicbrainz.org. However, nobody wished to
> close this mailing list without hearing what its inhabitants think of
> this idea first, so here it comes:
>
> 1. What do you think in general of putting user support at one place at
> forums and shutting down musicbrainz-users mailing list?
>
> 2. Do you see any technical or usability reasons against using the
> forums?

Personally, it would reduce the likelihood of me actively replying to
questions.  Why? Because as others have mentioned, checking the forum
means dedicating time to remembering to load up the page, check
different categories for interesting posts, etc.  Whereas if I see
something worth replying to pop in to my mail box (with the numerous
other mailing lists I'm signed up to as part of my job), I will
usually write a quick reply.

However I can see the advantage of forum accessibility for less
experienced users and it is presumably more Google-able for answers.

>
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> Nikolai.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
>

--
Andrew :-)

Free Java Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)

Support Free Java!
Contribute to GNU Classpath and the OpenJDK
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