[Compcomm] Forums

[Ketil Wendelbo Aanensen]

On 6/23/07, Alyssa Hung <deciare at isisview.org> wrote:
> Ketil Wendelbo Aanensen wrote:
> > My point is that developers (too) should maintain support focus on the
> > official forums. Focusing on 2 makes the know-how less centered and
> > less user friendly.
>
> I think it's very important for every contributor, including the
> developers, to be comfortable with the ways they're expected to
> contribute, but I can definitely see increased developer presence on the
> forums as a benefit.

Loyalty to this project => making it more popular
making it more popular => supporting it in the best way possible
Supporting it the best way possible => the people who made it knows
more or less everything about it.

So, in order to make this project more poular, the people behind it,
should help out with supporting as much as possible. I'm not saying
"sitting on the forums 24/7", but answering a question sometimes, and
making a killer FAQ/ end user documentation. I think all new and
changed features should be delivered with an ace description, and
answers to the questions that will arise.

> As I mentioned a few times on oc.o, different people will offer
> different solutions to the same problems. There's a trend favouring
> certain kinds of knowledge on each forum (i.e. configuration via
> gconf-editor versus configuration via ccsm). What if a good solution for
> you isn't a good solution for someone else? Keeping all the know-how in
> one place may well result in conflicting and confusing advice. Keeping
> the know-how in multiple places won't cut down on the conflicting
> advice, but it won't be as confusing as seeing it all on the same page. ;)

The trends will be transparent in a while, because a merge also of
support will blend the different techniques.
If someone asks a question they can, with a unified forum get both the
ini and gconf explanations (i.e. all the options), and be able to make
a real decision

> >>> 3a: hopefully, reducing the number of Compiz Fusion subsections in
> >>> oc.org, making it e.g. just "Compiz Fusion talk" (thus merging all
> >>> those threads to that subsection,
> >> I don't see how deliberately rendering oc.o less usable is a productive
> >> use of our resources.
> >
> > How are 2 forums offering the same support (only not as good as the
> > one official wuld be), for productive?
>
> It's debatable whether either forum will offer information that is
> definitely better than the other one. There will be different advice for
> the same solutions, different responses to the same suggestions, and
> different workarounds and tie-overs for the same bugs.

Bear with me here:
Say you have 100 people that know a lot of different sthings, with
some overlaps.

Wouldn't you say that keeping 50 in one place and 50 in one place
deminishes the odds of question "x" being answered?
Even if one of the 50 in the right place knows the solution, she would
not necessarily see it.
Now, if the 50 were evenly distributed expertise-wise, and the two
groups had the same distribution, keeping all 100 in one place would
double the chance of getting a correct answer to the question from
Joanne Q. User.

> That which applies to the same problem isn't necessarily the same
> information.

No, but it will give more options, giving Joanne Q. User the ability
to make an informed decision on how to solve her problem.

> > If you think that OCO should stay excactly as it is after the project
> > has settled on 1 official support forum, we're back to square one
> > again.
>
> I recall an earlier discussion where it was made quite explicit that
> forum.compiz.org is a community site without managerial association to
> the official Compiz-core project
> (http://www.ubaight.com/pipermail/compcomm/2007-June/000919.html).
> Please forgive me if circumstances have changed again, and that
> assertion is no longer valid.

I'm assuming that this is still the case, but it is still crucial to
have devs give good support, and have some sort of an agreement on
where to focus their support energy.

> > Yeah, but as the admins on OCO has pointed out, those forums will be
> > for discussing all things composite. Why would we have the same
> > support options in both? Don't you see that that splits the community
> > all over again?
>
> What's wrong with giving members of the community a choice about where
> to take their efforts, frustrations, and inspirations? Is our community
> so fragile that it _must_ be herded together or risk splintering apart?
> That degree of confidence in the same people we wish to support is
> pretty unflattering.

Spreading the expertise (which is a pretty limited and important
commodity) over a vast space is in effect giving poorer support.
Is this community so fragile? Judging by the initial fork and the
flame wars in here and some forums, the answer would be self evident.

> > Read my ideas to Nesl on what OCO could (IMO: should) from yesterday.
> > It has been stated several times that OCO is a project with goals that
> > are different from Compiz Fusion as an enhancement set to Compiz.
> > Unless this is no longer the case, building the whole project around
> > Compiz Fusion would probably keep other projects from joining, because
> > they have no interest in being a minor detail on the site (of course I
> > can't be sure of this, but I'm hoping I won't have to find out.
>
> As far as I know, oc.o was and is a project with different goals than
> that of Compiz Fusion. "Different" doesn't necessarily equal
> "non-overlapping", however. Nobody will argue that the GPL and
> Microsoft's EULA has different goals, but their intent to legally defend
> interested parties' rights is overlapping.
>
> It's truly remarkable that Compiz Fusion has so thoroughly eclipsed the
> landscape of open source compositing technologies that nothing else
> seems nearly as interesting to talk about. This will hopefully change
> once more projects start to emerge from the pre-alpha phase of development.

I think Compiz Fusion devs should apply themselves to making Compiz
Fusion the best it can be, not already planning for new projects. The
new projects will come due to peoples desires to make proof of
concepts, and their curiousity. That being said, compositing is in its
infancy, and making new and competing projects now, would seem like an
obstacle to making compositing all it can be.

- Ketil