This pre-beta/release sub-forum is for our forum membership to discuss development software issues. One example, this forum is so that our members using development packages do NOT clutter up the main threads (supporting released software) with complaints about development packages not working for them. That creates an inappropriate impression amongst users who can not be bothered to read a threat/post contents to see that it is a DEVELOPMENT package causing a problem (and that tends to be the majority of our membership who fail to do so). Hence we NEEDED a separate area for those users who want forum support in development packages.
But this is NOT the location where the Developers come for discussions/posting. The developers had the mailing lists (which they prefer)** LONG BEFORE THIS FORUM WAS CREATED.** The developers like the mailing lists. The developers PREFER the mailing lists.
Now from a selfish forum perspective, it ‘would be nice’ if the developers abandoned the mailing lists that they SIGNIFICANTLY prefer to please users like you and me, … but I gotta tell ya, the openSUSE world does not revolve around the forums and IMHO it is not going to happen anytime soon, unless the forums can PROVE it is significantly superior to the mailing lists as a venue for exchanging development information.
Thus far the forums have not succeeded in that regard. Two of the known barriers are (1) excessive spam on the forums and (2) excessive rants on the forum. Also, many developers significantly prefer the mailing list format over that of a forum format.
Our efforts to bridge those two information exchange venues (mailing lists and forums) with NNTP thus far have not succeeded, but we have not given up trying.
I wanted to add, in case the tone of my posts above is misinterpreted, … I think this is a good question, … I think this bringing the community together is an important issue, but I also think we need to go about this in a manner that works for all parties. Apologies if my replies appeared blunt and non-receptive. They were not intended as such, and innovative ideas to improve things are always welcome.
Did you see any announcement of this on opensuse.org in “factory news” or under openSUSE News there? Why/how would you expect this forum to be the first to make such an announcement, in those circumstances?
Thats a good question. One that should IMHO be explored.
Should we have two or more sub-Forum areas for providing forum support/information exchange on Pre-Release/Beta ? ie
one for underlying openSUSE distribution development pre-release/beta, and
another for all other packages/desktop development pre-release/beta ? and
another for all stable packages/applications NOT included in the official openSUSE release, which when installed do cause installation problems because those versions were never intended/tested in the current stable release ?
I don’t know the answer. I think its a good question. My current off the cuff view is such a split would be completely ignored by 99% of our forum membership who often post in the wrong subforum area anyway and we would end up with anarchy.
Still, I think a good discussion would be helpful because my views HAVE been wrong many times in the past - and hence I know it is important to listen to others.
I guess it depends on your goal, and the audience you wish to reach. If your audience is those who plan the next release and who make the decisions, then the mailing list is the place.
But if you find we have some users on our forum who know a few technical things, and you wish to explore ideas, fixes, get support, provide support etc with those forum users, then our forum currently is a good place for that. Of course we would like to expand our forum to have more official input, but thus far those doing official releases are hard pressed just to do what they are doing in the mailing lists, and the extra load of supporting our forum is not something they either can handle ? or possibly are willing to handle ? …
In any event, any innovative ideas to help merge the two communication philosophies (forum and mailing lists) are always welcome. I’m still hopeful that via NNTP (or a derivative there of) we can succeed. Note I have NO insider information here. I likely know less than you. This is just a hope of mine. I definitely do NOT have the knowledge required to pursue this further. Hopefully others who do (have ideas/knowledge) can chime in.
You don’t appear to have answered my question related to any announcement from the 11.3 project leader/manager. Then congratulations as you are fulfilling your own expectation - someone had to be first.
For every forum represents a kind of sub-community I would like to discuss this question here at first. Perhaps we end up having a common suggestion…
I am in need of a user centric forum discussion the use of openSUSE-factory. I could even consum opensuse.devel and quote some relevant news here in this place…
But I am not amused to read every now and then some “factory”-applications thread. It is time consuming to find out: Is this thread an old one coming up from a far past. Sometimes Versions discussed are stable but in a called “factory” subdirectory for a stable release of openSUSE. But this is another question regarding naming conventions of repositories…
Generally the structure of the entry forum page is chaos:
There are normally announced community related news. But it is clearly an issue for the forum Tech News
But I don’t understand why all of forums.openorg users should be bothered with such a news?
Why do we have announcement forums? Every forums is just that: about news.
My guess this is about to make it easy for novell workers to find just the first place to put an announcement.
Greetings from Guelph. I personally found oldcpu’s replies here very thoughtful and thought provoking. In testing 11.3 KDE and Gnome I have found the pre-Release/Beta forum to be very helpful. Remember, on the forums we are all volunteers and users just trying to help each other and find our way.
Cheers.
… Anyway, that is a Totally mute point on my part as you have also completely changed the subject making the thread far less useful …this is no longer relevant to Pre-Release/Beta and I ask you now STOP this posting out of thread / subforum context.
If you wish to raise other points, please do so in the proper sub forum area.
