Re: new forum, what happened? make a plan?

Hi Brynn,

On the subject of development: It's not still in development, slowed or
stopped. It's waiting for management. Think of me as a resource to be
used to help get this project off the ground, not as a manager who is
driving it.

On membership: I wouldn't focus too much on the old forum, focus on
building a new forum with new members. We haven't done any marketing
for the new forum, haven't invited people from our other outreach
areas.

I don't know who told you we should keep the forum closed until the old
forum is dead. But that's a terrible strategy. The new forum is a solid
base, but what it needs is a fresh population, not resentful users from
previous forums.

But this is just my thoughts on membership. It's really up to the
management.

Best Regards, Martin Owens

On Sat, 2019-01-26 at 00:02 -0700, brynn wrote:
> Oh yes, I realize the new forum is still being worked on.  I didn't
> mean to 
> imply it wasn't.  I just had the impression it had slowed down, and
> there was no 
> longer a priority to get it open.
> 
> I was told the plan was to let the old forum keep running as long as
> it will, 
> which to me, is the same limbo we've been in, for so long now.  (And
> in my 
> opinion, not a good idea, for what I thought would be obvious
> reasons.)
> 
> I'm definitely commited, but since I don't have the development
> skills, I don't 
> understand what work still needs to be done.  So I think it would be
> helpful to 
> make a plan -- at least to have an outline of the next steps, so that
> everyone 
> is on the same page.
> 
> If the folks working on the development could say what still needs to
> be done, I 
> could write up tasks in a gitlab Issue (I'm not sure if there already
> is an 
> issue or not, but I'll look).
> 
> And there's another potential problem that needs to be addressed as
> well 
> (probably a few actually).  It seems most of the membership of
> InkscapeForum is 
> not interested in the new forum.  When I posted the message inviting
> them to 
> test it, there was little to no response.  I didn't specifically
> address the 
> fact that the old forum would be closed, and they didn't seem to pick
> up on the 
> many hints.  It sounds like they are expecting the old forum to stay
> open.  We 
> haven't broached that subject of closing it yet, publicly (except for
> this 
> message - I'm not sure if any forum members subscribe to this list).
> 
> Plus, they somehow think I instigated the new forum, which renewed
> the same wild 
> assumptions they made when I opened Inkscape Community (that I wanted
> to take 
> over, or divide the forum, or steal members, or whatever nonsense
> they 
> imagined).
> 
> So when the time comes to open the new forum and close the old one,
> that word 
> will need to come probably from the board.  In any case, I should
> probably no 
> longer be "the messenger" regarding the new forum.
> 
> If you need forum management, maybe we need to work up the forum
> rules or 
> guidelines (or whatever we call them)?  And then we could go about
> setting up 
> admins and moderators.  Is that the kind of management you mean?
> 
> I'm not sure how we could use the forum any further, at this
> point.  It seems to 
> have been tested in every way I can think of, except for heavy
> traffic.  I don't 
> think it should be opened until we're ready to close the old one, for
> several 
> reasons.
> 
> But if you could share your list of paper cuts which still need
> fixing, I could 
> help in prioritizing them.  (Maren might help too??)
> 
> If we could find a way for the board to explain that the old forum is
> going to 
> be closed, the members might be more willing to test the new
> forum?  Maybe 
> they'd be more willing to be on the new staff too??  Here's the forum
> thread 
> where I invited members to test the new forum: 
> http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=34311  So you can
> see how 
> they're resistant.  I'm not sure how the best way to word it would
> be, but we 
> could discuss it in real time, at some point, probably better than in
> email.
> 
> All best,
> brynn
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: [email protected]
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 6:15 PM
> To: Inkscape User Community
> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] new forum, what happened? make a plan?
> 
> Hi Brynn,
> 
> Sorry if it seems like the website forum is in limbo, it's not. It's
> very functional I think on the core and has a great number of the
> functionalities asked for.
> 
> The questions now are so fold:
> 
> 1. Do we have someone like yourself who is willing and able to doing
> the management work to make the new forum work? We need people who
> are
> committed being in the key seats to really get things moving.
> 
> 2. The inkscape-web team is at your disposal. (or at the disposal of
> the management of the forum). It will from time to time appear like I
> get distracted easily like a dog chasing squirrels. And that
> appearance
> is entirely true. Greater use of the forum, and direction by someone
> in
> charge would greatly help keeping things focused and prioritising
> which
> of the many small paper-cuts is the most important.
> 
> Best Regards, Martin Owens
> 
> On Fri, 2019-01-25 at 23:41 +0000, C R wrote:
> > Correct if wrong, but I got the impression that it's still being
> > worked on.
> > I'm liaising with Doctormo, and Jabier to try and integrate the
> > visual stylings of the new forum with our current website.
> > If it's true that we're going back into a state of limbo do tell me
> > so I don't do extra work for nothing! :)
> 
> 
> 
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