re: forums and community commons

Yes, we definely need some consensus before we go much further with the 
Community Commons page. I've personally taken it as far as my 
permissions and skills permit. But I would like to have the *prototype* 
linked to from the main page as soon as feasible, in order to get 
feedback from the average contributor, who doesn't necessarily read this 
mailing list.

About the "real" forum idea - that was just a brainstorm of mine, 
thinking aloud. I think we can get by fine for now with the thread-mode 
wiki. If the thread-mode gets a lot of traffic and becomes hard to 
manage, we can come back to the forum idea later.

As for the "linux questions" subject... I work as a janitor in a factory 
during the evenings. The cleaning crew mops the front entry hall, and we 
post signs to keep the workers off the wet floor. They walk over it 
anyway. I'm convinced that the only way to keep them off the floor would 
be to post armed guards, and even then you'd have to shoot a few to give 
the rest the idea.  The only reason I still put up signs is so that 
when/if they fall and kill themselves, they don't sue.

People are going to ask linux questions in this forum, and there is 
nothing we can do to stop it. We could go the route of: "Hey noob! Ask 
those questions over *there*!" But I think it would be a friendlier 
environment, and probably get just as many new LQ recruits, if we gently 
reminded them that they might get better results over at the LQ forums, 
then did our best to answer their questions anyway. I would like to get 
a consensus on this matter, but we could also just agree to disagree on 
the issue.