[CentOS-devel] Talk about existing forums

[Karanbir Singh]

Hi Guys, just following up with notes from the conversation :

===========
Things that are good right now:
- works
- emerging community. ( 1200+ people have > 9 posts )
- knowledge base
- structure works well

Things that are bad right now:
- looks ( not too bad, just looks dated )
- people ask a question and are told - not a centos problem, we could be 
better at this

Things that we want done over-and-above whats in place now:
- persistent logins ( longer than 10 hours )
- Jump to first unread post in the forums ( remember read/unread status 
of posts )
- Edit and change their own email address
- moderators need an effective means to handle spam
   + at the moment only a/c deletions are possible
   + nice to have: block on ip level
- admin access to the central user accounting system
   + atleast be able to do flags / moderator settings / bans

Recommendations:
- phpbb
- Draw up a list of recommendations / guideline for the moderators
- let the languages be independant in their own space ( eg. 
forums.centos.org/<lang> )

Exactly what and who is a moderator:
* does not need to be overly technical
* should be someone who:
  - facilitate discussion
  - admin / background stuff
  - handling user profile and email change issues
  - maintain the FAQ's and contribute to other areas like bugs. and wiki.
  - Some sanity checking on the content and help being given out
  - promote the idea/ ethos of handing on knowledge

We need a Recruitment policy:
- Step 1) Setup a document that lays out what would be 'criteria'
- Step 2) Existing forum admins are able to nominate people
- Step 3) People get accepted into the list-of-moderators
- Step 4) Clear guidelines on how and when people leave
=====================


-- 
Karanbir Singh
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