[theforum] Support Forum

David Kaufman david at gigawatt.com
Wed Feb 21 11:00:52 CST 2007


Hi Dean,

Dean Mah <dean.mah at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have some articles on the site that are quite active in terms of the
> number of comments.  In particular, the PHP login system article
> receives a lot of support-type comments which seldom go answered, or
> even looked at.  I believe that this is because the comment system is a
> very poor communication method for questions and answers.  Plus, it
> doesn't help that the comment system is unthreaded, is slow to pull up,
> and the "Newest comments" links are not properly linked to take you to
> the relevant comment.

Thanks for taking the initiative on this, Dean.  I tried to help with a PHP Login question a while back and you're right: just trying to read the relevant comments is painful -- actual participation in this "project" in all but impossible without some theading, an archive something.  

Are there other articles that seem to have become "projects", in that they have so many comments over so long a period that they seem to need a forum?  A code repository?  a bugtracker?

> I propose adding a link/button/etc. to the end of each article, or
> particular articles, that would take the user to a proper support forum.
> For instance, we could use SourceForge to host code articles which
> would provide download statistics, forums, mailing lists, etc.
> Alternatively, we could install something like phpBB, Invision, or
> similar as a forum on evolt.org.  I don't know if Drupal has a forum
> module but unless we can get better performance out of the system, I'd
> vote for not hosting it within Drupal.
> 
> Thoughts?  Anyone care?  If no one cares, I'm likely to just do it.

Sourceforge would work, but why not just setup a mailing list?  We seem to do those quite well :-) and a list would meet the immediate needs for threading, linking and searchability, and keeps the traffic on the site.  

If a PHP Login user-community suddenly springs into existence (complete with a maintainer!) and needs an SVN repository a bugtracker and Wiki... then maybe Sourceforge would be warranted.

Just my 2/100ths of a buck.  Thanks again, Dean!

-adve



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