Re: Forums

On 1/5/12 2:15 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> @Boris. I'm not sure that "being online" is a narrow use case...

Following just a few threads is.

> The facts remain that _new users_ are not going to find the existing
> methods of engaging with www-style simple, intuative, or easy to get
> into.

Agreed.

It may well be impossible to find some single system that works well for 
both people who have to spend a lot of time on www-style discussion, 
those who want to make a one-off comment, and those who want to 
participate for the duration of a single thread.  Those are pretty 
different use cases, with very different constraints.  I'm not sure what 
the right approach is to dealing with this.  I _am_ pretty sure that 
prioritizing the latter two use cases at the expense of the former will 
make the job of this working group that much harder.

> My main bug-bear is that I don't want to have to rely on the
> functionality offered by an email client because that ties me to one
> machine, one client, at one location.

Er... that depends a lot on your mail account, right?  The above 
certainly doesn't describe my mail account; it's accessible easily from 
all my machines, from a variety of clients, and from any web browser.

In fact, from what I've seen the vast majority of people access their 
mail from their web browser, if we're going to speak in generalities.

> Much like the web we're trying to build for everyone: I think
> priority should go to ease of access and interoperability.

Agreed, but those mean different things for different people.

> Mail doesn't have that.

It does for me.

> Forums do, by their  nature.

Again, for me, they do not.  The simple requirement to create an account 
is a huge barrier already.

-Boris

Received on Thursday, 5 January 2012 19:23:47 UTC