[bt-devel] Updates to the wiki, forums reanimated

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

On Sun, 13 Apr 2008, Joachim Ansorg wrote:

> Hi,
> the wiki is now updated to the most recent version of mediawiki. Please let me
> know if something does not work as expected.

It seems to work. It even sent me new rss updates :)

>
> I also added http://forums.bibletime.info. The old forums had to be closed due
> to spam. Hopefully the the phpbb3 software will do a better job with spam
> protection.
> Content is not yet there. if you have suggestions about the forums itself or
> the possible sections please post a reply.
> Also, I'm not sure if we need forums at all, let me know what you think.

We have a BibleTime section at Crosswire forums but it's not mentioned
in our web pages or anywhere else. We have to decide if we want to use
that or our own forum.

Having a forum is generally a good thing. It's a modern way of
communication. But the effectiveness depends on critical mass. It has to
draw attention before it draws attention. I think that developers should
be active to respond there. We could write some posts which address some
faq-like questions. There should be some carefully selected categories,
but not too many. We could for example start poll threads where users
could tell their opinions about new or old features.

We can (or have to)  save the wiki for developers but I would like to
communicate more with end users, too. SourceForge task database is fine
but it's clumsy to use for informal discussion.

There is hardly a sadder thing than a forum which has been in internet
for some time but has only a couple of users and some tens of posts. We
should avoid that.

My prediction is that things will change, even dramatically, when BT
runs on Windows. We will get much larger user base and interest. Until
then I don't see very urgent need for a forum, though it is nice to
have. We don't get much feedback right now, would it change with a new
forum?

If we together decide that the forum is a good thing, we have to
advertise it in our web page (more than in one link), in Crosswire news
etc.

>
> The only thing not working atm is the guestbook. It's completely spammed so we
> have to find a better solution for that, I think. Maybe the forums instead?

I vote for a forum.

  Yours,
	Eeli Kaikkonen (Mr.), Oulu, Finland
	e-mail: eekaikko at mailx.studentx.oulux.fix (with no x)