Re: http://forums.debian.net in beta
On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 11:55:41AM +0100, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffelaar.nl> [2004-09-09 12:47]:
> > multiple webforums out there for Debian, of varying popularity. AFAICS,
> > the debianHELP one[1] is the most popular, being started about two years
> ...
> > forums.debian.net is currently nearly-empty, it is yet to gain momentum.
>
> Well, we could just point forums.debian.net to debianHELP...
Possible, but would not be my preference for a few reasons:
- by means of their footer, they claim that all comments and messages
are GFDL'd. The legality of this is doubtful, but the claim is made,
and I'm not very comfortable with it. They also say that everything
else is copyright Golgotha Systems, while obviously a significant part
of the site is due to the postnuke and phpbb projects (the latter
having their own copyright notices being removed from the site).
- It's a meta-site, with forum being part of it, somewhat obscured. And
I don't like their primary-colour colour-scheme :)
- It has commercial banners on all pages, for the hosting company, and
for some news site
Either way, I'm in no way intending to hostage forums.debian.net, so if
in the end this is decided, then it'll be so, of course.
> > Starting forums.debian.net didn't take much more time than an 'apt-get
> > install phpbb2' takes, I see I failed to properly search for other
>
> It's not about installing the software but getting a community
> established around the forum. If debianHELP has done that already,
> maybe you should just work with them. (Just giving random "good"
> advice; I don't use forums and don't know how good debianHELP or
> others are.)
I wasn't clear in my wording, the quoted sentence was the a lame excuse
for my neglect to do research for 'prior art', of course I do realize
what the hard part is of a webforum, or in general, any communication
channel. All I wanted to say with that sentence is that it wasn't
intentional to create yet-another-debian-forum.
As said above, I have reservations with the DebianHELP one, and the
'Debian Community' one[1] uses commercial webforum software[2]. I'll be
mailing around a bit to seek input from other Debian-related forums,
since I still feel there is an itch to scratch, but it's indeed much
better to help and/or merge existing efforts.
Thanks for your input,
--Jeroen
[1] http://www.design2i.com/debian/
[2] "Invision Power Board"[3], and is probably even violating license
since "[trial version] Permanent use of the software requires
purchasing the license."[4]
[3] http://www.invisionboard.com/
[4] http://www.invisionboard.com/?license
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
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