RE: Forums

[Matthew Wilcox:]
> 
> @Sylvian
> 
> It wasn't me saying "you're wrong" it was me saying exactly what I said:
> post numbers do not directly correlate to an increase in participation by
> new members. Though I agree that it's quite likely there's a correlation,
> the numbers cited do not prove that. And as I say, it was a mistake on my
> part to assume activity here had dropped, for which I apologise.
> 
> We both agree we need more people though, because there's simply more work
> to do. Where we are differing is in how we believe we can attract new
> people *who will contribute*. I contest that the mailing list *is* a put-
> off factor. There are many designers out there who simply will not learn
> "back-end" stuff and likewise will not "faff around" with antiquated and
> unfamiliar communication set-ups when more familiar and user friendly
> alternatives are in common usage. And yes, you can say that this acts as a
> natural filter to get rid of people who don't put in an engineering type
> input. But, we don't just want engineers and people au-fait with kernels,
> protocols, and sysadmin tasks. The W3C is full of those people, by all
> appearances. What it lacks is designers. CSS is used by designers. We need
> the input of people who use CSS day to day to earn a living. People with
> design chops. People who know to what purposes the technology needs to be
> put in order to achieve design goals. Those are the people CSS is built
> for. Those are the people to provide use cases, goals, and report problems
> with existing spec.
> 
> Those people, are the people I believe are likely to be put off by the
> list aspect. Just look at the likes of Andy Clarke - renowned designer and
> very into CSS nuances and application - but who has famously throws his
> hands in the air the moment anything Terminal related appears, no matter
> how simple. He's not alone, and yet someone like that would have valuable
> input here. The people that do design are less likely to be the people who
> grok having to set up mail clients to expose mail headers that so many
> here seem to think is obvious. It's not obvious.
> 
> With all of that said, the linked forum view from earlier in the thread
> answers a LOT of those issues and I would love to see that pushed as a
> main channel of "first contact" to the outside world as opposed to the
> existing archive. That, sprinkled with a decent tutorial on how to get
> involved and how to set up common mail clients to work with the list would
> go a very very long way in solving what is in essence a usability issue
> with www-style.
> 
> And I agree that time and will is the most important thing people can
> bring. But to get that people have to buy in to what goes on here. To buy
> in people have to see what we do. People don't. Forums won't solve all
> these issues, of course not, but something like that forum-esque UI over
> the top of the list will make a damned good first impression on newbies
> compared with what we've got.

Fair points all around; especially the bit about first impressions.

Received on Sunday, 8 January 2012 04:58:34 UTC