From: XavierGr <xaviergr_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 16:13:15 +0300

Paul, I completely agree on the new forum scheme you suggested. Combining
forum activity with flyspray bug/patch reports would be a great gain. This
though needs a little more attention from all of us, but I am sure that in
the end we will adapt to it.

Right now (with many subcategories, hardware specific) some will not bother
to look on specific forums. So I guess the proposed shceme will be better.

On 02/06/06, Paul Louden <paulthenerd_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My reasons for those sections are fairly simple.
> I quite literally read every post that happens in the forums every day. In
> fact, I've read I believe every post on our forums since sometime in
> January. During that time I've seen many, many people report bugs that are
> already on flyspray because they don't know about flyspray, or even report
> bugs already discussed in a different forum (if it's a general bug, and
> they're on an iPod, and they report it in the iPod forum even though it's
> much discussed elsewhere.)
>
> I feel the benefit of this actually ties in with an idea I have for bug
> reporting: I don't know if flyspray will allow this (though I can't imagine
> that it'd be that difficult to add). A forum link association with each
> Flyspray entry. If not added to flyspray itself, then simply request that
> when someone reports a bug there that has already been discussed somewhat in
> the forums, they post a link to the thread.
>
> The forum has a much larger community than the relatively small subset
> that properly posts and expands upon bugs in flyspray. If someone reports a
> bug in the bug forum, once it's been discussed and confirmed (or if it can't
> be confirmed but cannot be disproved, or if there's any uncertainty) then we
> ask them to post it to flyspray, and change the topic of the post to the bug
> report #. That way any developer can theoretically quickly go from reading a
> report on flyspray to seeing what the community knows about it (assuming
> they've properly put a link in their bug description) or see which bugs
> discussed on the forums have not yet been reported to flyspray.
>
> Of course this would require a bit more attentiveness on the part of
> myself, and probably require some permissions to be adapted slightly so that
> the developers group can change thread Topics in the Bugs forum in a similar
> way to how they can edit bug reports when necessary on flyspray, but I think
> in the end it will greatly improve the communication between developers and
> the community.
>
> Many people read the forums seeking help with a problem they're having.
> Discussing bugs there will help people find temporary workarounds as well as
> bringing together more easily several people that have the bug. And when
> someone seeking a quick-fix sees a developer saying "We haven't identified
> the cause yet, and could use more information regarding exactly what
> circumstances this happens with" maybe more people will comment. Flyspray
> just doesn't have the "discussion" connotation that the forums do, but I do
> very VERY strongly feel that it's important that all bugs actually show up
> there.
>
> As for the feature requests section, again the idea is discussion. Someon
> on Flyspray says "Hey, it'd be neat if Rockbox does X." Developers look at
> the feature requests for flyspray and generally say "It can't be done" or
> "I'm too busy with important things." New people or bored people do
> occasionally look at the flyspray feature requests, especially when referred
> there after asking "What can I do to add to Rockbox?" On the other hand, if
> there's a discussion forum around the topic, someone can say "It'd be nead
> if Rockbox does X" and someone else can say "Yeah, I think that'd be really
> cool. In fact, if I recall there's an open source program that does Y, which
> is close enough to X to adapt." And then person three says "Hey, that's a
> good idea. I've got some C experience. I've never really thought about
> contributing before, but this should be pretty easy since I know about Y and
> the program that does it." Etc.
>
> Again, feel free to disagree with any of my points. I do want any and all
> criticisms of my forum suggestion. I'll defend them primarily for the sake
> of making sure my reasons for suggesting them are clear, but I'm not so
> firmly attached that I won't toss them out in the view of something better,
> or a good reason why my ideas are bad. :)
>
>
> On 6/2/06, Will Robertson <aliask_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Paul.
> > I think the forums probably could do with a clean up, and most of the
> > stuff you have suggested rings true, but I think the fact that you've
> > designated sections to bug reporting and feature requests are not needed.
> > I feel that it makes the bugs/feature requests far harder to track, as
> > you'd have two places to keep track of everything - I'd bet that people
> > would either put the bug only in Flyspray or only in the forums, rarely
> > both.
> > Perhaps if we kept the categories for bugs and feature requests, but
> > only have a locked thread linking users to Flyspray should be created to
> > help point users wishing to report a bug in the right direction.
> >
> > Just my thoughts, feel free to reject them as harshly as you please :)
> >
> > Will.
> >
>
>
Received on 2006-06-02