[Qgis-user] Re: Closure of forum

[Alex Mandel]

On 03/31/2012 03:06 PM, Bernd Vogelgesang wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm a bit shocked about what my small remark on maybe spending some donations on 
> creating a knowledgebase for QGIS set loose.
> 
> My observation is, that the acting people still focus on their prefered tools 
> and ways of communication, and only want to make quick changes and maybe set 
> another link here or there.
> The ones are happy with mailing lists, the others wanna move more to wikis and 
> the next think that stackexchange is the solution.
> 
> But my point was not about using existing stuff, but building something 
> completely new, which really fits the needs and is not only a compromise of 
> whats available and what is needed.
> A forum is no wiki, a wiki can't be used as a ticket system, a mailing list 
> can't serve as "best practice" collection ...
> 
> I understand, that you all don't want to waste much time on creating such 
> things, but use already available services.
> And I'm 100% sure that developers shouldn't waste their valuable time on those 
> things anyway, but do what they can do best: develop QGIS!
> 
>  From the users perspective (and i think thats the goal: to use the great things 
> you all develop) this hole fragmented infrastructure has no "face" and it's 
> really confusing.
> 
> What is really missing is the "glue" between those tools, to make it easier for 
> people to contribute.
> 
> All this takes a lot of time to take care of, which most people don't have.
> Thats why i proposed to maybe spend donations for building a community platform, 
> where all functions could be easily found and maintained.
> 
> I can imagine that a lot of people don't like that idea for their reasons, but i 
> think that's what QGIS really deserves!
> 
> I'm just another ambitioned QGIS-user and no professional in this field, but i'm 
> sure that if "WE" would decide to go that way, that other people are being found 
> who can help bring things forward. At least we should try ...
> 
> I myself will find the necessary infos sooner or later using google, but i'm 
> sure that there are thousands of people outside who have no idea about QGIS's 
> potential and value and who will get lost on their way to find answers ...
> 
> Thanx
> Bernd
> 
> 

Bernd,

I dont' think anyone's opposed to the ideas but wondering about possible
ways to achieve the goal stated of bringing it all together.

I think this is what Tim envisioned when he started the plugins.qgis.org
site which is now being integrated with the hub.qgis.org and is why the
group moved the wiki to hub. This mean tickets and wiki are now in one
place. I think embedding nabble somewhere inside of these sites would
further integrate.

The bigger issue that tends to come up is that there isn't one single
web platform that really solves all of it, so we need to work more on
integration. Following on your idea I would say putting investment into
the plugins platform (django) could enable tighter integration with all
the components.

We do have a list of things people would like added to the web
conglomeration called qgis.org. Please look it over add submit more
ideas that might help.
http://hub.qgis.org/projects/qgis-django/issues?set_filter=1&subproject_id=!*&tracker_id=2

I'll file one today, suggesting:
Include nabble embedded forum of the mailing list inside website.
Redirect forum.qgis.org to this page
Archive the current forum at old-forum.qgis.org as read only until we
find a way to glean the useful stuff out of it.

Thanks,
Alex