Suggestions concerning this forum

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Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by si-ghan-bi » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:51 am

I think it's better to merge all the suggestions here, at least the admins have an easier time implementing them :) As alternative, adding a board with issues/suggestions about the forum itself would be welcome.

I add another one: some key topics created by grahamperrin should be pinned to the top, since they are always useful as reference for new users and should be immediately visible.
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Re: Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by grahamperrin » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:30 pm

si-ghan-bi wrote:??a board with issues/suggestions about the forum itself ?


+1

I imagine four sub-forums at the index page, in order:

  • Announcements
  • General discussion
  • Installation of ZEVO
  • Meta (about this forum)

Appropriate use of the Installation??sub-forum

I recall less than a handful or topics that are truly about installation (the process of using Installer.app to install what's provided by GreenBytes).

The vast majority of topics in the Installation? area are more like, general discussion of things that precede or follow a trouble-free installation. If movement will not break links, I'd like to see most such topics moved to General discussion.

(Defocusing from ZEVO: for any installable software product, it's customary for great attention to be given to any issue that prevents perfect installation; perfect installation is a prerequisite to getting?started.)

Pinning

First thoughts, in no particular order:


Second thoughts: avoid pinning too many topics. I probably overlooked some important topics, but the list above might be too many so I stopped browsing.

Gut feeling: in a normal browser window, a maximum of five pinned topics.

Considering the constraints of the http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com frame: a maximum of three.

Thanks/apologies

si-ghan-bi, thanks for the kind words ??from me to everyone, sorry for the noise! Too much me me for my liking. I hope that it never gives the impression of there being a monoculture. I'd love to more often see other people's names at the tops and tails of topics. I reckon that many users with far greater knowledge than me are using the product quietly?with no immediate need to raise things in the forum.

For what it's worth, I sense that we're nearing the end of a period of curation of the support forum, and a more natural variety of names is emerging at the sub-forum levels? :)
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Re: Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by grahamperrin » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:26 pm

Also I suggest pinning one of the ashift-related topics.

phpBB finds none at the moment, and Google results might be not comprehensive, so which one to pin could be anyone's guess.
Last edited by grahamperrin on Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by alexwasserman » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:10 pm

A lot of the pinned topics should also be shifted into the wiki.

We have some great content in the forums, but for standard documentation the wiki is a better location for defined information.

For example, the forum has much better examples on good settings for pool creation, which are completed ignored on the wiki.
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Re: Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by grahamperrin » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:41 pm

ZFS is well respected for the quality of its manual pages.

At a glance, everything currently defined in the wiki could be alternatively defined in one or more of the following:

  • man pages
  • a forum (as topics that are locked and/or pinned)
  • a guide (HTML or Portable Document Format).

I don't foresee a collaborative wiki approach to the GreenBytes wiki for ZEVO, so I vote to transfer its content elsewhere then close it.

The fewer places to seek information, the better. Not forgetting, there are many places to seek information beyond the GreenBytes domain.
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Re: Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by grahamperrin » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:05 pm

Suggestion: don't bother showing birthdays. Most of 'em are ****in' spambots :roll:
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guide or pin

Post by grahamperrin » Fri Nov 09, 2012 1:11 am

Another suggestion for pinning:


I foresee too many pins, which underlines the value of a richer quick start guide.
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Re: Suggestions concerning this forum

Post by grahamperrin » Fri Nov 09, 2012 7:42 am

If https://www.phpbb.com/support/documenta ... groups.php is current then maybe Google?[Bot] (a registered user without a profile) should be added to the Bots group.
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the OpenOffice.org support forum example, and flashbacks

Post by grahamperrin » Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:16 am

At viewtopic.php?p=1362#p1362

si-ghan-bi wrote:??I see phpbb used on other technical forums and it's fine??


+1

For example: development of OpenOffice.org is both technical and dizzying in its complexity, and I guess that their use of phpBB is happy enough.

Way off-topic, flashbacks ??I probably withdrew quietly from OpenOffice.org UX some time during the Renaissance (pros, cons etc.). Despite the best efforts of teams, it was too difficult for me to keep abreast of things. From a Mac perspective, it was sometimes hard to impress on people the importance of human interface guidelines. Take for example this ??AFAIR in discussion of at least one proposal there was an intention to completely abandon the menu bar of Mac?OS?X! (The then mentality: UI of OpenOffice.org is more important than Apple guidelines ??quite shocking. On the other hand, fixes under the umbrella of https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=99080 demonstrate a healthy respect for Mac?users.)

Curiously: amongst the mass that I recall from that period, zero recollection of a forum, though it must have coincided. Maybe I found phpBB too horrible at the time ;)
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subject lines should be shown

Post by grahamperrin » Sun Nov 11, 2012 4:31 am

Suggestion: subject lines should be shown

Subject lines within a topic are hidden when the topic is viewed.

The hiding makes it sometimes difficult to separate/understand multiple issues in a topic.

Copied from phpBB ? View topic - Messages have no subject line when posted!:

Image
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