I think that using Stack Overflow for support is a bad idea. I'd much rather see us build a clone of Stack Overflow to put on Drupal.org than keep a major support venue offsite. Thanks, Cameron On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:05, Ronald Ashri <ronald@istos.it> wrote:

I think the stackexchange for Drupal would be a good thing (validates the size and relevancy of Drupal for developers in the big world out there) but it should not be considered a replacement for d.o. forums. Drupal.org needs to be self-sustainable - this validates Drupal's ability to cater, on its own, for its community.

ronald.

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Stewart Robinson <stewsnooze@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi,

There has been some chatter on Twitter concerning the future of the forums on drupal.org.

I don't want to relight any code wars on keeping it in house or using external solutions but......

Here is a well supported stackexchange proposal to provide Drupal answers. I think this would be an ideal replacement for the Drupal.org forums.

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2978/drupal-answers

Please offer your support and commitment to the stackexchange site so we can help new users more efficiently.

Any opinions?

Stewart Robinson @stewsnooze

Recently the Vote Up/Down module http://drupal.org/project/vote_up_down was implemented on groups.drupal.org in an effort to provide some sense of each post's value to the community. Integrating Vote Up/Down with drupal.org's existing forum could be a next step. Stack Overflow's architecture translated to Drupal bespeaks a content type, comments, free-tagging taxomony, vote up/down, Views and a few other things (notifications/subscriptions, statistics, flags, etc). Some effort in has already been put toward emulating it: http://drupal.org/project/arrayshift On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Randy Fay <randy@randyfay.com> wrote:

However, providing a venue for support that actually works is something we really need to set as a high priority.

IMO we could just use issue queues, organized just like you might on Stack Overflow, with owners of them. Email notifications would work. Maintainership of a particular queue would work (subscribe to the whole queue). It fits in with our normal workflow. It moves pure support out of the issue queues at least some of the time. And we know it works because we do it all the time.

So I would envision an "Installation Support" issue queue (project), and a "Site Configuration Support" issue queue, etc. Each with a maintainer or 3.

Surely we can do something like that to get away from the hell that is the forums.

Probably the place for this discussion is over at http://groups.drupal.org/documentation-team, but I don't mind seeing it go on here for a little bit.

-Randy

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Cameron Eagans <cweagans@gmail.com>wrote:

...

I think that using Stack Overflow for support is a bad idea.

I'd much rather see us build a clone of Stack Overflow to put on Drupal.org than keep a major support venue offsite.

Thanks, Cameron

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:05, Ronald Ashri <ronald@istos.it> wrote:

...

I think the stackexchange for Drupal would be a good thing (validates the size and relevancy of Drupal for developers in the big world out there) but it should not be considered a replacement for d.o. forums. Drupal.org needs to be self-sustainable - this validates Drupal's ability to cater, on its own, for its community.

ronald.

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Stewart Robinson <stewsnooze@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi,

There has been some chatter on Twitter concerning the future of the forums on drupal.org.

I don't want to relight any code wars on keeping it in house or using external solutions but......

Here is a well supported stackexchange proposal to provide Drupal answers. I think this would be an ideal replacement for the Drupal.org forums.

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2978/drupal-answers

Please offer your support and commitment to the stackexchange site so we can help new users more efficiently.

Any opinions?

Stewart Robinson @stewsnooze

-- Randy Fay Drupal Module and Site Development randy@randyfay.com +1 970.462.7450

I feel the most important feature of a support system from a seeker's point of view is to quickly filter out the signal from the noise, when I search google for support on any topic I am really looking for 2 things: 1> To find a forum topic (blog posts are godsend) which is close to what I am looking for. 2> When I see that the post or the question has been answered, which is usually the most difficult part as when I am not sure if the post has already been answered comprehensively by community I am weary of reading the whole thing but irrespective I have to. If you look at new age support systems like stackoverflow, zendesk you can quickly make out if the query is resolved and in most cases you got to read only one response ( like in case of stackoverflow ) I would like to see the 2nd part on drupal.org a way to mark a question SOLVED/RESOLVED as I think that will make lives of thousand of support seekers easier by filtering out the noise from signal. Some more work into that system we will also be able to reduce number of duplicate questions. I created an issue about this around 2 years back but never got a response :) - http://drupal.org/node/399592 What do you think? Cheers ---------------------------------- Dipen Chaudhary Founder, QED42 : We build beautiful and scalable web strategies ( www.qed42.com ) Blog: dipenchaudhary.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/dipench On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 5:24 AM, nan wich <nan_wich@bellsouth.net> wrote:

It also appears to do badging (such as User Badges will hopefully get to). Is that in ArrayShift?

The interesting thing is that I never could navigate to a question. Is that a function of age or must one be a member before one may ask or see questions?

And thanks for letting me know about VUD so now I know which direction to move Plus 1 for merging.

*Nancy*

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

------------------------------ *From:* Carl Wiedemann

Recently the Vote Up/Down module http://drupal.org/project/vote_up_downwas implemented on groups.drupal.org in an effort to provide some sense of each post's value to the community. Integrating Vote Up/Down with drupal.org's existing forum could be a next step.

Stack Overflow's architecture translated to Drupal bespeaks a content type, comments, free-tagging taxomony, vote up/down, Views and a few other things (notifications/subscriptions, statistics, flags, etc). Some effort in has already been put toward emulating it: http://drupal.org/project/arrayshift

I had dreamed of having more time to give to the Drupal effort, which sadly has not emerged. I had schemed on strongly advocating for the establishment of a "support team" just like we have a "documentation team". In my opinion support and documentation are very different. I fully acknowledge that suggesting an idea when I don't have the time to lead or even help make it happen is lame... But in the context of this discussion, I can't help myself from at least putting it out there. The ideas in this thread are awesome. It would be nice to have a focussed support team that could make them happen. Shai On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 8:31 PM, Dipen <dipench@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, I will be very much willing to help get that system in place if there is interest from infrastructure/webmasters group. To oversimplify things using flag module and good permission system ( letting the question author and some select group of people ) to set that flag should help us realize that goal.

I really feel we should have that system on forums. The good part of that system is we can crowdsource many how to's if we have that structure and community filter in place.

---------------------------------- Dipen Chaudhary Founder, QED42 : We build beautiful and scalable web strategies ( www.qed42.com ) Blog: dipenchaudhary.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/dipench

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 6:58 AM, Dipen <dipench@gmail.com> wrote:

...

I feel the most important feature of a support system from a seeker's point of view is to quickly filter out the signal from the noise, when I search google for support on any topic I am really looking for 2 things:

1> To find a forum topic (blog posts are godsend) which is close to what I am looking for. 2> When I see that the post or the question has been answered, which is usually the most difficult part as when I am not sure if the post has already been answered comprehensively by community I am weary of reading the whole thing but irrespective I have to. If you look at new age support systems like stackoverflow, zendesk you can quickly make out if the query is resolved and in most cases you got to read only one response ( like in case of stackoverflow )

I would like to see the 2nd part on drupal.org a way to mark a question SOLVED/RESOLVED as I think that will make lives of thousand of support seekers easier by filtering out the noise from signal. Some more work into that system we will also be able to reduce number of duplicate questions.

I created an issue about this around 2 years back but never got a response :) - http://drupal.org/node/399592

What do you think?

Cheers ---------------------------------- Dipen Chaudhary Founder, QED42 : We build beautiful and scalable web strategies ( www.qed42.com ) Blog: dipenchaudhary.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/dipench

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 5:24 AM, nan wich <nan_wich@bellsouth.net> wrote:

...

It also appears to do badging (such as User Badges will hopefully get to). Is that in ArrayShift?

The interesting thing is that I never could navigate to a question. Is that a function of age or must one be a member before one may ask or see questions?

And thanks for letting me know about VUD so now I know which direction to move Plus 1 for merging.

*Nancy*

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

------------------------------ *From:* Carl Wiedemann

Recently the Vote Up/Down module http://drupal.org/project/vote_up_downwas implemented on groups.drupal.org in an effort to provide some sense of each post's value to the community. Integrating Vote Up/Down with drupal.org's existing forum could be a next step.

Stack Overflow's architecture translated to Drupal bespeaks a content type, comments, free-tagging taxomony, vote up/down, Views and a few other things (notifications/subscriptions, statistics, flags, etc). Some effort in has already been put toward emulating it: http://drupal.org/project/arrayshift

On 1/31/11 8:45 AM, Michelle Cox wrote:

It's not like it would be _that_ hard to do

Indeed, the lead developer of Stack Overflow says reproducing the site's basic functionality is trivial: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/code-its-trivial.html But he also says that functionality is irrelevant without all of the other aspects of the site, which are non-trivial. A linked article gets more into how this relates to common problems in open source communities focusing too much on the code and too little on everything else: http://blog.bitquabit.com/2009/07/01/one-which-i-call-out-hacker-news/ And that sounds a lot like what the Drupal community has been working hard to improve the last few years, so this might be a good opportunity to push that even further. -- Scott Reynen MakeDataMakeSense.com

Just my insignificant .02: As a relatively new (about a year) Drupal developer and a long time Microsoft programmer/supporter turned open source advocate I would be totally turned off by any .NET/Microsoft involvement whatsoever. * Ryan LeTulle,* Web Developer personal: bayousoft.com <http://www.bayousoft.com> twitter: @bayousoft <http://twitter.com/bayousoft> <http://twitter.com/bayousoft> <http://twitter.com/bayousoft>*"Be the change you want to see in the world." * Mahatma Gandhi On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Justin Ellison <justin@techadvise.com>wrote:

I was going to keep quiet on this one, but Scott's mail spurred me to back him up. I'm pretty sure I'm the one that started the Area51 link being passed around twitter. I think the StackExchange site is an excellent idea, but I knew that the conversation would quickly become "we could do it ourselves with modules X, Y, and Z".

Drupal is a swiss army knife. However, if I have to chop down a tree and have my swiss army knife sitting right next to my chainsaw (that was built specifically to chop down trees), which one will I pick up? Just because I *can* use my knife doesn't mean I *should*.

With my background in the sysadmin world, we're often preaching using the best tool for the job, and I think that mantra is being overlooked here.

I understand the that the idea of having a .NET site run any part of something endorsed by d.o is a bit unsettling, but you can't deny how cheap it would be. It costs little to no time, no custom module needs built, and it will cost zero in terms of infrastructure.

All the hard work is already done wrt the StackExchange setup, all it needs now are committals from the community to use it. Why not at least help push it forward just to see how it's received by the community? If nothing else, use the StackExchange site as a pilot/prototype, assess its strengths and shortcomings, then develop a homegrown solution to succeed it?

The bottom line here is that it will take very little effort to get the StackExchange site up and running, and I don't think anyone here would argue that what we have right now is better than what the StackExchange site would provide.

I should clarify that I'm not dead set on the idea either, and I'm not saying I'm right. These are just questions and ideas of mine that no one else has brought up. If you think I'm completely off base, please tell me why.

Justin

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Scott Reynen < scott@makedatamakesense.com> wrote:

...

...

And that sounds a lot like what the Drupal community has been working hard

...

to improve the last few years, so this might be a good opportunity to push that even further.

-- Scott Reynen MakeDataMakeSense.com

I knew that and I don't like that either. * Ryan LeTulle,* Web Developer personal: bayousoft.com <http://www.bayousoft.com> twitter: @bayousoft <http://twitter.com/bayousoft> <http://twitter.com/bayousoft> <http://twitter.com/bayousoft>*"Be the change you want to see in the world." * Mahatma Gandhi On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 1:26 PM, John Fiala <jcfiala@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Ryan LeTulle <bayousoft@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Just my insignificant .02: As a relatively new (about a year) Drupal developer and a long time Microsoft programmer/supporter turned open source advocate I would be totally turned off by any .NET/Microsoft involvement whatsoever.

Ryan LeTulle, Web Developer

Well, then you're probably going to be dismayed that Microsoft is a gold sponsor of DrupalCon. Don't worry so much about it - StackExchange's company does a lot of work with opensource and with supporting open projects.

-- John Fiala www.jcfiala.net

As a module maintainer, the fragmentation of support channels is of primary concern to me. To be a responsible maintainer, I think that I allready need to pay attention to: My issue queues Forums Support mailing list Appropriate groups.drupal.org groups Then success of any of these tools is only going to be based on who and how many people participate. IMHO adding channels will only degrade support, not enhance it. I'd like to see people who have problems with my own code driven towards my issue queue and not away from it. Dave Sent from my iPad On Jan 31, 2011, at 10:59 AM, Justin Ellison <justin@techadvise.com> wrote:

I was going to keep quiet on this one, but Scott's mail spurred me to back him up. I'm pretty sure I'm the one that started the Area51 link being passed around twitter. I think the StackExchange site is an excellent idea, but I knew that the conversation would quickly become "we could do it ourselves with modules X, Y, and Z".

Drupal is a swiss army knife. However, if I have to chop down a tree and have my swiss army knife sitting right next to my chainsaw (that was built specifically to chop down trees), which one will I pick up? Just because I *can* use my knife doesn't mean I *should*.

With my background in the sysadmin world, we're often preaching using the best tool for the job, and I think that mantra is being overlooked here.

I understand the that the idea of having a .NET site run any part of something endorsed by d.o is a bit unsettling, but you can't deny how cheap it would be. It costs little to no time, no custom module needs built, and it will cost zero in terms of infrastructure.

All the hard work is already done wrt the StackExchange setup, all it needs now are committals from the community to use it. Why not at least help push it forward just to see how it's received by the community? If nothing else, use the StackExchange site as a pilot/prototype, assess its strengths and shortcomings, then develop a homegrown solution to succeed it?

The bottom line here is that it will take very little effort to get the StackExchange site up and running, and I don't think anyone here would argue that what we have right now is better than what the StackExchange site would provide.

I should clarify that I'm not dead set on the idea either, and I'm not saying I'm right. These are just questions and ideas of mine that no one else has brought up. If you think I'm completely off base, please tell me why.

Justin

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Scott Reynen <scott@makedatamakesense.com> wrote: ... And that sounds a lot like what the Drupal community has been working hard to improve the last few years, so this might be a good opportunity to push that even further.

-- Scott Reynen MakeDataMakeSense.com

On 31 Jan 2011 15h45 WET, shellmultimedia@gmail.com wrote:

[1 <text/plain; ISO-8859-1 (7bit)>] On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 3:18 AM, Stewart Robinson <stewsnooze@gmail.com>wrote:

...

Hi,

There has been some chatter on Twitter concerning the future of the forums on drupal.org.

I don't want to relight any code wars on keeping it in house or using external solutions but......

Here is a well supported stackexchange proposal to provide Drupal answers. I think this would be an ideal replacement for the Drupal.org forums.

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2978/drupal-answers

Please offer your support and commitment to the stackexchange site so we can help new users more efficiently.

Any opinions?

Stewart Robinson @stewsnooze

I would much prefer to see this on drupal.org as others have mentioned. It's not like it would be _that_ hard to do with Views and a few other contrib. Just needs someone with a bit of time to make it happen.

Agreed. I confess that I don't dwell in the d.o forums, I guess the issue queue is the placeholder for somethings like StackExchange. It can be improved and made more to the image of SE. Outsourcing the support to SE is a disastrous move in marketing terms. It's implicitly admitting that we don't know howto or we're not keen on creating a venue for quality discussion on d.o. beyond the issue queue comments. We have also to consider other competing projects. WP has user forums, and it's a CMS oriented towards blogging. Drupal has had foruns since the beginning. Are we throwing the towel and saying we can't fix it? --- appa