[OSM-dev] Mailing list -> forum? NO!

[Richard Fairhurst]

Quoting Robert Scott <lists at riscott.ukfsn.org>:

> Discussion gets split up. You miss out on discussions unless you can be
> bothered to read every subforum every day.

That's a UI thing, though - basically, don't create so many subforums.  
A project of OSM's magnitude would need four, tops. (We really have  
just the one forum on our village website, www.charlbury.info, and  
that fairly thrives... the village down the road has seven subforums  
and gets virtually no postings to any of them.)

I wonder if the best solution would be to have _both_ forums and  
mailing lists. Mailing lists for hardcore OSM junkies - high-velocity,  
chat-like, brainstorming ping-pong. Not publicised widely, just for  
those of us who are really dedicated to the project.

Then a web forum for beginner-friendly stuff. It wouldn't be a "must  
read" for most of us, but would take some of the heat off the mailing  
lists - particularly talk - and would provide a good way of answering  
frequently asked questions. After all, most novices find something  
shiny like phpbb more approachable than mailman archives.

Maybe trac, wiki, forums and mailing lists would be a board too far...  
and single login is obviously a must. I don't suppose there are any  
forums that plug into MediaWiki? (Same UI, same look-and-feel, same  
syntax and editing controls...)

Richard