Documentation wiki? Re: Better tools for community cohesion?

[Iserv-appbox <..hidden..>]

Hi Chris,

I agree with you that mailing lists are probably the best platform for discussion at the moment.
May be mailing lists are a bit old-fashioned, but IMHO they have some benefits over forums:

- Mailing lists invite the user more into thorough discussion
- The user is less distracted by the Bells and Whistles of the forum site
- Mailing lists invite less into short (negative, inproductive) comments.
   (May be it's too easy to press on the commment button in a forum.)

However mailing lists (as well as forums) have one weak point: They are volatile.
Usefull tips, workarounds, etc. are "lost" in the archives:

  - You will have to search through the archives to get an item
  - Items can't be improved or extended

As a solution I would suggest a wiki.
A LSMB wiki would enable cooperation regarding to LSMB documentation.

The LSMB Wiki could be a gathering place for all kinds of documentation:
the Book, Howtos, Tips, etc.
The great Book project of Erik Huelsmann could be a nice starting point.

Kind regards,

Marjan Waldorp,
Tux4u.nl

=========================================
On 2013-07-19 15:46, Chris Travers wrote:
> Hi Mikkel;
>
> Thanks for your comments and offer for help.  The forums are actually run by a contributor named
> Chris Bennett who I am CCing for your convenience.  The two of you might be able to talk about how
> best to manage things.  Even if you don't move to Discourse, perhaps a good first step would be look
> at how to market the forums to attract new users. I would be happy to collaborate on such.
>
> I do agree that some users will prefer some mailing lists and some will prefer forums.  I think
> there are a lot of reasons however why forums don't get the traction one might expect.  In a lot of
> cases, collaboration feels more natural on an email list than a forum.  So I don't see forums ever
> replacing email lists for core collaboration.  What they can do is provide help for new markets we
> are not serving well, and as such they provide an opportunity for folks such as Chris and yourself
> to try to expand our community offerings and build presence in the community generally.
>
> If the forums are targetting new users, this really is an opportunity for consultants and would-be
> consultants to push them and thus improve their own presence in the community.  I don't really see
> us moving core functions off email lists any time soon.  I don't think this should stop you, though
> and if it is successful enough I could see gradual integration into more things in which we do, and
> such would certainly bring more visibility to those involved.
>
> Best Wishes,
> Chris Travers
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 4:40 AM, Mikkel Høgh <..hidden.. <mailto:..hidden..>> wrote:
>
>     Hi LedgerSMB people,
>
>     I'm mostly a lurker here, but I'd like to see LedgerSMB get more traction.
>
>     I think one of the great barriers to building a larger community is the tools currently in use.
>
>     The main channel of communication is the mailing lists. However, mailing lists are a bit
>     usability challenged. It's hard to keep track of what's going on, and harder still to chime in.
>     It depends a lot on the user being able to configure filters in his e-mail client, enable
>     treading, etc.
>
>     In addition to that, there are the forums at http://forums.ledgersmb.org/ which seem to be used
>     very sparingly.
>
>     In short, I'd like to suggest replacing both with Discourse: http://www.discourse.org/
>
>     A few salient points:
>
>     1. It's much more friendly to new users (single click login, helpful tips when posting, etc.)
>     2. It can be used much like a mailing list (subscription, replying via e-mail)
>     3. It can be configured to send out digests to users who have not been logged in for a while,
>     giving them a quick overview of what happened since they checked the last time.
>     4. Much better handling of images, code samples, and multimedia. Makes it much easier to support
>     users.
>     5. It has a great search, and it is very search engine friendly, making it much easier to find
>     earlier answers.
>     6. A healthy open source project with a large community. Widely (and successfully) deployed.
>     Take a gander at http://discuss.howtogeek.com/ http://meta.discourse.org/ or
>     http://meta.discourse.org/t/please-visit-our-discourse-forum-directory/3102 for examples of
>     existing communities.
>
>     I could go on, I think Discourse is one of the most interesting open source projects and an
>     awesome tool for building communities. If you want to know more, check out
>     http://www.discourse.org/about/ or Jeff Atwood's keynote from ForumCon:
>     http://blog.discourse.org/2013/06/forums-are-dead-long-live-forums/
>
>     For the practical side, I'm willing to handle hosting, sysadmin'ing, etc, as well as conversion
>     of the existing forums.
>
>     --
>     Kind regards,
>
>     Mikkel Høgh <..hidden.. <mailto:..hidden..>>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     See everything from the browser to the database with AppDynamics
>     Get end-to-end visibility with application monitoring from AppDynamics
>     Isolate bottlenecks and diagnose root cause in seconds.
>     Start your free trial of AppDynamics Pro today!
>     http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=48808831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
>     _______________________________________________
>     Ledger-smb-users mailing list
>     ..hidden.. <mailto:..hidden..>
>     https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users
>
>
>
>
> --
> Best Wishes,
> Chris Travers
>
> Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor lock-in.
> http://www.efficito.com/learn_more.shtml
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> See everything from the browser to the database with AppDynamics
> Get end-to-end visibility with application monitoring from AppDynamics
> Isolate bottlenecks and diagnose root cause in seconds.
> Start your free trial of AppDynamics Pro today!
> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=48808831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ledger-smb-users mailing list
> ..hidden..
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users
>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See everything from the browser to the database with AppDynamics
Get end-to-end visibility with application monitoring from AppDynamics
Isolate bottlenecks and diagnose root cause in seconds.
Start your free trial of AppDynamics Pro today!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=48808831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
_______________________________________________
Ledger-smb-users mailing list
..hidden..
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users