Re: Leading the Forefront - with IRC ! ?

On 3/27/07, Mike Schinkel <mikeschinkel@gmail.com> wrote:

> >>You don't have to look at (or update) the wiki if you don't want to, but
> I think doing so will help.


My thoughts on the need for alternative forms of collaboration.

Firstly , running a web forum myself - i dont think having a web forum would
have do a better job in indexing the discussions . Moreover ,here are some
other issues i can foresee in popular web forum softwares :

 - most web forums have vague boundaries for anonymous posting  .Compare
this with a mail to public-html@w3c.org .
- most of them have their own ways of segmenting 'new posts' that does not
include the threads already identified as 'new posts'  earlier .so two users
who might view the posts for the last n days might see inconsistent views.
OTOH the mailing list archives are crude,but effective and consistent .
 - installing patches , updates ..that need regular tweaking.
 - im sure that we might consider strip off a lot of features ( like viewing
online users , and so on )
 -  unneeded wrappers for messaging among users . compare this to receiving
an email and replying to the person right in your inbox.

I have no personal vengeance to settle with web forums  :P , but considering
that we have users with varying reading frequencies , i believe that web
forums will not improve ,if not resolve the growing collaboration problems.
Like many have highlighted above , irc, mailing lists have worked before.
And it is true that they might not be able to justify their potential with
the increasing posts,threads.

However ... where forums , irc channels ,and mailing lists loose out is
where wiki 's excel ! I really dont need to elucidate further ..but i will 8
)

-  having quick changes that dont need to be reflected over at the w3c
pages.
- organising minutes of meetings , TODO 's ... hmm am i missing any more
winners.. ah   lists  ..oh and even HTML !
- a page where you could propose x ,and post the link over at the mailing
list .
-  providing templates for project ideas , proposals ...and so on.
-  providing content that will change over time ...like faq's  , meeting
dates,and so on.
-  a page for announcing future meetings , links to the minutes of past
meetings ,chat archives .
-  A page that could have the f2f meetings attendee list  ...
-  a page where people looking to contribute to X could volunteer by adding
their names..
 - and so on....

The first three points , I can  particularly relate to and these are the
reasons why i think wiki's wouldnt be a bad idea .

Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V Kode ,
TutorVista