Re: Anyone newly interested in Debian - you're welcome here
Hi,
On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 11:58:04AM +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:
> Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> writes:
> > I think it's worth considering the fact that new computer users are
> > increasingly less likely to use email and are more likely to find email
> > intimidating.
>
> Do you have a proposal then for a forum (as in, a platform for group
> discussion) that's more palatable to the youngsters?
I hesitate to make specific suggestions because I'm 49 years of age
myself and fairly set in my ways, plus it's really a wider question of
recognising a need to cater to a non-email world. The specifics may not
matter much and it's going to have to be a group effort.
In terms of modern user support I think that generally people are more
familiar with and best served by a question-answer site like
StackOverflow. Ubuntu users might be familiar with that in the form of
AskUbuntu.com. An offshoot of the actual StackOverflow like that is not
suitable because it would mean submitting to their corporate will, so it
would need to be something similar but self-hosted.
I think this is ideally suited to user support because it is strictly
focused on asking a question and getting an answer. It's easier to tell
if answers are on-topic, and bad answers can get moderated down by other
users.
One of the things that I think cause a lot of people to lose patience
with mailing lists is that conversations quickly derail, prolific
posters take them in directions that are no use to the original poster,
and there is no way to handle bad advice that is posted repeatedly and
strenuously except by repeatedly and strenuously responding to
it.
On the other hand some people do like a bit of discussion so if a Q-A
site proved unworkable, my next best suggestion is a Discourse instance.
Quite a few large FOSS projects switched to this software and again I
think Ubuntu's example works pretty well. As far as moderation goes it
is at least intended that participants take on some of the moderation
burden after spending a bit of time.
There was at least one attempt in the past to do a Q-A site for Debian,
that was called Debian Shapado. As far as I recall it was announced here
and a few people used it, but it never got equal mention as a support
venue with the mailing lists and quite quickly interest in it petered
out. I don't think that was representative of a lack of interest from
users, more that users did not know about it. I also expect it required
a lot of volunteer time from Debian members, which could not be found
for whatever reason.
There is of course already https://forums.debian.net/. I don't think
phpBB makes the grade for all the reasons we here complain about web
forums. I also have doubts about its moderation.
I just would really like to avoid a future where we are all on Dissord
or nothing.
Thanks,
Andy
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