[Asterisk-Users] Are there online forums instead of this emailforum??

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

On March 31, 2005 05:11 pm, Tim Bass wrote:
> The UNIX Forums have over 28 thousand registered users.     I have many
> years of experience in both email lists and on line forums and I can tell
> you without a doubt that on-line forums are far superior to email lists.
> There is no comparison.

Prove it to us.  You certainly talk the talk.

> This list, for example, has a one hour lag time between users who recently
> joined (at the end of the SMTP queue) and posting a message!!   That is
> completely dysfunctional, posting a message and waiting over an hour to see
> it sent out to other!  This is one of the problems with serial email lists.
> The lag time gets worse and worse for each new member of the community.

It's called underspec'd hardware.  Certainly someone as clever as yourself can 
identify the problem and how to overcome it.  Forums don't magically fix 
this.  Bigger iron and more bandwidth fix it.

> Plus, you cannot easily have 10 or more moderators on a busy email list
> server.  However, in a modern on-line community, you can have many
> moderators sharing the work and can moderate to keep all the profanity,
> bullying, insults, etc. down to a zero and raise the level of discussion up
> to facts and knowledge.

You don't need moderators.  Moderators are for people who have skins too thin 
to function without a nanny.  While I agree that sometimes it gets out of 
hand, having a bunch of self-appointed rulers who get to say who can and who 
can't post smacks of the same garbage that you get with new housing 
communities and their self-appointed "housing police" who claim they get to 
say what you can do with your yard and house.

> As the lead admin for the UNIX forums, I have watched how on-line
> communities develop for many years.   You can't have a strong community
> when posters use profanity, are impolite to others, etc.   Digium and
> Asterisk are too important to be supported by a broken email list with a
> one hour lag time between post and delivery, too big to moderate. .  A
> community serves everyone, not just those who dominate with there
> intimating posts to others.

As I said several times today -- use your superior knowlege and help make 
Digium better, but don't for an instant demand that they shut down the 
mailing lists in order to placate you.  If forums are so much better they 
would have not only replaced this list by now, but have replaced all lists by 
now.  

Flatly put, I simply don't believe your claims about how much better forums 
are over lists, and I have over a decade of experience in using lists to back 
up my opinions.  You have the bandwidth, hardware and experience to back your 
opinions up.  I'm calling you on it.  Show us how much better a well-run 
forum can be.  

> Digium must fix this.  Others, putting up a forum, will not solve the
> problem because the list will remain.    All that has to happen is for
> Digium to endorse a forum (I recommend someone use vBulletin, but that is
> just my opinion) and transition off this list to something that benefits
> the community as a whole, and not just a few dominate individuals who like
> email.

Digium doesn't have to do anything.  If putting up a forum without dropping 
the list won't solve it then you don't have any argument, IMO.  Competition's 
healthy.  The wiki survives with the list.  IRC survives with the list.  Why 
can't a forum?

It's not just a few dominant individuals, either.  There really aren't many 
people who are aching for a forum.  It is you, Mr. Bass, who is in the loud 
minority.  If the majority of people wanted a forum there'd be a forum by 
now.

But again, since you won't put your money where your mouth is so to speak, we 
won't be able to find out.  It's kind of a shame, since someone with your 
kind of experience with forums might just be able to pull it off.  Seriously.

-A.