hi guys,
One of the things that came up from the last chat about the language specific websites, was that there was no one on that call who actually used the forums.
With the help of Akemi, I've been able to setup a meeting for the existing english forum moderators to come together and have a chat about:
1) what we have right now 2) Whats broken 3) whats really good 4) where they would like the forums to be in the next 6 months 5) Where they would like the forums to be in the next 12 months 6) The idea of 'English' as being just another language
Its a bit short notice, but the meeting is setup to happen on Wednesday 9th Dec at 2300 UTC. Its the only time that worked for all concerned - in the next few weeks period. Apart from the existing forum moderators, anyone interested in the conversation is more than welcome to come along.
Lets all sync up at 22:50 on #centos-devel@irc.freenode.net and take it from there. Also, lets try and timebox initial discussion to 40 min with a further 10 min after that to summarise and plan future actions.
- KB
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org wrote:
hi guys,
One of the things that came up from the last chat about the language specific websites, was that there was no one on that call who actually used the forums.
With the help of Akemi, I've been able to setup a meeting for the existing english forum moderators to come together and have a chat about:
- what we have right now
- Whats broken
- whats really good
- where they would like the forums to be in the next 6 months
- Where they would like the forums to be in the next 12 months
- The idea of 'English' as being just another language
Some heads up here. There is a forum thread entitled "Suggestions on forum improvements" which was started by Scott Robinson:
https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=...
That collects voices from actual forum participants and should cover (to some extent) No. 1 - 3 above.
Akemi
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
Some heads up here. There is a forum thread entitled "Suggestions on forum improvements" which was started by Scott Robinson:
My big apologies to Scott ! It is Scott Robbins.
/me hides deeply.
Akemi
Any updates or summary of what was covered?
TIA,
Monte (a very frustated forum user)
On 12/12/2009 03:29 AM, M. Milanuk wrote:
Any updates or summary of what was covered?
Yes, I will post those later today - been out of the loop for the last 3 days ( and offline! )
Monte (a very frustated forum user)
Do tell, why so ?
On 12/14/2009 3:15 AM, Karanbir Singh wrote:
On 12/12/2009 03:29 AM, M. Milanuk wrote:
Any updates or summary of what was covered?
Yes, I will post those later today - been out of the loop for the last 3 days ( and offline! )
Monte (a very frustated forum user)
Do tell, why so ?
Hmmm... well there are a few things. Generally speaking, I spend a bit (probably too much) time on various online forums for this (computers + Linux) and other hobbies, and I am a moderator on one of those. My point is that while I don't spend a lot of time inside the back-end of forums, I use them enough that I believe I have a reasonable set of expectations for how a forum should behave and present itself to the user. Whatever it is that CentOS is using for the forum software doesn't meet those expectations, in my opinion.
First off... appearance. I like the clean white background. The rest of it... well, the mauve is a bit on the 'high contrast' side, but livable. The 'View Options' menus with white text on light grey background are nearly unreadable - I have to lean forward and squint to make them out. As far as I can tell, there are no options for users to apply other skins or themes, and even if they were, the 'default' needs to be something a bit more usable. Most of that is cosmetic, as you can tell. But it is also a 'first impression' sort of thing.
Whats the single biggest thing forum regulars tell new posters? "Use the Search, Luke" What is the single most broken thing on the CentOS forums? Thats right, the Search.
If I go in to the tip-top level of the forums, do I see a 'Search' near the top of the *forum*? No. There is the site-wide one in that header/menu that is still up at the top - and it does allow some basic searching of the forums, granted. But if I want to use the forum search, where is it? Three screens down. Not exactly where you would put it if you expect users to actively utilize it. If I go into just the 'CentOS 5' section, again, where is the Search? Down at the bottom - admittedly not near as far this time, but not top-front-n-center.
Now for the real fun... lets say I try using the Search, and don't quite find what I want the first pass. So I try using the 'Advanced Search'... look at the list of Forums on that page, and tell me that isn't some kind of joke. After 'Search all forums' the only consistent thing seems to be that there *is* no consistent order in which the forums are listed. If I want to search all the CentOS 5 forums for something, I have to hunt and Control-click and scroll and Control-Click, etc. etc. Even if I have a narrow search topic, one that should just fit within one forum, and I go to the Advanced Search from that forum... most normal forum software would have that forum already selected in the Advanced Search interface - here I have to go hunting for it. After about the second time of that nitwittery, users just start going 'Search All Forums' as it is at least where it should be - at the top.
Now for the next bit of frustration. Lets say I have a broad seach topic, or just one that has a lot of returns. Like more than one page worth. As an example, just use the Advanced Search, enter 'dnsmasq' as the text, select 'Search All Forums', and 'From the Beginning' for time period. You'll get a slug of returns... when you get to the bottom of the returns, where it says 'Next >>', take a close look at the date/time of the thread immediately above it. Then click Next. Don't those threads look *awfully* familiar... like the ones you saw on the last page? Don't believe it? Scroll down and look at the date/time of that last thread again... exact same one. It doesn't seem to matter where you search *from*, what you search *on*, or what time period you select, if there is more than one page of results, you aren't gonna see more than just the first page. Very handy.
I've been grinding my teeth about this forum for some time. Honestly, it's been one of the biggest barriers to me wanting to use CentOS over other distros, as I feel like it lacks in so many basic ways compared to the software used by other competing options. I posted about it in the 'CentOS.org Website' forum, where it got effectively ignored. Okay, it got 464 'views' but zero response from the management, not even a "Yes we're aware of it and working on it". A few weeks later someone else posted another thread about the forum software and theme, and the sole response was that a number of things were being looked into. It might be worthwhile for whomever is in charge of the forum layout, administration, etc. to maybe keep the general membership appraised of whats going on, whats being looked at, etc. *through the forum itself* rather than give the impression that it is languishing for lack of care. I'm not saying make it totally democratic - lord only knows what rabbit hole that might lead down - but at least give the appearance of something being done.
Sorry if I got a bit... carried away there. Given the recent... issues with the control of the site, etc. from what I've read around the 'Net I can appreciate that things are probably still in a state of turmoil, so I'd rather things get done 'right' than 'right now' - but a little feedback to the users would be nice.
Thanks,
Monte
On 12/14/2009 05:54 PM, M. Milanuk wrote:
Sorry if I got a bit.
These are all good points - thanks for taking the time to get them down here. I am sure they will all be considered in the redesign of the forums.
I'd rather things get done 'right' than 'right now' - but a little feedback to the users would be nice.
I think we all share that view! Which is why the talks and sessions now to try and workout what is the best place to be in.
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 wrote:
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> )
I'd much rather see the effort go into better handling of the mail list archives with a searchable web interface instead of splitting the knowledge base and making it take much more work to find and answer questions.
On 12/15/2009 01:52 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
I'd much rather see the effort go into better handling of the mail list archives with a searchable web interface instead of splitting the knowledge base and making it take much more work to find and answer questions.
What makes you think it can only be one or the other ?
Karanbir Singh wrote:
On 12/15/2009 01:52 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
I'd much rather see the effort go into better handling of the mail list archives with a searchable web interface instead of splitting the knowledge base and making it take much more work to find and answer questions.
What makes you think it can only be one or the other ?
If you spread your efforts over too many choices, you'll ensure than none of them are very good. Forums are a nice place to go to ask questions, but otherwise there's no reason to visit them. If there's a paid support staff providing answers they sort-of make sense but otherwise who is going to go bouncing around to a forum for every interest just in case there might be an interesting question there?
On 12/15/2009 02:53 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
providing answers they sort-of make sense but otherwise who is going to go bouncing around to a forum for every interest just in case there might be an interesting question there?
Mostly, its people who dont do much on the lists - and prefer the forums as a means of conversation. There are quite a few of those guys!
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 6:53 AM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Forums are a nice place to go to ask questions, but otherwise there's no reason to visit them.
There is indeed a very good reason to visit the forums -- to *answer* questions. :-D
If people ask questions and no one answers, what good would it do? Just as there are people who do not like forums, there are *many* users who do not like the mailing lists. Fortunately, we currently have people who are willing to spend their time to help others in the forums. But we can always have more -- there has been an increasing number of users who come to the forums.
All contents of the forums - questions and [correct] answers - serve a much greater number of CentOS users who search the net for help. So, yes, a unified searchable knowledge database will become a valuable asset for CentOS.
Akemi / toracat CentOS forum moderator
On 12/15/2009 03:30 PM, Akemi Yagi wrote:
yes, a unified searchable knowledge database will become a valuable asset for CentOS.
Something of this nature can be done - I did a proof of concept a long long time back, lack of interest caused that to be dropped. I dont mind picking up on something of this nature again ( given that I spend a significant portion of my life messing about with fulltext engines )
But I dont see how such a unified system will remove or reduce the need for forums. While there is a large number of repeat questions that come up, it still looks - going by impression, no real metrics to back me up - like a lot of new content is still coming up all the time.
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Akemi Yagi wrote:
Just as there are people who do not like forums, there are *many* users who do not like the mailing lists.
There are things that could be improved in the mail list rather than dividing the user base.
Can you make suggestions or do you want to go on speaking in riddles?
Ralph
Ralph Angenendt wrote:
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Akemi Yagi wrote:
Just as there are people who do not like forums, there are *many* users who do not like the mailing lists.
There are things that could be improved in the mail list rather than dividing the user base.
Can you make suggestions or do you want to go on speaking in riddles?
There are things that make the mailing list difficult for new users. The big thing is that is doesn't have an easy search - and that you have to go out of your way to find it in the first place. The forums are one link away from the main page to where you can find some things, while the mail lists have cryptic names and links to archives that are only meaningful to people familiar with internet lists. Of course new users are going to find the forums easier. And even in the threaded view of the archives you have to go month-by-month instead of being able to follow a conversation.
The other thing about either forums or lists is that there is always a lot of incorrect, incomplete, and misleading information in old posts so it is best if common issues/solutions are summarized to the wiki and subsequent responses include references to those articles - which must also be kept up to date as the issues change. That way a search (if one existed...) would likely find the pointer to the best answer in the most recent response.
On 12/15/2009 01:52 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
Karanbir Singh wrote:
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> )
I'd much rather see the effort go into better handling of the mail list archives with a searchable web interface instead of splitting the knowledge base and making it take much more work to find and answer questions.
IMHO it's about offering choice in available help channels, be that mailing list, IRC, Wiki or forums, and making sure that each is as good as it can be. This particular discussion is about the forums, how we can make them as good as they can be, and how we can best integrate them into a coherent community based support strategy for CentOS under the current remit of Website Version 2.
How much work is it to head on over to the forums and answer questions as they get asked? I don't see how that is "much more work" than answering questions by email - it's just using a different application, a web browser, instead of an email client. If you use webmail you could even use the same application for both :-/
Integrated search is already available, just that atm it only covers website, wiki and forums (not mailing lists). In fact if some mailing list participants used it occasionally we wouldn't get the same old threads constantly regurgitating content that is already expertly covered on the Wiki in FAQ or HowTo format. People have spent an enormous amount of time and effort producing such content and it very rarely gets linked from the mailing list.
Anyway, feel free to write a plugin for the Website version 2 to allow integrated searching of website, wiki, forums *and* mailing list as I'm sure KB would be most grateful :)
Ned Slider wrote:
On 12/15/2009 01:52 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
Karanbir Singh wrote:
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> )
I'd much rather see the effort go into better handling of the mail list archives with a searchable web interface instead of splitting the knowledge base and making it take much more work to find and answer questions.
IMHO it's about offering choice in available help channels, be that mailing list, IRC, Wiki or forums, and making sure that each is as good as it can be.
Those are conflicting goals since the more you divide a finite set of resources the less any part can have.
This particular discussion is about the forums, how we can make them as good as they can be, and how we can best integrate them into a coherent community based support strategy for CentOS under the current remit of Website Version 2.
Integration might make sense, but I haven't seen a great way to tie the conversations to a mail list.
How much work is it to head on over to the forums and answer questions as they get asked?
Too much for me. If you have more than a few interests you'd spend all your time bouncing between different locations.
I don't see how that is "much more work" than answering questions by email - it's just using a different application, a web browser, instead of an email client. If you use webmail you could even use the same application for both :-/
I have a mail application open anyway - there's no 'more work' involved whether there are new messages there or not - they just show up and the ones I've read are automatically tracked. Even if I have a browser open it's not going to be showing forums for all my interests at once and then I'd have to deal with a different login and interface to answer each one. There's some potential for rss aggregation, but most I've seen don't track 'new' messages on a personal level.
Integrated search is already available, just that atm it only covers website, wiki and forums (not mailing lists). In fact if some mailing list participants used it occasionally we wouldn't get the same old threads constantly regurgitating content that is already expertly covered on the Wiki in FAQ or HowTo format. People have spent an enormous amount of time and effort producing such content and it very rarely gets linked from the mailing list.
That's pretty much what I'd expect when you split people and content into incompatible areas.
Anyway, feel free to write a plugin for the Website version 2 to allow integrated searching of website, wiki, forums *and* mailing list as I'm sure KB would be most grateful :)
If that were possible, someone would probably have done it already. Some of the lists I'm on have forum integration but it regularly causes trouble with conversation threading and posts from people who never return to share their experience.
FWIW, you can do some pretty sophisticated 'mining' of information using MarkMail.org... the main CentOS list is archived there, as is this devel list. I know the lists are archived several places (such as Gmane) but MarkMail is pretty good for drilling down when searching - not so good for just browsing. I first came across it when looking for some information related to the R-project. Here are a couple examples:
A search for 'dnsmasq' on the main CentOS list:
http://markmail.org/search/?q=dnsmasq+list%3Aorg.centos.centos
And a listing of all the CentOS mailing lists.
http://markmail.org/search/?q=+list%3Aorg.centos
They provide the code for a small form to embed in an existing site so users can enter their search string, hit 'Go', and it takes them to the MarkMail page where they can waller around in all the mailing list goodness they want ;)
As far as integration into the forums... it looks like there is a 'mail2forum' project... but it is current only for phpBB2, not phpBB3. Eventually (as with most open-source projects) it should get caught up... at that point it looks like it should be possible to bridge the gap between the lists and the forums. Until then, I don't think neglecting the forums in favor of the mailing lists (or vice versa) would be prudent.
HTH,
Monte
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
I'd much rather see the effort go into better handling of the mail list archives with a searchable web interface instead of splitting the knowledge base and making it take much more work to find and answer questions.
I just wanted to ask you what's wrong with the google search box on the archive pages just to find out that it somehow went away when we moved mail servers.
On the other hand: Do you know about a solution which is a drop in replacement for pipermail? Or which is an addition to pipermail?
And no, Mailman is not going to go away.
Ralph
Ralph Angenendt wrote:
On the other hand: Do you know about a solution which is a drop in replacement for pipermail?
lurker. http://lurker.sourceforge.net/
Hi all,
Before the KB's message was posted to this mailing list, there was a conversation among the people who participated in the chat. I am now trying to paste the content of what we discussed in that conversation for everyone to see.
Akemi
===============
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org wrote:
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
(snip)
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
On 12/10/2009 09:36 AM, Akemi Yagi wrote:
Regarding Step 3, get accepted by whom and how? I think it is important to establish this procedure. In my not so humble opinion, once a candidate is nominated by forum mods, the rest of the process should be made semi-automatic (to say the extreme, even if that person is unknown to core CentOS developers).
Akemi
================ Karanbir Singh wrote:
That could happen, being made semi-automatic, however we would need to further lay down ground rules on criteria for such acceptance. And at some level it would need to boil down to interaction and trust.
That could even come from a casual conversation, as an example.
The idea of trust channels and endorsements would come from the chain its setup on. And it should really work end to end. It does in the real world, so no reason why it cant work for us here as well - just a case of working out how we would do it and then making sure everyone is aware of it.
- KB
================= Ned Slider wrote:
Of course, and that already seems to have happened a few times, Johnny in recommending Akemi, Akemi then recommending me, and Akemi and myself subsequently recommending Phil Schaffner.
That could even come from a casual conversation, as an example.
The idea of trust channels and endorsements would come from the chain its setup on. And it should really work end to end. It does in the real world, so no reason why it cant work for us here as well - just a case of working out how we would do it and then making sure everyone is aware of it.
As I mentioned on the call, I have significant experience moderating on much larger PC based forums than those of CentOS. One thing that surprised me when I was first made a mod at CentOS was the all or nothing level of control given out (maybe that is a factor of the forum software). On other forums it is much more typical to grade moderator roles (and thus privileges) which allows a person to be introduced more gradually and thus allows trust to continue to be built over time rather than immediately giving them the keys to the kingdom. Obviously an initial level of trust is still there. Such a hierarchical arrangement might look like:
Administrators - has full powers to perform administrative tasks, to create and destroy subforums, ban users and IPs, to appoint other staff. This might be one or more of the dev team
Super Moderators - have the power to ban users but not IPs (as this should require root access), have the power to request an IP ban of an admin and will review requests for IP bans from moderators, will request the appointment of new moderators and supermoderators on the basis of need (largely admins would rubber stamp these requests unless serious concerns were raised), have powers to act in all areas of the forum. Super moderators will also take a certain amount of responsibility to mentor new moderators where required.
Moderators - might be appointed to a specific forum or areas to begin with based upon experience. Forum mods have powers in their designated areas/subforums only. They may edit/move/delete posts and temporarily ban users in extreme circumstances (eg, a rampant spammer on the loose), but permanent bans or requests of an IP ban must go through a super moderator for discussion and implementation.
It's a very structured approach with everyone's role clearly defined. No big decisions are ever taken in isolation and should generally be discussed for a second opinion. Moderators are your day to day workhorses within the forums, supermods are essentially middle managers responsible for overseeing the day to day actions of the moderators and responsible to the administrator(s).
Currently we all immediately are granted powers somewhere between supermod and admin level which implies a far greater trust level and thus makes it very hard to recruit suitable new people thus placing a far higher burden on existing moderators.
Hopefully the benefits of moving towards a more structured system are obvious, and as the forum continues to grow, essential.
================== Scott Robbins wrote:
- Step 3) People get accepted into the list-of-moderators
Regarding Step 3, get accepted by whom and how? I think it is important to establish this procedure. In my not so humble opinion, once a candidate is nominated by forum mods, the rest of the process should be made semi-automatic (to say the extreme, even if that person is unknown to core CentOS developers).
That could happen, being made semi-automatic, however we would need to further lay down ground rules on criteria for such acceptance. And at some level it would need to boil down to interaction and trust.
Again, this reminds me of what was happening with Fedora forums, before it was fixed. The moderators are the ones dealing with it, and one either trusts them or they shouldn't be moderators. I really don't see why anyone not actively involved with the forum should have any say one way or another. All it does is waste time and aggravate the moderators.
If you don't trust them to make the decision, then get other moderators.
I realize that I sound extreme here, but again, having experienced the issues with Fedora forum, when the main admin was so difficult to reach at times--and one can not predict the future and say, "Oh, you can always reach one of us..." because stuff happens.
If Akemi san says, this one is good, what is core going to do? What is the point of having to wait for them to say Ok?
This completely destroyed the old FreeBSD forums. Several moderators eventually disappeared due to attrition, and at the end, there were only two, who couldn't appoint others. The administor had disappeared--finally, it turned out that he'd become ill, and although some people actually tracked him down and had phone conversations with him, nothing was ever done. Eventually, the two remaining moderators gave up, and a new forum was started, and there was nothing but spam remaining At around that time, first a new forum was started, then the FreeBSD project wound up creating their own.
With Fedora forums, fortunately, enough people held on until the change was made, but the majority of us were reading to just say the heck with it.
The idea of trust channels and endorsements would come from the chain its setup on. And it should really work end to end. It does in the real world, so no reason why it cant work for us here as well - just a case of working out how we would do it and then making sure everyone is aware of it.
As mentioned above, it doesn't always work in the real world. The more people involved in a decision, the longer it takes. Witness how the wiki lost Max Hetrick, whose nagios articles are perhaps the best around.
As I mentioned on the call, I have significant experience moderating on much larger PC based forums than those of CentOS. One thing that surprised me when I was first made a mod at CentOS was the all or nothing level of control given out (maybe that is a factor of the forum software). On other forums it is much more typical to grade moderator roles (and thus privileges) which allows a person to be introduced more gradually and thus allows trust to continue to be built over time rather
On the Fedora forums, that is how it works. There are three admins. One is extremely techical, the other two have wonderful people skills. Then, there are several, probably 10 or 11 community managers. We (I'm a CM) have most of the essential powers, but some limitations.
Lastly, there are members at large. These are forum members who are allowed into the staff lounge, take part in voting on banning members or not, and make sure that we (the staff) remember that our purpose is to serve the members, not to blindly enforce rules, some of which can be too rigid. Again, it's a much larger community, (one reason for the large amount of staff---also making sure that there are people available in most time zones.)
Administrators - has full powers to perform administrative tasks, to create and destroy subforums, ban users and IPs, to appoint other staff. This might be one or more of the dev team
Are they available? Are they there, or does a disruptive member go for days before one of the dev team gets there?
Again, as devs are generally too busy for the forums, I fail to see the point in having one of them in charge. Suppose, for example, one gets married in another country? :) During that time another is ill?
Meanwhile, the people actively involved in the forums are unable to do anything.
Again, having been through this situation, watching it destroy one forum and seeing another handicapped to the point where the people actually doing something with the forum had to spend, quite literally, HOURS daily, especially with such a relatively small forum, there's no reason that those not involved with it should have any input one way or another.
Sorry for the extremism here, but again, having, twice, seen the results of doing it that way, and perhaps speaking as more of a CentOS outsider, it seems to serve no purpose but make the forum admins' lives more difficult and waste their (unpaid) time.
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
Before the KB's message was posted to this mailing list, there was a conversation among the people who participated in the chat. I am now trying to paste the content of what we discussed in that conversation for everyone to see.
That was the first part of the conversation. Here's the second (and the last) part.
Akemi
======================== On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 11:41:36AM +0000, Ned Slider wrote:
Karanbir,
One issue I'd like to raise (again) that I forgot to raise yesterday during the call is use of "company" email. I raised this before and I think it was misunderstood (given the public belittling I received), maybe because CentOS currently associates @centos.org email addresses with other roles.
But there are times when forum moderators will be required to communicate with members by email, and it is only professional and right to provide a tool to do that job. It is unfair (and unprofessional) to expect moderators to correspond with their own email addresses when conducting business on behalf of the CentOS forums, and I know Phil S has also raised the issue before, understandably not wanting to use his nasa.gov address for such activities.
If an @centos.org implies something more privileged then I would suggest an alternative domain or subdomain such as @centosforums.org or @forums.centos.org, something that can be more clearly associated with the role in question. In my not so humble experience, when you don't give people the right tools to do the job they very quickly get fed up doing said job and move on. Of course there is an implicit understanding that such email addresses are only used when appropriate, but IMHO it's a tool that needs to be made available to forum moderators.
================== Scott Robbins wrote:
One issue I'd like to raise (again) that I forgot to raise yesterday during the call is use of "company" email. I raised this before and I think it was misunderstood (given the public belittling I received), maybe because CentOS currently associates @centos.org email addresses with other roles.
Not having seen that conversation, I'm a bit shocked that something so obvious would be belittled. Do mods have to communicate with members using their own email addresses? If I were an unruly member, and received an email from say, Ned, at his own email address, I'd be more likely to send back a nasty answer, saying, in part, how do I know you're from CentOS and not someone else with a similar username?
That one goes without saying. As Ned suggests, if there's special criteria for a centos.org address, then create a centosforums.org or something similar.
I'm sorry that I'm seeming so negative about all these things, but again, it comes from experience doing it the other way.
to provide a tool to do that job. It is unfair (and unprofessional) to expect moderators to correspond with their own email addresses when conducting business on behalf of the CentOS forums, and I know Phil S has also raised the issue before, understandably not wanting to use his nasa.gov address for such activities.
As I always say, (stolen from Cracked.com, but so often applicable to technology), "What could possibly go wrong with that?"
And the answer certainly should not be, tell him to get a gmail address to use. That's saying, We don't appreciate your work. You want to help, it's up to you to get the tools.
If an @centos.org implies something more privileged then I would suggest an alternative domain or subdomain such as @centosforums.org or @forums.centos.org, something that can be more clearly associated with the role in question. In my not so humble experience, when you don't give people the right tools to do the job they very quickly get fed up doing said job and move on.
See my earlier email. Extremely valid point. People are doing this out of their own goodness.
Of course there is an implicit understanding
that such email addresses are only used when appropriate, but IMHO it's a tool that needs to be made available to forum moderators.
One other possibility, and what we use in the Fedora forums, is the Private Message option. When a member commits an infringement, they're given a private message from staff which is usually also shown to other staff in the staff lounge. The member's response is also printed.
That's not quite essential, in most cases, general summations are acceptable save when the member gives an unacceptable response, such as the one who accusesd us of being in the pay of RedHat. (Which was more amusing than aggravating, causing a lot of wasted posts about, "Where's my cut?" And someone else answering, "You didn't get it? Ooops, never mind."
While members have the option of turning off PMs, it is expected that will leave the default of accepting PMs from staff.
================= Ned Slider wrote:
I'm talking specifically about situations where members may not have access to the forums so email is the only form of communicating - such as notifying a member he's received a temp ban for some infringement of rules, or confirming a members identity who's lost access to their registered email account and forgotten their password - surprising how often that happens!
================= End of paste
[preamble] Top posting is intentional. No trimming is intentional. This is because I am trying to beat the proverbial dead horse (quoting P.S. referring to this thread). [/preamble]
I strongly feel that each CentOS forum moderator should have an e-mail address that can be used for "official" CentOS business. I am not repeating why because it is well explained in the conversation below, which I posted over 4 months ago.
This subject came back recently in the moderators' thread because we want to post our contact info in a visible place (Readme First - forum guidelines) so that forum users can easily find the way to reach us. We thought about using the PM. But it is not only a suboptimal method but is now totally broken and unusable.
It is our sincere hope that the CentOS core admins give this request a serious consideration.
Thanks,
Akemi
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
Before the KB's message was posted to this mailing list, there was a conversation among the people who participated in the chat. I am now trying to paste the content of what we discussed in that conversation for everyone to see.
That was the first part of the conversation. Here's the second (and the last) part.
Akemi
======================== On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 11:41:36AM +0000, Ned Slider wrote:
Karanbir,
One issue I'd like to raise (again) that I forgot to raise yesterday during the call is use of "company" email. I raised this before and I think it was misunderstood (given the public belittling I received), maybe because CentOS currently associates @centos.org email addresses with other roles.
But there are times when forum moderators will be required to communicate with members by email, and it is only professional and right to provide a tool to do that job. It is unfair (and unprofessional) to expect moderators to correspond with their own email addresses when conducting business on behalf of the CentOS forums, and I know Phil S has also raised the issue before, understandably not wanting to use his nasa.gov address for such activities.
If an @centos.org implies something more privileged then I would suggest an alternative domain or subdomain such as @centosforums.org or @forums.centos.org, something that can be more clearly associated with the role in question. In my not so humble experience, when you don't give people the right tools to do the job they very quickly get fed up doing said job and move on. Of course there is an implicit understanding that such email addresses are only used when appropriate, but IMHO it's a tool that needs to be made available to forum moderators.
================== Scott Robbins wrote:
One issue I'd like to raise (again) that I forgot to raise yesterday during the call is use of "company" email. I raised this before and I think it was misunderstood (given the public belittling I received), maybe because CentOS currently associates @centos.org email addresses with other roles.
Not having seen that conversation, I'm a bit shocked that something so obvious would be belittled. Do mods have to communicate with members using their own email addresses? If I were an unruly member, and received an email from say, Ned, at his own email address, I'd be more likely to send back a nasty answer, saying, in part, how do I know you're from CentOS and not someone else with a similar username?
That one goes without saying. As Ned suggests, if there's special criteria for a centos.org address, then create a centosforums.org or something similar.
I'm sorry that I'm seeming so negative about all these things, but again, it comes from experience doing it the other way.
to provide a tool to do that job. It is unfair (and unprofessional) to expect moderators to correspond with their own email addresses when conducting business on behalf of the CentOS forums, and I know Phil S has also raised the issue before, understandably not wanting to use his nasa.gov address for such activities.
As I always say, (stolen from Cracked.com, but so often applicable to technology), "What could possibly go wrong with that?"
And the answer certainly should not be, tell him to get a gmail address to use. That's saying, We don't appreciate your work. You want to help, it's up to you to get the tools.
If an @centos.org implies something more privileged then I would suggest an alternative domain or subdomain such as @centosforums.org or @forums.centos.org, something that can be more clearly associated with the role in question. In my not so humble experience, when you don't give people the right tools to do the job they very quickly get fed up doing said job and move on.
See my earlier email. Extremely valid point. People are doing this out of their own goodness.
Of course there is an implicit understanding
that such email addresses are only used when appropriate, but IMHO it's a tool that needs to be made available to forum moderators.
One other possibility, and what we use in the Fedora forums, is the Private Message option. When a member commits an infringement, they're given a private message from staff which is usually also shown to other staff in the staff lounge. The member's response is also printed.
That's not quite essential, in most cases, general summations are acceptable save when the member gives an unacceptable response, such as the one who accusesd us of being in the pay of RedHat. (Which was more amusing than aggravating, causing a lot of wasted posts about, "Where's my cut?" And someone else answering, "You didn't get it? Ooops, never mind."
While members have the option of turning off PMs, it is expected that will leave the default of accepting PMs from staff.
================= Ned Slider wrote:
I'm talking specifically about situations where members may not have access to the forums so email is the only form of communicating - such as notifying a member he's received a temp ban for some infringement of rules, or confirming a members identity who's lost access to their registered email account and forgotten their password - surprising how often that happens!
================= End of paste
2010/5/1 Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com:
[preamble] Top posting is intentional. No trimming is intentional. This is because I am trying to beat the proverbial dead horse (quoting P.S. referring to this thread). [/preamble]
I strongly feel that each CentOS forum moderator should have an e-mail address that can be used for "official" CentOS business. I am not repeating why because it is well explained in the conversation below, which I posted over 4 months ago.
This subject came back recently in the moderators' thread because we want to post our contact info in a visible place (Readme First - forum guidelines) so that forum users can easily find the way to reach us. We thought about using the PM. But it is not only a suboptimal method but is now totally broken and unusable.
It is our sincere hope that the CentOS core admins give this request a serious consideration.
I thought we somewhen decided that handing out centosproject.org email addresses would be a good thing for such a purpose?
It's should be quite easy to set up Google Apps for that domain, so everyone who gets such an address could decide on his/her own what to do with it (use it within gmail, redirect ...). If that's too much overhead, simple redirects should also fit (as on fedoraproject.org e.g.).
Best Regards Marcus
On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 11:46 AM, Marcus Moeller mail@marcus-moeller.de wrote:
2010/5/1 Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com:
This subject came back recently in the moderators' thread because we want to post our contact info in a visible place (Readme First - forum guidelines) so that forum users can easily find the way to reach us. We thought about using the PM. But it is not only a suboptimal method but is now totally broken and unusable.
It is our sincere hope that the CentOS core admins give this request a serious consideration.
I thought we somewhen decided that handing out centosproject.org email addresses would be a good thing for such a purpose?
It would be. As far as I can see, 'centosproject,org' was last mentioned here:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-docs/2009-April/002536.html
But that thread also died over a year ago. :-(
Akemi
On 01/05/2010 20:48, Akemi Yagi wrote:
I thought we somewhen decided that handing out centosproject.org email addresses would be a good thing for such a purpose?
It would be. As far as I can see, 'centosproject,org' was last mentioned here:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-docs/2009-April/002536.html
But that thread also died over a year ago. :-(
It was in the promo IRC meeting.
The idea is to have CentOS ninjas or something similar. People that are affiliated with CentOS but not the core team. They get space on centosproject.org. I have no idea how far this discussion has progressed in the "inner team"?
Cheers Didi
Am Samstag, den 01.05.2010, 23:25 +0200 schrieb Geerd-Dietger Hoffmann:
On 01/05/2010 20:48, Akemi Yagi wrote:
I thought we somewhen decided that handing out centosproject.org email addresses would be a good thing for such a purpose?
It would be. As far as I can see, 'centosproject,org' was last mentioned here:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-docs/2009-April/002536.html
But that thread also died over a year ago. :-(
It was in the promo IRC meeting.
The idea is to have CentOS ninjas or something similar. People that are affiliated with CentOS but not the core team. They get space on centosproject.org. I have no idea how far this discussion has progressed in the "inner team"?
Cheers Didi
Hm somehow this made the word "abassador" come to my mind....
Chris
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On 03/05/2010 14:42, Christoph Maser wrote:
The idea is to have CentOS ninjas or something similar. People that are affiliated with CentOS but not the core team. They get space on centosproject.org. I have no idea how far this discussion has progressed in the "inner team"?
Hm somehow this made the word "abassador" come to my mind....
You are not the first one to say that but ninja sounds soo much better ;)
Am Montag, den 03.05.2010, 20:54 +0200 schrieb Geerd-Dietger Hoffmann:
On 03/05/2010 14:42, Christoph Maser wrote:
The idea is to have CentOS ninjas or something similar. People that are affiliated with CentOS but not the core team. They get space on centosproject.org. I have no idea how far this discussion has progressed in the "inner team"?
Hm somehow this made the word "abassador" come to my mind....
You are not the first one to say that but ninja sounds soo much better ;)
Don't forget the target audience, its not the 16 year old gamer ....
financial.com AG
Munich head office/Hauptsitz München: Maria-Probst-Str. 19 | 80939 München | Germany Frankfurt branch office/Niederlassung Frankfurt: Messeturm | Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 49 | 60327 Frankfurt | Germany Management board/Vorstand: Dr. Steffen Boehnert | Dr. Alexis Eisenhofer | Dr. Yann Samson | Matthias Wiederwach Supervisory board/Aufsichtsrat: Dr. Dr. Ernst zur Linden (chairman/Vorsitzender) Register court/Handelsregister: Munich – HRB 128 972 | Sales tax ID number/St.Nr.: DE205 370 553
On 03/05/10 20:35, Christoph Maser wrote:
Don't forget the target audience, its not the 16 year old gamer ....
so, what is the target audience and what are the issues being addressed here ?
On 01/05/10 03:06, Akemi Yagi wrote:
I strongly feel that each CentOS forum moderator should have an e-mail address that can be used for "official" CentOS business.
Can you post some sample scenarios where a forum moderator would need to conduct such 'official' centos business ?
-
Akemi Yagi -
Christoph Maser -
Geerd-Dietger Hoffmann -
Karanbir Singh -
Les Mikesell -
M. Milanuk -
Manuel Wolfshant -
Marcus Moeller -
Ned Slider -
Ralph Angenendt