Re: [gentoo-project] Deferred decision: Forums (specifically OTW)

[Michał Górny]

On Wed, 2019-06-12 at 02:42 -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 8:38 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 15:05 +0200, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> > > The agenda item "Forums (specifically OTW)" was deferred to further
> > > discussion in the mailing lists during the 2019-02-10 council meeting.
> > > The agenda for that meeting can be found at [Agenda] and the tracking
> > > bug is [Bug 677824].
> > >
> > > This email aims to re-opens the discussion [which was started in a
> > > previous thread] as per the council decision.
> > >
> > > I ask that the discussion remains civil and respectful, while also
> > > allowing for a high bar for the actual discussion.
> > >
> >
> > I don't think OTW is a major problem.  The real problem are *technical*
> > forums, and those cause two problems.  The first of them is that
> > developers rarely hear of the problems with their packages.  The second
> > of them is that Forums tend to breed very bad 'solutions'.
> >
>
> I'm curious how this is different from other support forums. Are there no
> bad solutions proposed on the wiki? in #gentoo? In other channels?
>

I never said this is much different.  However, this topic is about
Forums, so I'm answering what my problem with Forums is so far.  To be
honest, I don't think I've seen any other support channel causing so
much mayhem.

But if I were to consider your question more deeply, then I believe
there are differences:

1) Forums are more 'ad hoc' than Wiki.  I dare say people usually put
more effort to put correct data there than when they answer some forum
post.  Not to mention it's organized by topic, so it's easier to review,
and provides ability to directly correct mistakes.  On Forums, the best
*I* can do (as regular developer) is point out the mistake in a reply
and hope that user reads it before applying a bad idea presented
earlier.

2) #gentoo is not really 'persistent' the way Forums (or Wiki) are.  If
someone gives a bad advice, it usually directly affects only people
being on the channel at the moment.  Even if the same bad advice is
given multiple times or spread, I doubt it would reach the scope of
Forum post that's publicly visible to everyone forever.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny