[Qgis-developer] Re: [Qgis-psc] QGIS forum

[Gary Sherman]

On 7/11/11 3:37 PM, Gary Sherman wrote:
>
>
> On Jul 11, 2011, at 14:50, Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at
> <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
>
>> Hi PSC,
>>
>> It has already been discussed on developer mailing list: Some action
>> has to be taken concerning QGIS forums.
>>
>> The current situation looks like this:
>> - The forum attracts a lot of spam every day.
>> - The forum is often down or slow to respond. (Therefor it takes a lot
>> of time to remove spam and ban spammers.)
>> - Developers don't frequent the forums so we have to forward people to
>> the mailing list anyway.
>>
>> My suggested alternative would be to redirect developer questions to
>> the mailing list and user questions to
>> <http://gis.stackexchange.org>gis.stackexchange.org
>> <http://gis.stackexchange.org>. This would reduce web infrastructure
>> complexity for us while at the same time increase our visibility on
>> the platform-independent stackexchange site.
>>
>> Since we are on our way to the next big release, updating our web
>> infrastructure and other aspects of the QGIS project, I feel it's
>> necessary to address this topic.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Anita
>> _____________
> This is the perfect time to address this---the server providing the
> forum is going to be decommissioned soon. The forum has provided good
> support for many, but as Anita notes devs don't frequent the forums. I
> would like to shutdown the server before the end of July.
>
I am back from 11 days off the grid. I have always viewed the forum as a 
viable support mechanism. My comment about addressing the issue was not 
agreement or disagreement with any proposed solutions, but related 
solely to the need to decommission the current server.

I think shutting down the forum will be a potential shock to many users 
and will no doubt have negative impacts. Forums are a pain because of 
bots and spam, however we have a large number of users that rely on the 
QGIS forum for support and information. Maybe gis.stackexchange.org can 
replace the forum---or maybe not. Either way there are two things that 
are certain:

1 - the current server will be offline prior to August 10, 2011
2 - there will by many unhappy users if the forum goes away

The community and psc need to decide if we are willing to accept #2...

-gary
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Gary Sherman
Chair, QGIS Project Steering Committee
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