[GNUz] Re: New forum

[Rik Tindall]

Hey there Matt, SFD Teams, & GNUz,

Thanks for this reply. It's a good lead.

Matt Oquist wrote:
> This is a reply to an email from Rik Tindall, who is one of three
> volunteers who has recently been involved in dealing with the SPAM in
> our forums by installing fresh forums and starting over (maybe not the
> ideal solution, but definitely the most effective). I originally wrote
> this just to Rik, Russell, and Robert, but I've realized that this may
> be beneficial for everyone.

The new forum is developing well, thanks SFI + Russell & Robert. 
Spammers beware.
There's a post there asking why the Wiki can't be used though.
- Can we help with that?

> -------------------------
>> We have lost SFD's greatest asset, I reckon - its forum history - every 
>> year so far. Is this because we keep re-skinning phpbb? What better 
>> software/options can people please suggest?
> 
> Same reason(s) we re-do www.sfd every year. It's only done in people's
> volunteer time, so instead of very careful migration we just throw
> together a new site and charge full-steam ahead. This is usually
> correlated with an improvement in the hosting that is available to us,
> so a new server is usually involved as well.  Also, nobody (i.e.,
> Henrik, Phil, or myself) has really bought into a particular tool for
> more than a year. :)
> 
> 2004: Geeklog
> 2005: Mambo
> 2006: Moin
> 
> At least the names keep getting shorter.
> 
>> Same for www.sfd - it changes radically every year to what purpose? Can 
>> we get a default framework together so that just a few jpegs with 
>> logo-dates are all that needs updating each new year? A picture of 
>> stability, continuity, and all-year service is supremely important to 
>> the saleability of FOSS.
> 
> Sounds great. Let's stick with Moin, then. :)
> 
> But seriously, I don't think that the website changes are *that* big
> a deal, because SFD is still such a once-a-year thing that most people
> aren't going to remember last year's site, anyway.

On second thoughts, the SFD site is looking pretty smart & tidy (like it 
always has), so that's good. A comment in from our team is 'where is the 
map?' That's the Debian-world derivative one we had available last year 
- very popular for seeing how well-covered the globe is with SFD teams.

It may help our international colleague base to get an insight into the 
New Zealand character from this thread (even tho we know that 4 million 
people ain't especially important in the grand scheme of things ;) What 
characterises us most is geographic (and often cultural) isolation. So 
the interest we are showing in SFD-year-round (and forum participation) 
is because we especially value everything that can break down our sense 
of geographic isolation. Technology is wonderful at this, and so we're 
eager to advance the best communicative uses for it.

The international collaboration of SFD is so especially good for us to 
gain contact with the (distant) world, that we'd like to see more done 
with it 12 months a year. We'll do what we can with website maintenance 
etc to make this so. SFD does major interfacing with many less developed 
countries around the world too - an extraordinarily valuable 
inter-cultural contribution it would be fantastic to see us maintain.

> The loss of the forums is more important; hopefully the new forums,
> with more SPAM-prevention measures in place and more attentive
> moderation, will be around for years to come.
> 
> I see the SFD community as our biggest asset; the list of team leaders
> from the previous year is an extremely valuable collection of contact
> info for people who care; they are people who might recruit other team
> leaders even if they don't have the time to lead their own team this
> year.
> 
> SFD would really be nothing at all without the worldwide community of
> team leaders.
> 
> So in conclusion, cheers, and I'll see you in the spiffy new forums.
> :)
> 
> --matt

Thanks for that Matt.

Here in Christchurch we've suffered a temporary setback, of surprise. 
Who'd have thought a business would use M$ software to try to accelerate 
SFD content in a commercial direction, to increase their M$-based trade? 
It's been a difficult initiative to know how to manage, and quite 
demoralising and unexpected. A new one for SFD teams - but we'll get there!

We should have our SFD event details settled very soon.

> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> SoftwareFreedomDay.org :
>    Celebrating Free and Open Source Software in Your Community
> info AT softwarefreedomday.org
> http://softwarefreedomday.org/
> 
> SFD Sponsors:
> http://canonical.com
> http://www.dkuug.dk
> http://ibm.com

Kind regards,
-- 
Rik Tindall, InfoHelp Services <http://www.infohelp.co.nz> on virus-free
Ubuntu GNU/Linux 6.06 freeOS, 2.6.15-26-686 kernel, GNOME 2.14.2 desktop
OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 suite, Mozilla - Firefox 1.5.0.4 web browser and
Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 email, gEdit 2.14.3 web editor, gFTP 2.0.18 fileXfer