[Mapserver-users] List as Forum??

[Thomas E Burk]

Yes, good discussion. Comes up every few months. Everyone has their favorite 
approach. We encourage multiple approaches as long as the integrity of the list 
is maintained - to everyone's advantage I think.

We will be upgrading the list software in the next few months and hopefully 
searching will be improved - it's not good now.

Tom
=======================
Dr. Thomas E. Burk
University of Minnesota
1530 Cleveland Avenue North
St. Paul, MN 55108
612-624-6741
612-625-5212 (FAX)
tburk at umn.edu


>From: "Liz Godwin" <godwinl at agr.gc.ca>
>To: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Mapserver-users] List as Forum??
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>Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 15:51:29 -0500
>
>Re (various things)...
>
>>>> Gerry Creager <gerry.creager at tamu.edu> 02/23/04 03:25PM >>>
>>where, in  a digest or 
>>forum package, I'd have to spend more time with each piece.
>
>Actually in a forum... you can just not click on the thread and you
>won't have to delete/read any of the messages. 
>
>
>e-mail notification..  I agree that it could be nice to have the option
>to be notified of incoming messages, although personally I only want
>notification if I am contributing to the thread.
>
>searching..  improving search engine may increase my happiness.  while
>Google is an interesting option I hadn't thought of..  it doesn't sort
>the returned results by any means other than by 'relevance'.  This
>doesn't solve my thread sorting, which means I won't use it.
>
>a NNTP service...  would improve my thread following/sorting problem. 
>
>
>In a forum setting, my view is..  that there could be different topics,
>helping me narrow down what I read.  Something in a PostGIS group for
>example, I might ignore because I don't know PostGIS, even if the title
>is obscure.  But if an obscure title were in another group I followed, I
>might read it anyway.I have a hard time following threads in a common
>group to see what was said.  This usually means I don't contribute to
>the list often because I don't have time to read through all the
>messages.  And for those who post without interesting keywords..  the
>messages will just be ignored.
>
>Anyway, I'm glad this discussion has spawned comments one way or
>another.  
>
>For an example of a site I like, athough it is very advanced and
>overkill for what we'd need, is sitepoint.com
>phpBB sites are good too where I have seen them in place.  The out of
>the box design is good in itself.
>
>Liz
>
>>>> Gerry Creager <gerry.creager at tamu.edu> 02/23/04 03:25PM >>>
>Forum or digest posts are harder for me to filter appropriately. 
>They're not as convenient from that perspective.  I can read a lot of 
>mail with the delete key if it's uninteresting, where, in  a digest or
>
>forum package, I'd have to spend more time with each piece.
>
>Liz Godwin wrote:
>> Hi List,
>> 
>> Last week was one of those weeks when I was really hunting for
>answers
>> to various questions.  In doing so, I have come to appreciate forums
>> compared to mailing lists for finding information, and especially
>for
>> following threads.  The activity on this mailing list is so great
>that I
>> find it hard to follow.  I have messages filtered into a separate
>> folder, but that's not enough.  I also find the archive difficult to
>> search, both index and thread pages usually sqewing the results of a
>> query. 
>> 
>> I propose that this list be migrated to a forum.  Who hosts it is
>> another question. The most logical host would be UMN's mapserver
>site.
>> 
>> Any one else have comments to this?  Are there reason's NOT to
>migrate
>> to a forum?  It just seems silly to have 1000 mailboxes filled with
>40
>> (yesterday's count) messages a day (or 1 really long one if
>digested)
>> when they can be posted on a common site where we can go look at it,
>> sorted by thread, grouped into categories/levels whatever.  It's
>more
>> "user friendly" IMHO.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Liz Godwin
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mapserver-users mailing list
>> Mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu 
>> http://lists.gis.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users 
>
>-- 
>Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu 
>Network Engineering -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
>Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020
>FAX:  979.847.8578 Pager:  979.228.0173
>Office: 903A Eller Bldg, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843
>
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