[Koha] Why No Discussion Forum?

[Joshua M. Ferraro]

----- "Bo Schafers" <bo at weavebrain.com.au> wrote:
> Thanks for the responses and personal perspectives.
> 
> My thoughts were primarily in relation to making Koha more accessible to 
> 'library people' around the world. Online forums are the tool of choice 
> for online communities, the fora of many famous projects have become 
> information repositories of great value. People are hugely webcentric
> these days. In the short time I've been here, I've seen numerous single 
> posts by people who asked one question and then simply vanished. -"Koha? 
> Looked good but, too hard!" I would venture that over time these 
> translate into much lost opportunitiy to build a stronger, more vibrant 
> Koha community. Just some thought from a newbie...hopefully no offense
> taken.
None take here. I think we'd certainly be willing to point forum.koha.org
to a forum that you manage. One challenge will be finding folks to check it.

Most of the core developers for for companies that have to spend most of
their time helping paying Koha customers ... we work on the Koha project
and answer questions people have in our spare time. In the business world,
some open source projects have reached a point that the users hire people
to work on the project itself. I have high hopes that will happen in the
library community as well.

Ultimately Bo, this is _your_ project too, so feel free to make suggestions 
like this, and get actively involved, it's much appreciated.

> > The mailing list archive can be searched, just as a forum can. In
> fact, the
> > mailing list can be read as a forum if you wish. See the options
> here:
> >   
> I've been using the web format a lot, finding the threading a lot
> easier  to follow AND I must apololgise: I did not see the *search* 
> function at the bottom of the page. Thanks Owen! That solves my
> personal issue of making sure I do not burden the list with topics
> discussed previously.
While it may seem that a forum is the 'modern' way to interact, and 
some library communities do prefer it, the fact is, it's a matter of
preference. Email and forums were invented at nearly the same time,
and people have been arguing about which is better for decades :-).

Bo, if you think having a forum for the Koha community would be a
good idea, and you've got the resources to host and maintain it,
I say lets do it.

Cheers,

-- 
Joshua Ferraro                       SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS