[mapserver-dev] [mapserver-users] Adding stackexchange to our support channels

[thomas bonfort]

Jukka,
I mostly agree with your points, and I'm proposing we add
stackexchange as the mailing list does not seem to fit as well as it
may have used to (or that SE provides tools that are superior to what
we had when we only had mailing lists...).
Re. hosting our own: I'm -1 here unless someone wants to champion and
maintain that. Even in that case, I do not see any particular
advantage. Am I missing something?
As for managing two channels, I'm sorry you feel that way. For me,
having an email alert on gis.se threads and replying online instead of
in an email client makes no difference, but I understand it may bother
some.

cheers,
thomas


On 4 October 2013 16:23, Rahkonen Jukka <jukka.rahkonen at mmmtike.fi> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> Mapserver users list has worked fine for me for several years but I have
> seen that it is no more what it used to be. There are less mails on the list
> and part of the discussion that would be interesting also for users (at
> least power users) has moved into developers list and inside the github
> issues as comments.
>
> Compared with same kind of projects, the Geoserver users list and GDAL-dev
> have remained popular and users do still receive good service.
>
>
>
> Somehow it feels that we cannot turn the clock backwards and if users have
> moved away from the mailing lists then they won’t come back and
> Stackexchange feels like a modern and not so bad alternative. OpenStreetMap
> is having their own Help center which is like Stackexchange but I do not
> know if Mapserver is popular enough for something similar. Perhaps there are
> also people who are eager in hunting Stackexchange points and prefer that
> instead of something just Mapserver specific.
>
>
>
> However, change from mailing list into Stackexchange is not necessarily that
> simple. Of course we have lots of simple problems like “WMS does not answer
> me, why?” with simple answers “Read http://mapserver.org/ogc/wms_server.html
> and set "wms_enable_request" "*" “
>
>
>
> But then we have rather much stuff like this
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.mapserver.user/51482
>
>
>
> Discussion and problem solving like that does not suit very well into
> Stackexchange, and it is not so easy to find the comments from inside the
> answers. I think that Stackexchange is not an ultimate help desk solution.
> There are also similar sites like Stackoverflow but I do not know what
> differences they have.
>
> “Power-users, would you be willing to participate to another support
> channel?”
>
>
>
> I miss-read that “Would you be willing to participate to yet another support
> channel?”.  I would say that not really, for me it is enough to handle one
> channel per each project I am following. If Stackexchange would be the main
> channel, then perhaps. I still wonder where would we handle the kinky but
> interesting problems which are not solved without using brain and perhaps
> gathering more information and sample data and mapfiles for repeating the
> problem.
>
>
>
> -Jukka Rahkonen-
>
>
>
>
>
> Umberto Nicoletti wrote:
>
>
>
> +1
>
>
>
> I already have a mapserver filter in place on gis.stackexchange.com
>
>
>
> So should it be gis or all stackexchange sites?
>
> I am for gis, as it more relevant to the mapserver community and mapserver
> is already listed in the ads:
>
>
>
> http://meta.gis.stackexchange.com/ads/display/1968
>
>
>
> Umberto
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 12:32 PM, thomas bonfort <thomas.bonfort at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hi MapServer Users and Power-Users,
>
> As FrankW pointed out during our FOSS4G presentation, I would like to
> propose that we add stackexchange as an "official" support channel for
> MapServer. You can check and subscribe to mapserver related questions
> here: http://stackexchange.com/filters/90617/mapserver
>
> Why?
>
> - Stackexchange questions and answers are very well referenced through
> search engines, which would avoid recurring questions from being
> brought up on the mailing list
> - The answers get up or down-voted by the community, allowing a user
> to immediately flesh out relevant information for a given question
> - Asking a question on stack-exchange might help new users to seek for
> help, instead of having to subscribe and post to a public mailing list
> (which can be intimidating)
>
> How?
>
> - By referencing stackexchange in our "getting help" documentation section
> - Most importantly, by having MapServer power users subscribe and
> participate to the stackexchange questions, providing answers or
> upvoting correct existing answers.
>
> Users, is this something that you would find beneficial?
> Power-users, would you be willing to participate to another support
> channel, knowing that in the long run the aim is to reduce your
> workload as the most common questions will answer themselves ?
> PSC, should we have some kind of motion to vote and officialise this?
>
> best regards,
> Thomas
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