[sword-devel] PR

[Chris Little]

Most other Bible software packages have email lists for their users to
send out updates and they do send out notices of new books and product
updates regularly.  Logos & e-Sword both use Christian eMail Service,
which presents a nice & easy way for users to administer their own
subscriptions.  (I'm not suggesting we switch from our own sword-info to
Christian eMail Service, because I much prefer our self-sufficiency to
being at the mercy of someone else's service.)

Does anyone else think we ought to make more use of sword-info, which
serves essentially the same purpose?  It's got 521 loyal users
currently, but we haven't sent an update since the release of 1.5.1 I
think.  I think we should be sending out bi-monthly or monthly updates
about new releases, new books, works in progress, & polls for interest
in possible new features.  Does anyone else agree?  Does anyone like to
write announcements? :)

Another idea... Does anyone else think we should add discussion forums
to the new website?  They would alleviate a lot of the traffic on the
support list and would allow us to quit repeatedly answering the same
questions by allowing users to read previous responses.  And users could
help each other, give suggestions for use, and generally create a
community that will encourage their interest in SWORD.  Our developer
community is great, but we're pretty much leaving our users out in the
cold when it comes to this.  My suggestion for forum software is phpBB
(www.phpbb.org) but I haven't investigated the options that thorougly.

--Chris