« Return to Thread: Future of this mailing list
Re: Future of this mailing list
by Chad Wilson-2
::
Rate this Message:
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
_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-users mailing list
MusicBrainz-users@...
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
> 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?
>
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
_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-users mailing list
MusicBrainz-users@...
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
« Return to Thread: Future of this mailing list
| Free embeddable forum powered by Nabble | Forum Help |
