[OSM-talk] forum.openstreetmap.org

[spaetz]

On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 12:28:11AM +0200, Frederik Ramm wrote:

>    if I may add my 2 cents -

Sure, here is you change... In Swiss Rappen, if you don't mind :)
 
> 1. I strongly dislike forums because most people in there behave like
> kids; in addition, about 80% of screen real-estate is used by avatars,
> signature images, and lavish quoting, and only 20% by content.

Well, if that's what people prefer then they will be happy to have a place to do exactly that, rather than on the dev- mailing list. So it should make you happy to get them such a place :-).
 
> 2. Having said that, I do see the point that this arrogance doesn't
> get us far, and even the guy with the stupid avatar and "funny"
> signature can become a valuable mapper for OSM. He might even grow up.

Agreed. And not all mappers are able or willing to sign up for mailing lists or install IRC clients and such scary stuff.

 
> 3. There's only one thing that is worse than splitting discussion
> between a forum and a mailing list, and that is trying to somehow copy
> postings between them. It never works, and always breaks both; not
> least because the behavioural norms in both mediums are different.

Agreed, that is why I stopped these experiments, it never worked out reliable. That having said, the forum I experimented with, provides an RSS feed which people can sign up for. That can come in handy, so people can even sign up in Thunderbird for the forum messages.
 
> 4. Lambertus has this working forum, with a considerable user base (at
> least compared to our newbie list!) and it seems that he also does a
> good job as the forum administrator, showing presence, feeling
> responsible, and attending to user's problems. I think it would be
> risky to set up something entirely different and assume it just works
> as before (at least, without consulting him). 

Yep, and I commend him for that. I would never want to steal him the show, so to speak. I wouldn't want to and I wouldn't be a good forum admin/moderator. All I did is experimenting with possibilities to use the API authentication mechanism for such a forum. I don't expect people to stop using this or that and convert to my experimental installation. As I said, I am willing to work with anybody to make API authentication work.

> 5. Single sign-on would be great but I think we need a proper concept
> for that; what you (Spaetz) have set up is nice but, as you say, still
> doesn't integrate account creation (and won't work for the Wiki), so
> I'd suggest to postpone that until we get it working properly.

That would be... never? We won't get it working properly if we don't work towards that goal. Single sign solutions won't appear over night, especially if there is no apparent demand for them. I'd say there is a significant advantage of being sure that the "woodpeck" in the forum is the same guy who was mapping all those road in southern germany. Account creation in the forum works automatically. Completely new accounts have to be created via the www.openstreetmap.org website, sure. But still, I disagree with your assessment that single sign on wouldn't outweigh the disadvantage of bothering with the renaming of existing account names...

> My suggestion would be to ask Lambertus to make it clear in his forum
> that it is inteded for Newbies and Mapping Q&A, with advanced
> discussion (anything that leaves the "how is ... usually done" secor
> and ventures into "I would like to/we should change this") relegated
> to the mailing lists. I would then have forum.osm.org point to his
> site, effectively making his the "official" forum, and get and
> understanding with him that as soon as we have suitable server
> capacity, the forum should perhaps move onto OSM hardware (with him
> still being the maintainer), and participate in a single-sign-on
> should we ever have something good.

If that is what works best for everybody I fully agree with you, I never had a different opinion. However, I did want to experiment with single sign on solutions and have people test both ways to get some feedback. I don't actually care which forum software on which server is going to be used.
I'm all for using Lambertus installation, I just wanted to show my proof-of-concept experiment, that single sign on *is possible* and I wanted to *highlight* which deficiencies the API currently has.

spaetz
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