[OSM-talk] forum.openstreetmap.org

[Lambertus]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>    if I may add my 2 cents -
First, thanks for your elaborate feedback.
> 
> 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.
> 
If administered correctly (i.e. the correct forum settings) you may find 
the real-estate problem non existing. Did you had a look at the forum? 
It looks nice and tidy to me.

> 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.
> 
Mailing lists also suffer from personalization of messages (i.e. large 
signatures). It is human nature to try to be different than others, I 
see no problem with that as long as it is kept to a reasonable level. 
That's why the signatures on my forum are max. 2 lines, no images. I see 
no harm in using a little avatar.

> 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.
> 
I'm still fiddling with a ML-forum bridge (though lack of time isn't 
helping much) and it proves to be quite difficult to do it right. But 
this doesn't mean the forum shouldn't been given a chance. As someone 
else (Richard) said there is definitely a market for a forum, especially 
  for newbies.

> 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). 
> 
Thank you, that's very kind.

> 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. So the
> advantage of your single sign-on does not outweigh the disadvantage of
> having to ask the forum participants (and Lambertus) to move to a new
> server, re-create their accounts, and use a different software.
> 
One way reusage of username/passwors is already much better then having 
no way of reusing. A message on the forum stating that accounts can be 
created on the frontpage should be enough (at least for now).

As to moving forum content: this is usually not a big deal as there are 
many conversion utilities available. The username/password stuff is a 
bit more difficult, especially when a different username/password has 
been chosen between osm and forum websites.

> 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 have no problems losing the 'Development' and 'Meetings and events' 
topics.

However I do think that a calendar function (in the forum/wiki or 
somewhere else) in combination with a forum is a better way of 
organising events then the current wiki solution.

If we are able to integrate the forum with the wiki, the 'discussion' 
page could be a forum topic page instead. I think that would be good for 
the readability and ease of the discussions at hand.

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.
> 
As I said before, I have no problem with handing over the forum and it's 
database to OSM. But lots of discussions are about spreading the data 
and server load away from the central servers. The forum, though a light 
application, is easy to move away without much trouble and users won't 
notice it.

> (A proper single-sign-on would even make it unnecessary to have all
> services locally.)
> 
Agreed.