On Mon, 2022-10-24 at 03:40 +1030, Tim via users wrote:
> People have tried that kind of thing, here. Suggesting support move to
> a web forum. We have hyperkitty to thank/curse for that. This list
> carries on, users maintaining its activity. The various website things
> come and go.
My bugbear with conglomerated email lists and web forums is that while
they aim to serve both worlds, they each have different usage patterns,
which only partially overlap. But in either case, people don't write
comprehensible replies.
In my field, online forums from ESA and NASA have been vital tools for many
years. NASA's original forum was specific to ocean optical remote sensing, but
has now been merged with a forum that supports all of NASA's earth observation
systems. I suspect one reason for the change was the need to combat SPAM and
DOS attacks. The new forum requires external users to pass a CAPTCHA test
for each post. It supports markdown, but you have to click on a preview
button to see how your post will look.
*Yes*, you do *need* to quote bits in replies on web forums. Five
people might reply to someone, we need some context of who you're
replying to, and what you're replying to. We can't just "look up one"
because the message above yours may not be the one that you're replying
to. *AND* its contents are usually not visible at the same time as
reading yours (many email gateway forums only show the contents of one
message at a time).
ESA's forum allows you to select the text fragment in a post and choose "Quote"
to generate a reply that quotes the selected text. It shows input and previe
side-by-side, so isn't suitable for small screens, but neither is the application it
supports. The NASA forum seems to have discouraged all but the most
serious users, but the ESA forum has many users whose previous experience is with
IOS or Android and who struggle with basic linux concepts, post screen captures of
text windows, don't provide context, hijack threads, etc.
In my view, the educational systems are introducing computing without any
training in effective use of online communications, problem reporting, and
troubleshooting. This creates problems and wasted energy for online forums
that no user interface can overcome.