[mapserver-users] Adding stackexchange to our support channels

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Hi all,

I would hope that this is "in addition to" the mapserver lists not a 
replacement to the lists. I just setup my account to forward mapserver 
questions to my email account so I can monitor what is happening on gis 
stack exchange. I don't find the extra step of logging into stack 
exchange as convenient as responding to email, but I have noticed that 
there are a lot of questions that get asked there and not on the list.

-Steve

On 10/4/2013 10:23 AM, Rahkonen Jukka 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
> <http://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 <mailto: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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